Before I arrived, I had thought I had most things in my life in order, what with the fresh start in a new country poised to happen and a proposal of marriage from the man I loved waiting in the wings, but now it felt as if someone had come along with a big stick and stirred everything up, muddying the previously clear waters and stopping me from seeing the bottom.

It seemed inevitable now that I would be heading into school with Dolly the next day but I still couldn’t decide why I was so reluctant to go. It wasn’t as if I had a hundred and one other things to be getting on with while Dolly was at work and I had always enjoyed my time there, but then perhaps that itself was the problem. Perhaps, on some subconscious level, I was worried that I would love it all over again and regret that I hadn’t done more to turn the fantasy I used to play out on the train into reality.

Or maybe it was the thought of being surrounded by all those excited under-eights. Jonathan and I may have never discussed get married but he had made his feelings about starting a family very clear. He didn’t want to. As far as he was concerned, we, as a couple, were perfect as we were, just the two of us.

‘I don’t want to share you with anyone,’ he had told me very early on in our relationship, ‘and I never will.’

And given everything I was coming to terms with from my past, that had been OK for a while. It was even OK now, but would it be OK for ever? I wasn’t sure. I still didn’t know if I would want a baby one day but I supposed my silence on the subject had led him to believe that I had accepted his pronouncement. After all, I wouldn’t have been banging on about finding a job in Abu Dhabi if I was harbouring a secret desire to start a family, would I? Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to go at all if I had baby fever.

I began to wish that I had taken Dolly’s advice and gone off somewhere to make up my mind about moving instead of letting Jonathan’s smooth talking and the deteriorating weather influence my decision. I loved the man, of course I did, but I suddenly realised the enormity of what I was going to be giving up for good when I accepted his impending proposal and our global relocation.

‘Penny for them.’

‘Sorry?’

‘For your thoughts,’ said Dolly. ‘You’ve been staring into the flames for the last half an hour and looking as though you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders. What are you thinking about?’