“Maybe that’s for the best. I’ll call you one now.” John whipped out his phone and made the call. He seemed to know the person at the taxi rank. He chuckled and asked the person on the other end of the line how Thea and the girls were getting on.

“Ten minutes,” said John, a moment later.

“I think I’ll wait outside.” She was feeling hot and a bit woozy.

“I’ll wait with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“I’ll just pay up,” said Annie.

“It’s done.”

“It’s done?”

“I asked Raye to put it on my tab.”

“Let me give you my half,” said Annie, fumbling in her handbag for her purse.

“I don’t want half. I wanted to treat you to dinner.”

“Oh!” Annie was taken aback. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to. Call it a goodwill gesture to make up for us getting off on the wrong foot.”

“Well, thank you. The next time is on me.”

John raised an eyebrow. “There’s going to be a next time?”

Annie realized she’d jumped right into that one. She felt her cheeks flush. “I don’t see why not,” she said, trying to be cool and collected. “There’re bound to be things that need to be discussed at some point, and we may as well do it over a good meal.”

John smiled and helped her into her coat. “We may as well,” he said.

Annie called her good-byes to Raye and Aiden. John said he would be back in when Annie’s taxi arrived, and Aiden promised not to lock him out.

Annie shivered as the outer door gave way with a creak and opened out onto a wall of navy blue cold. Annie pulled her coat closer around her and parked herself on a wooden picnic bench. Across the road, she watched the lights go out one by one in the Sunken Willow and imagined Pam and Bill making their weary way to bed. Bed. She shivered again, a convulsive full-body shudder. John sat down beside her, and she forgot the cold; suddenly all she could think about was his nearness.

It was quiet but for the breeze whistling through the naked trees. The grass was diamond-studded with the glisten of frost.

“I’ve been swatting up on Mari’s notes for the Christmas festival,” said Annie.

“It’s a pretty special night, a lot of fun,” said John. “It’s kind of a last hurrah before the December festivities begin proper.”

“It’s not really a last hurrah if there are a load more festivities to come and loads before it, is it?” said Annie. “It’s more of a halfway hurrah.”

“Well, it’s the last hurrah before the proper winter hurrahs begin.”

“I have never known a place to have so many hurrahs.”