‘I want you to leave with me, Hattie. Today.’

I put my cup down and stared back at him. For a second, I thought he was joking, but he sounded deadly serious and there was no smile on his lips now.

‘We’ve still got to decide what we want to ship out with us,’ he added when I didn’t say anything, ‘I need you at home and you did say you’d try and cut your visit short.’

I didn’t much want to be reminded of that.

‘But Dolly and I have things planned for next week,’ I told him, thinking of the Wish List and Dolly’s last few days in school. ‘We still have things we want to do.’

‘I’ll speak to Dolly,’ he said.

I really didn’t appreciate his assumption that his pronouncement was a fait accompli.

‘No,’ I snapped.

‘But—’

‘No, Jonathan.’ I snapped again. ‘Look, I’m delighted to see you and everything but I really don’t like you just breezing in here and thinking you can take over. I’m quite capable of organising these last few weeks for myself, thank you very much and I know exactly how I want to spend them.’

‘But I just thought—’

‘I’m not sure you thought at all.’

Jonathan looked a little stunned, as well he might, he wasn’t used to me standing up to him quite so forcefully. I was a little surprised myself. Not all that long ago I would have gone along with what he wanted, convinced myself that I wanted it too, but not now. I had no intention of putting up with him waltzing in and bossing me about. Was this Jonathan’s arrogant alter ego who had rocked up, the one we had banished, or was this how he always spoke to me? Either way, I wasn’t going to put up with it.

‘Look,’ I said, trying to moderate my tone so as not to shock him further. ‘I can appreciate that you want to get ready for the move and it really means a lot that you’ve been so worried about me.’

‘It’s only because I care,’ he muttered, sounding a little sulky, ‘because I love you so damn much.’

I was half expecting him to remind me that, given the mess I’d made with the Christmas card, I wasn’t actually all that capable of organising anything, but thankfully he didn’t.

‘I know it is,’ I nodded. ‘And I love you,’ I told him, ‘but I’m not ready to leave yet. Dolly retires next week and I’m going to be here for her, OK?’

Jonathan didn’t comment.

‘I’m not going to miss that, Jonathan. It’s the whole reason why I’m here.’

Still nothing.