Seventeen years ago Angela made the difficult decision to abort an unwanted child. Seventeen years later the child's father, Christopher Moore, cannot quite forget his sense of grief and loss. Living alone on a housing estate with only his books and bull terrier for company, Christopher has turned his back on the world. While walking his dog one morning, Christopher makes a shocking discovery in a ditch, a discovery that resurrects fantasies of the lost child, Catherine. He seeks out Angela, now married but still childless, to know the truth about the day she dashed his hopes of becoming a father. From the author of The Queen and I and the Adrian Mole series.