‘Then perhaps you do him a disservice,’ Dolly said brusquely, surprising me by springing to Jonathan’s defence. ‘How will you ever know if things really are as they should be if you go about hiding your friendships . . .’

‘I’m not hiding my friendships,’ I said, sounding more pathetic by the second. ‘I just haven’t mentioned this one yet.’

‘If Jonathan really has given you no reason for concern,’ Dolly continued, ‘and I can’t imagine that he has, given that you’re moving to the other side of the world with him, then you need to have a long hard think about the reason why you are keeping quiet, Hattie.’

I’d already laid awake most of the night thinking about exactly that. It seemed I had some psychological readjusting of my own to do because I had, as Dolly had just so adroitly pointed it, done Jonathan a very grave disservice indeed.

That said, it wasn’t easy to banish the image of him bursting into my evening during a hotel training course and punching a colleague with whom I was having a drink. His aggressive outburst had been the reason behind my last trip to Wynbridge, but his heartfelt apology, prolific promises and appeals to move into the flat with him had soon drawn me away again . . .

‘I know I do,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘It’s just that this situation with Beamish . . .’

My words trailed off.

‘What situation with Beamish?’ Dolly demanded.

There was no way I could say out loud the words which were whirring around in my head. How could I tell Dolly that he made me feel good, made me laugh, put me at ease, drew things out of me, asked me questions and listened to my answers, without inferring that I was developing too strong a fondness for our rugby-playing friend.

If I gave voice to all those things, it would suggest that Jonathan, the man I was about to move to the other side of the world with, didn’t do any of those things to or for me, and that simply wasn’t true. Was it?

‘I haven’t mentioned I’m volunteering at the school either,’ I blurted out instead.

‘Hattie . . .’

‘Look,’ I said pointing up at the clock and avoiding her gaze, ‘it’s almost a quarter to and we still haven’t had a bite to eat yet.’

*

The school fair that afternoon was the perfect distraction from my muddled thoughts and every bit as busy as I had imagined it would be. Even with the heating on the temperamental boiler turned to low, (much to Beamish’s consternation as he was going to be the one responsible for trying to fire it back up again), the classrooms and the hall were still sweltering.

‘How are you getting on?’ Rose called above the din as she tried to keep track of her class.