“I am not always protecting her. I know she hasn’t got it because I’ve got it. You’ll find it in the CD machine in my office.”

Nina’s face sneered disapproval. “That’s so sad,” she said, getting up from the step and stomping off to her bedroom.

“Wake up Mill—” The door slammed shut before Dan could finish. Letting out a long sigh, he returned to the kitchen and pulled out a chair from the table. He sat down, resting his elbows on the table, and began to work his fingers at the throb of anxiety in his head. Biggles, noticing that this might be an opportune moment for reconciliation, crept from his basket and gently laid his muzzle on his master’s knee. Dan looked down at the dog and smiled. “Well, thank you, Biggles. At least someone in the world gives me a vague inkling that I’m still loved and appreciated.”

2

Back then, he had always thought that it could have read rather like one of those smart announcements in the social columns of the Times; or even printed on a stiff-carded invitation with raised letters, the kind that one might find tucked into the cracked edge of a gilded overmantel mirror in the drawing room of some well-connected household.

Dan Porter and Jackie Entwhistle are pleased to announce their plan for life, formulated whilst consuming two quarter-pounder cheeseburgers and French fries in the Central Park Diner, High Street, Kensington on 3 April 1984. Following their wedding at Chelsea Registry Office on 18 April (which is to be paid for by Jackie’s parents who say that it is the last thing that they will ever do, financially speaking, for their daughter) and the arrival of their firstborn on (circa) 8 September of the same year (that being the reason for the breakdown of relationships with Jackie’s parents), Dan and Jackie will be moving (when they can afford it) to a large house in (London suburb, south of the river—somewhere) where they will add two more children to their family, plus two dogs—eventually. Thereafter (when Dan has reached retirement age, having made his fortune in the City, which he is bound to do), they will be moving to a small cottage in the country (South Devon coast preferably) where Dan will sit with a smug smile on his face, knowing that he has not only done his bit to perpetuate the human race, but has achieved it with distinction.

At that time, it all seemed a bit pie-in-the-sky, really. Just the dreams of a young couple, both only two years out of their teens, who were fortified with too much Chardonnay and fizzing with excitement at the prospect of loving, honouring, and cherishing each other until death do us part. Yet for Dan, it could so easily have read something like: