Why does a respectable former Professor of English, happily married to a faithful wife for 35 years, suddenly at the age of 71 have an affair with a 54-year-old local Scots woman? He meets her while attending church in his local Church of Scotland-after he had delivered part of the sermon. She is an alcoholic and had come to the church slightly tipsy, seeking help, lavishly made up and wearing a revealing outfit showing a lot of cleavage. The novel is a slice of life that affords an insight into the resourceful and rationalising minds of the habitual 'sinner' and the recovering alcoholic-minds to which hiding the truth, re-inventing the truth or justifying lies comes all too easily. 'Thinking on one's feet' and a ready recourse to deceit are ingrained survival strategies, if not automatic instincts of the alcoholic mind.