Unbeknown to Olive, he had looked in on Alice before he had gone downstairs to the kitchen. He often did this when he could be sure Olive was occupied downstairs, because he would rather have been hanged, drawn and quartered than admit to his growing affection for his daughter. He hadn’t wanted to become fond of the child and he had fought the emotion since the day she was born. It had been easier when she was a baby. He had been able to say to himself that the infant was merely a biological product of an act of lust on his part and cunning manipulation on Olive’s, and that, along with her mother, she repulsed him. Through her conception he had lost the woman he loved and become trapped in a living nightmare – why wouldn’t he hate and resent her? He wanted to hate and resent her. And then one day just over twelve months ago Alice had been toddling about in the backyard when he’d come home from his shift and had fallen over in front of him, grazing her knees. And it was what the child had done next that had got to him. Through her tears she had lifted her arms to be picked up and said, ‘Dada.’

The word had cut through all his carefully built defences like a knife through butter. He had stood there like a moron staring down at her, and but for Olive rushing out into the yard and whisking Alice up into her arms he would have betrayed himself then and there by picking her up and comforting her. Olive had glared at him and even accused him of pushing the child if he remembered correctly, and in the row that had followed the moment of weakness had passed. But it was from then that something had changed, as much with Alice as himself. He had still maintained the stiff, unapproachable facade and it fooled everyone but the child herself. It was as though his daughter had seen what he’d felt – that was the only way he could describe her sudden lack of fear regarding him – and it had melted his heart. He hadn’t wanted it to happen but now it had he was powerless before the emotions it invoked. She was his daughter. This perfect little creature with her huge eyes and sweet nature was part of him, and although the new awareness was hard because it constantly tore him apart inside when he told himself Ruby should have been her mother, he couldn’t fight the love. He had imagined the drink would help and when he got legless it did put a balm on the rawness for a few brief hours, but once he was sober again the knowledge of what a hell of a mess he’d made of his life would grip him even more strongly.