The darkened cell at the back of the pharmacy, piled high with pills, potions and lotions, would provide anaesthetic balm to the chaos. I left the flat early, my disguise in place, and wearing the most ridiculous dark glasses. It was only five in the morning. I couldn’t sleep but wasn’t prepared to sedate myself for the sake of a few hours longed for amnesia.

The walk to Golders Green took nearly an hour. I trudged warily through the snow and ice. There was a definite smugness to beating the early birds at their own game, and a sense of purpose spurred me on as I picked my way through the blackness. Exercise increased the endorphins and fuelled a sense of well-being and purpose.

Becoming a pharmacist had never been part of a life plan. When I finally gave up infantile dreams of becoming an airline pilot, a firefighter or a front-line paratrooper, my mother steered me towards a career which offered maximum financial stability. Financial stability, that was, for herself.

It was a long time after Dad left before I realised that she’d manipulated my future by moulding me into the breadwinner to replace my father. Finding a job herself was never part of the equation. I fell into pharmacy more through indecision and chance than by any preordained passion for the discipline. At twenty-eight, there was little hope of me veering off in a different direction. Acceptance of my chosen path had offered me a degree of contentment; I had more energy to spend on Amber.

On arrival at the shop, I turned on the lights and convector heaters, which hummed rhythmically in the silence. I felt warmly cocooned in my little domain.

Ellen, my right-hand woman, had draped silver and gold tinsel across the soaps and seasonal cosmetics since I had last been in. Although it wasn’t the most dynamic of displays, it jolted me back to the present. Only four days till Christmas and I had no idea what my plans were. Lunch with Mum and Ted and the dreaded possibility of Amber on the other side of the table, as merely ‘a friend’, was unimaginable.

However, I’m a great believer in fate. I always have been. Karma had brought both Amber and pharmacy into my life. It had all been written in the stars. With only four days to Christmas and misery cloaking me in self-doubt, a strange thing happened. Well, it was an event that only seemed strange in years to come; a fortuitous meeting.