He supposed to some it must appear that he had the world at his feet. He had money in the bank, and he was carefree and single and able to come and go whenever he pleased, so why, he wondered, was his new lifestyle giving him no joy? At the most unlikely times he would find himself thinking of Treetops and the life he had led there, and he would become maudlin. He missed his comfortable bedroom, the horses, and although he denied it to himself, even the people. And then there was the guilt. For most of the time he could convince himself that Sunday had deserved all she had got – she had never loved him as she did Kathy and Livvy. But then a little voice would whisper, ‘But she did! You know she did.’ And the only way he could quieten the voice was to drown himself in drink. Not forgetting Kathy! Kathy, the thought of her made him bow his head. She had told him she loved him, and he had taken full advantage of the fact just to get back at Sunday. He had always known how horrified Sunday would be if ever she found out about their relationship, which she undoubtedly would have done by now. There was nothing he could have done that would hurt her more. Kathy had been just a young innocent girl with a crush on a much older man. He was old enough to be her father and they had been brought up in the same family. He had grown up with Kathy’s mother, for God’s sake! Sunday would look upon their affair as almost incestuous and he supposed he couldn’t blame her.

His thoughts raced back across his life and he realised suddenly with a little shock that the only time he had been truly happy was when he was married to Maggie, the love of his life. His thoughts turned to his birth mother, who had abandoned him on the steps of the workhouse when he was a newborn. He’d never even met her. Did she not love him, then? Is that why she abandoned him? Then Sunday and Tom had adopted him and he could still see the look of shock on his father’s face as he showed him the letter his mother had sent him. But his father had seemed happy to know he had a natural child. It was Sunday who had found it difficult to come to terms with it. His bitterness had begun then, even though his father and Sunday tried to make things up to him.