SYNOPSIS:

Prequel to Cannes Contest Runner up 2011 BAFTA/Rocliffe New Writers Forum nominee 2011 Hal Bartlett’s marriage was a failure but he was too proud to admit it; too proud to walk away from a lifestyle that he had become used to when he was formally bound in holy wedlock to the ice-cool Julienne and her high-end family. Most of all though, Hal was too proud to admit that he had never got over his first love and too scared to find out why she had dumped him without a by-your-leave when he left for university. There was a corner of Hal’s brain that thought about her every day and a corner of his heart that would be eternally hers. Then it happened – the school reunion invitation that had mysteriously gone to the wrong address arrived and the catalyst for Hal’s return home after twenty years of hiding and being in denial about what Abigail had found so wrong with him as to do a runner and marry someone else, all within six months of his leaving. Almost twenty years of building up to the moment. Twenty years of the slow degradation of his union with Julienne. Finally, the fractured life cracked down the middle and Hal made his bid for freedom and his return to the bosom of his family. Well, that was the plan. Sadly for Hal, whilst in his mind his friends from his youth had remained eternally young, they had, in fact, like him, grown up, got jobs, got wives and got past it. Setting the past in aspic is always dangerous. The trip home brings Hal’s world crashing around his ears when he firstly finds that his mother hasn’t preserved his bedroom in the manner in which he left it and secondly that Abigail wasn’t about to put him out of his misery. In fact, Hal gets the distinct impression they are all hiding something from him. He thought as much at the school reunion and he most definitely got the vibe at the pub. Turned out he was right. They were. The biggest secret of all – Hal got Abigail pregnant and rather than tell him she married someone else (with their full knowledge – she wasn’t that much of a heartless bitch). That explained a lot. Hal is, naturally, devastated to find out he’s missed his own child’s upbringing. However, there is no happy ending for Abigail and Hal. The lesson to be learned here is that the past is in the past and not set in aspic. Everyone had moved on and Hal realises that he must too. Away from Abigail. Away from Julienne and into the future. A new beginning where he is a father to a child that may never know and into a life worth living.