My assumption about him being a local who’d lived his whole life here was obviously wrong and I should have realised that as soon as I’d made it; he was such a good friend of Dolly’s that had he lived here for ever we most likely would have met before.

‘No,’ he said, ‘but I did grow up here. I left when I went to university and only moved back for good a couple of years ago. Not that I realised that I was moving back for good at the time.’

I surmised that he would have quite possibly been around when I last visited. He was probably even working at the school when I went in to renew my paperwork, but I was certain I would have remembered him if I’d seen him. He had the sort of face and physique you wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

‘Why did you come back?’ I asked.

‘My dad died,’ he said, one eye on the kitchen, ‘so I came back to support Mum.’

‘Oh, Beamish,’ I swallowed. ‘I’m sorry.’

I was sorry about his dad and my nosiness. I shouldn’t have asked.

‘I knew straightaway that there was something more than grieving wrong with my mum the second I saw her,’ he carried on, rearranging the napkins as Angela appeared with our tray.

He stopped talking while she unloaded the delicious-looking food and drinks.

‘And I was right,’ he continued, after she had returned to the kitchen, ‘Mum had cancer. She died six months to the day after Dad.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again, feeling even worse than before.

He looked and sounded absolutely wretched and without thinking, I reached across the table and laid my hand on top of his. He turned his over and grasped mine. I felt a buzz, an unexpected tingle as his warm fingers closed around mine.

‘Thank you, Hattie,’ he said. ‘I’m waiting for it to get easier, even took on the job at the school because I thought it would help, but so far . . .’

‘It hasn’t,’ I finished for him, squeezing his hand tighter and ignoring the fluttering sensation in my chest.

Perhaps this was the reason why he kept himself so busy. Perhaps working so hard and helping everyone else was his way of coping with his grief.

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he asked, letting go of my hand.

It was only then that I realised my phone was ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket and then put it straight back.

‘It’ll keep.’ I told him.

I didn’t think that having just held hands with another man, and still feeling the palpitations the moment had elicited, made it quite the right moment to answer a call from my beau, even if nothing more than compassion had prompted my spontaneous gesture.