‘You don’t know just how lucky!’ he shouted back, tightening his arm around Bella’s waist and kissing her freshly washed brown hair.

They walked past Christmas trees of vastly differing shapes and sizes, standing for sale on the street, snow quickly settling on their outstretched branches. Other stalls were selling mulled wine, mistletoe, holly, ivy and festive wreaths, and the snow seemed to have affected everybody with seasonal bonhomie.

‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Happy Christmas, darlin’, have a good one!’

Everywhere they looked, people were being nice to each other (which made a wonderful change from all the stuff they were reading in the papers or seeing on the news on a daily basis).

A lone woman with a steel drum had started to sing about chestnuts roasting, and her voice was so exceptionally beautiful that she’d already drawn quite a crowd.

‘Oh, isn’t this just lovely?’ Bella looked up at Andy, her face aglow.

‘I can’t think of anything lovelier,’ said Andy, kissing her again. Then he stopped, right in the middle of Portobello Road, took off his glasses and really, properly, kissed her.

‘I love you so much. Thank you for making my life complete.’

The only thing Bella could do was kiss him back.

The snow was falling more heavily as they turned onto Westbourne Park Road, chatting excitedly about things. As they got a bit nearer to the Cow, Andy said, pointing at a couple about to enter the pub,

‘Isn’t that Natalia? And … Ben?’

He wondered how Bella was going to feel about seeing the man who had broken her heart by shagging her best friend. He also slightly wondered how he would feel about seeing the bastard again, though he did have more respect for him now. The fact that he had saved Natalia’s life was pretty impressive, even by his standards.

Bella laughed. So many more important things had happened since she had been with Ben, and she was hugely intrigued to see how he and Natalia interacted with one another, after everything Poppy had told her.

‘Yeah, definitely looks like them. What a glamorous couple they make.’ Though it was hard to tell from this distance, it looked as though Natalia was wearing a floor-length silver fur coat (fox? mink?) over cripplingly high heels on which she manoeuvred her way through the snow with absolute confidence.

A cab pulled up beside them, and one of its passengers jumped out.

‘Belles!’ cried Poppy, flinging her arms around her. ‘Happy Christmas!’ Clad in a bright red duffle coat over skinny jeans, with a matching scarlet woolly pompom hat pulled down low over her silky blonde hair, she looked about 12. ‘We’ve got some wonderful news!’

Damian, getting out of the cab behind her, laughed and said, ‘Hi, Bella, hi, Andy. She does get overexcited, doesn’t she?’

‘It’s actually quite endearing,’ said Andy, smiling. He felt he might smile forever.

‘I know. Lucky for her she’s so pretty,’ said Damian, and Andy laughed, feeling none of the usual resentment from his erstwhile professional rival.