‘You’ll find another position easily enough,’ Dolly rallied. ‘You have years of experience and no one can fault your dedication. You’ve worked every Christmas for as long as I can remember. There aren’t many employees willing to sign up to do that, Hattie.’

Dolly didn’t approve of my willingness to forgo the joys of Christmas year on year. She was a huge fan of the season herself.

‘I didn’t work last Christmas,’ I reminded her.

Jonathan had surprised me with a trip to Abu Dhabi. It was lovely to leave the grey skies of England behind but I hadn’t much enjoyed the seasonal celebrations under the sun. It was true that Christmas had come to mean less and less to me, especially now I had no contact with my parents at all, but it turned out that not even the spectacular Winter Wonderland on Al Maryah Island could reignite my festive spark. Like me, Jonathan didn’t care much for Christmas either, but he loved the city and had been backwards and forwards to work on various projects there throughout the year.

‘Yes, well,’ Dolly sniffed. ‘You might not have been working, but Jonathan was and I hardly think a week or two in the searing sun is very festive!’

‘It was only twenty-six degrees,’ I hiccupped. ‘In the summer it’s nearer forty.’

‘Never mind that,’ she tutted, handing me a mug of sweetened tea. ‘What you need is a good old-fashioned Christmas to remind you what you’re missing out on and you might want to think about that before you sign up for another job and commit to working every December the twenty-fifth. You should view this as an opportunity to make some changes in your life, Hattie. Redress the old work–life balance a bit. You’ve hardly taken a proper break since the Luccas sold up.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ I told her. It was far too early in the year to be thinking about Christmas and whether or not I wanted to carry on working through it. ‘But I could do with some company this weekend.’ I didn’t much want to be on my own now. ‘You will stay, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of leaving you alone after a shock like this. I take it Jonathan is away again at the moment?’

I opened my mouth to answer, but stopped as the flat door opened and then banged shut.

‘Hattie!’

‘Not away then?’ Dolly questioned.

‘I don’t know,’ I told her, abandoning my tea. I pulled off another sheet of kitchen roll and peered at my reflection in the oven door. ‘I’m not sure, I mean, I wasn’t expecting to see him until next Tuesday. I was planning to talk to you on the phone and get everything straight in my head before I shared my news with him.’