Hayley had come down for lunch, happy and animated, beaming about the bliss of not having tubes stuck in her body putting simple things like a shower out of bounds. Isaac’s parents embarked on a discourse about their bathroom set-up for the less able, Don from Acting Instrumental chimed in about how awkward personal hygiene arrangements had been when he’d had his wrist in a cast, Jeremy and Jasmine pulled every cracker on the table and Isaac went through it all in a dream. A bad one.

He barely tasted his turkey and didn’t want a chocolate mousse. Sitting through the Secret Santa was a chore, though he was mildly surprised to discover he had two gifts instead of one. The first proved to be a typical Secret Santa gag gift, a pair of socks bearing reindeer with light-up noses. The second was a case for his phone bearing pictures of Schützenberg and Zürich, the Raten and St Jost, all the places he and the Middletones had gone, and a photo book of the trip. He turned the pages of images of the minibus with the Middletones lined up in front, the French countryside, the first snow, the snowball fight, Isaac laughing, Doggo bounding, Lily smiling, teenagers snowballing.

He turned it in his hands. Were these from Lily? Had she slipped them in the Secret Santa box in the same way Flora had made sure there was a DVD of princess stories for Jasmine and for Jeremy a book about the body? The children had eaten two chocolate mousses each and wore brown smears on their faces, hands and clothes. They looked as excited and overfed as every kid should at Christmas.

Then, finally, his phone beeped and there was a reply from Lily. I’m fine, thank you. Sorry to leave with no notice but you obviously had plenty on your plate. I know you feel we have unfinished business but we ran out of time, didn’t we? The pub’s being sold and soon you’ll be carrying out your new career plans. I’m taking time out but Tubb knows about it. Baz is taking my shifts for a bit. x

Dazed, he stared at it. A brush-off? It was a fucking brush-off! The vision of her with another man swam once more into his mind.

Jumping to his feet he took his phone out into the kitchen and called her. She picked up almost before it rang. ‘Hi.’ Her voice was soft, tentative. ‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Not very,’ he said bluntly. ‘Lily, I’d thought that at the very least we’d have Christmas lunch together. We do have unfinished business. Why are you so sure we’ve run out of time?’