She was right, I couldn’t, but if anyone could have quickly found the formula to turn back time I for one would have been more than happy to be the guinea pig to have first dibs on giving it go.

*

It was stomach churning walking past the postbox the next morning, especially when I read that the first collection wouldn’t be happening until nine. That meant the card and letter was still sitting there, mere centimetres from my fingers and there was nothing I could do about it.

‘Come on,’ said Dolly. ‘There’s no point loitering. We’ll be late if we don’t get on.’

‘But this says the collection isn’t until nine,’ I said accusingly, ‘and there wasn’t one at all last night so I don’t see why you were in such a hurry to get your cards gone.’

Dolly didn’t comment.

‘If you’d left them until this morning,’ I muttered on, ‘then none of this would have happened.’

I knew it wasn’t fair to keep niggling at her, but I couldn’t let it drop.

‘Don’t you think I haven’t laid awake most of the night thinking that very thing myself?’ Dolly snapped back. ‘But as they were done, I wanted them posted. One less thing to have to worry about.’

I couldn’t imagine she had all that much to worry about, but I did feel bad that she’d had a restless night. It wasn’t like her to snap. Lack of sleep was the last thing either of us needed while we were preparing for the school performance on Wednesday.

‘I know,’ I said, taking her bag and linking my arm through hers. ‘I’m sorry.’

I didn’t catch sight of Beamish until morning break and as he came over to where Dolly and I were checking costumes for the dress rehearsal I could see he wasn’t carrying an envelope.

‘I’m so sorry, Hattie,’ he sighed and I knew he hadn’t managed it.

There was no suggestion of a double bluff, no envelope tucked into his back pocket to be produced with a flourish. Wynbridge’s answer to Ironman wasn’t infallible after all.

‘I did try, but my mate wasn’t on shift and the guy who was wouldn’t help. He said it was more than his job was worth.’

I nodded and tried to swallow away the lump in my throat. This trip to Wynbridge was turning into a total disaster.

‘Oh well,’ I said, knowing I would have to resign myself to what had happened and feeling the tiniest glimmer of relief that if there was a response it would come to Dolly’s cottage or my inbox, rather than the flat. ‘It’s done. It doesn’t matter.’