Laying the Ghosts

Alex Dowding is a teacher in his fifties, drifting through his last few years before retirement. His life is too comfortable for him to want to confront awkward questions, such as why his son is a virtual stranger or why his wife had been so unhappy before her untimely death. Still less does he want to recognise, let alone analyse, those aspects of his character which already make him subconsciously uneasy.Emma Tomlinson is one of Alex’s pupils and lives alone with her mother. Bright, pleasant, somewhat reserved, she had done little to attract his attention. However, when her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Emma’s life is thrown off balance to such an extent that the mild crush she has long had on her teacher becomes an obsession. Feeling that she has nothing to lose, she contrives a meeting with Alex in his own home which sets off a series of events, destroying Alex’s superficial complacency and forcing him to seriously reassess his life.This book sets out to gently trace the unravelling of two very different lives and to show how a naive but profound love can had a positive effect, even in the most perverse of circumstances.