In my heart, she would always be the woman from my childhood. The smiling mum on the beach in her yellow sundress with her hair in a ponytail and a book in her hand, but in my head, I knew she hadn’t been that woman for years. As the business had grown, she, like Dad, had turned into a completely different person. A person it was too late for me to get to know now.

‘You’d better come early,’ said Dad, ‘there’s a hell of a lot to do.’

*

I didn’t stop to pick up a paper the next morning and I didn’t turn my phone back on again either. If there was more bad news to come about my failing footballer, then I wanted to delay hearing about it for as long as possible.

I pulled off the road, onto the gravelled drive and buzzed the intercom. The iron gates swung slowly inwards and I drove through. The impressive house, set among towering oaks, hadn’t been our original family home. Up until my late teens, we lived in a three-bed detached, but my parents then felt this prestigious corner of Essex was more befitting the stylish new Tyler image when the business began to thrive.

It was beautiful, but far too big. Dad had no need for the five en suite bedrooms but Joan (the housekeeper) and her husband, Jim (the gardener and handyman) were happily ensconced in the staff flat and I knew Dad would never leave. As far as he was concerned, the house was the icing that crowned his success, even if he could only occupy a fraction of it at a time.

‘Tess,’ he said, striding out to meet me as I cut the engine, ‘here you are at last.’

It was barely eight, hardly the latest of starts for a weekend which followed an extremely stressful week.

‘Any more news?’ I stole myself to ask.

‘Nothing in the papers this morning,’ he said.

‘Thank god,’ I exhaled, my shoulders dropping a good three inches.

‘Breakfast!’ Joan called from the kitchen.

‘Have you eaten?’ Dad asked, guiding me towards the house.

‘Not since yesterday morning.’

He nodded but didn’t say anything. He had never understood how stressful work situations curbed my appetite, because they fuelled his. The smell of bacon wafting through the house made my very empty stomach grumble and the knot of pain tightened in response. It was a vicious circle – my anxiety stopped me eating and the resulting cramps made it too painful to eat.

‘To be honest, Dad,’ I blurted out, before I had a chance to check myself, ‘it might be longer than that. I’m really not sure I can carry on working like this.’