Misery is a routine you can learn to live with. It’s like rain. Once you’re soaked to the skin, you can’t get any wetter.

Riley was the exception to the feast of cholesterol. For him it was dry toast, black coffee and lashings of self pity.

Was it too much to expect a future?

Long gone was the cheery welcome of the seaside hotelier, replaced by a weary nostalgia for the good old days.

Anthony imagined a time before all that - a time when people sipped Earl Grey tea on a breeze cooled veranda and looked out upon endless countryside.

Misery is a routine you can learn to live with. It's like rain. Once you're soaked to the skin, you can't get any wetter.