‘Yes and no,’ they said. ‘If it had all happened last week, okay fine, maybe then you’d ask because it’s fresh. But it’s been what? Six months? Seven? And you live a hundred miles apart, and – does he know you’re just friends? Does he think this is the gateway to something more?’

‘No,’ said Penny. ‘He knows about Thomas, and we’d agreed to just be friends as soon as I knew I was leaving. Even before … the other thing.’

‘The other thing that he doesn’t know you know about.’

‘And so, that’s all the evidence I need not to go back there, isn’t it? My instinct was obviously right all along. He was never as committed to me as I was him.’

Penny picked up a lilac Christmas ornament. ‘How did this end up in here?’ she said, holding up a stained-glass dome with a snowman set inside it. ‘My mum got this for Clementine, I think, at Nottingham Goose Fair. I remember it.’

‘This is just what David has every year.’

‘I’ll take this one,’ said Penny, casting her eye over what else was in the box. ‘I’ll give it to Clem.’

‘No worries,’ said Charlie. ‘And Penny? It’s nice that you’ve got a friend. You light up when you talk with him, and since you’ve reconnected you’ve seemed loads happier. Don’t overthink it. He really can just be your pal. You’re grown-ups.’

‘You’re right,’ said Penny. ‘My pal. My pal is coming to visit! You’re going to love him, Charlie. Everybody does.’

‘As long as you’re not secretly in love with him,’ Charlie said, distracted by the next task of setting up the nativity scene. Penny didn’t reply. She was pretty sure she wasn’t. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing a person could hide, was it? No. They were in friendship, not love.

On 1st December, Penny had the Christmas party to distract her from Francesco’s imminent visit and Thomas’s recent departure. It was held at the pub so that they could do what they wanted, but catered and waiter-ed by an external company so she hadn’t had to worry about any of that – she could, for the first time in too long, simply enjoy herself alongside everyone else. It was bound to be a crazy festive season, and so this was her last chance to really throw caution to the wind before everybody else’s celebrations threatened to overwork her, and her staff.

‘No way,’ Penny said as she held court with her kitchen crew, waiters from the catering company walking by with mini Yorkshire puddings stuffed with tiny pieces of beef. ‘Who in their right mind would put their socks on before their trousers? That makes no sense!’