“Yes, you do, darling,” Tina said gently. “But you can always tell me again, just as I’ll tell you. I love you. That will never change. No matter how much I forget.” Tina’s lips trembled. “Even if I forget who I am, or who you are. Please know that, darling. Know I’ll always, always love you. I’ll always be proud of who you are, all the things you’ve done. You’re my brightest star, Olivia. Never forget that, even if I do.”

Tears ran down Olivia’s cheeks and she nodded as she took a shuddering breath, not trusting herself to speak without breaking down into sobs. Tina returned her affection with a tight hug and then stepped back as the kettle began to whistle. “Now enough of this nonsense,” she said briskly. “I’m not dead yet, so there’s no need to talk in epitaphs. Why don’t you ring Simon and we’ll play a hand of bridge?”

Simon didn’t pick up, however, and so they played with just the two of them, before Olivia headed back to Wychwood as dusk settled over the fields. She hadn’t seen Simon for two days, which really wasn’t that much, but she was starting to feel the teensiest bit nervous about his radio silence. It was by far the longest they’d gone without talking in admittedly, only ten days. But it had been an amazing, intense ten days.

On Boxing Day they’d had leftovers for lunch and gone for a lovely, long walk through snowy fields along the Lea, and then come back and watched all the special Christmas season telly.

Then yesterday he’d said he needed to organise his new home, and since the subtext seemed to be he was too busy to spend time with her, Olivia let it be. They didn’t have to live in each other’s pockets, after all. These last days had been magical, but Olivia was sensible enough—or so she told herself—to accept that they hadn’t been actual reality. Real life had to intrude at some point, and so now it was. They’d learn to live in the real world, not some snowy, Christmassy idyll.

Still, as she arrived back at Tea on the Lea, Dr Jekyll meowing resentfully at being left alone for so long, she wondered again at Simon’s uncharacteristic silence. He hadn’t replied to any of her three texts, or answered her two calls. She was reluctant to text or call yet again, and clutter up his phone with her clinginess. Perhaps he’d lost his mobile...but then wouldn’t he have let her know? He’d known she was taking her mum to the doctor’s today. They’d made plans to be together afterwards, and he’d acknowledged how she might be a bit shaky. So where was he now?

Restless, Olivia fed Dr Jekyll and made herself a mug of soup, pacing the flat as she sipped it and trying not to feel anxious. A few unanswered texts were hardly the end of the world, and Simon could have any number of reasons not to respond: a family emergency...a lost phone...or perhaps he was just tired, and he’d had a nap all afternoon. Or maybe he was busy with DIY stuff, and hadn’t had a chance to look at his phone. She was being ridiculous. Of course she was.