Ava shook her thoughts back to the present, realising that Sam was waiting for a reply. ‘Yes, when I was very young. But Gran was the one who made Christmas happen in my family and she died when I was thirteen.’ Gran had smilingly seen to the everyday care of Ava while her parents pursued their careers and her loss had left a gaping hole in Ava’s teenaged soul. She avoided Izz’s gaze, not wanting to see reflected there the painful knowledge that Gran had died at Christmas, making Ava feel like hurling the gaily lit Christmas trees to the floor and jumping on them.

‘That must have been hard.’ Sam’s gaze was sympathetic. ‘Didn’t your parents take over?’

‘Not exactly.’ It was no new thing to be regarded with curiosity for not enjoying what everyone else in the country looked forward to all year and Ava had a well-honed explanation. ‘Mum was a doctor, Dad a senior police officer. Mum patched up the drunks in A and E and Dad dealt with the drunks who ended up in the cells. They don’t really believe in Christmas and think it’s a phoney exercise in commercialism. They always volunteered to work so those who valued the season could have time off.’

Patrick goggled as if Ava had just admitted that she came from a family of aliens. ‘If they don’t believe in Christmas, what do they believe in?’

She made a face. ‘Hard reality, I suppose. My parents are lovely, and we all love each other, but they were career-orientated and so much of their focus was outward.’ Not inward, on their family. Family. The word conjured up siblings – not just the one child who had occasionally felt in the way and had grown to realise the best way to please her parents was to be as independent as possible. She remembered their congratulations when she’d begun to make family meals, the proud smiles as they told their friends how good she was at it.

Sam’s frown deepened into a cleft between his eyes. ‘I’ve never heard Christmas made to sound less fun.’

‘You should come to my party!’ Patrick jumped in. ‘Next Saturday, in Balham. Loads of nice people, lots of alcohol, a bit of food. Music. A proper party, none of this standing shoulder-to-shoulder stuff, frightened your drink’s going to be knocked from your hand. Hasn’t Tod mentioned it to you? He’ll be in Balham for something, anyway. His girlfriend lives there, doesn’t she?’

‘She does. It’s because he’s always over there for BalCom that he met her,’ Ava admitted unenthusiastically.

‘BalCom?’ Sam looked mystified.

‘Tod’s comic club. We go to their Christmas meeting at the Snooty Fox every year. In fancy dress. The comickers create stunning costumes, everything from Superman to the Joker. It’s OK for us more ordinary folk to aim a little lower, though. Last year I was a reindeer with antlers made out of branches stuck in a pair of tights.’

Patrick looked pained. ‘Ah, erm, he’s invited me, too, but I’ll be too busy with the party. But why don’t you come on to my place when the pub shuts? I’ll make sure we keep some goodies back for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Izz stuttered. She flicked a glance Sam’s way.

Intercepting that fleeting look and reading hopefulness there, Ava felt she had little choice but to smile and accept, too, although she was pretty certain that Tod hadn’t mentioned the party because Patrick had only this instant decided to invite them. But Izz was looking at her boss as if he were made of her favourite chocolate and obviously wanted to grab the opportunity of spending more out-of-office time with him. It would take a harder heart than Ava’s to deny her.

And, as they’d already arranged to stay at Louise’s, she couldn’t even claim it would be too difficult to get home to Camden in the early hours. She was still pondering an escape strategy when Izz’s expression altered. ‘There’s Harvey,’ she whispered, grabbing Ava’s hand.

Ava shrank down. ‘Oh no. I don’t want to see him.’ She could hardly hiss, ‘Duck!’ at Izz, but she was all too aware that Izz’s height made her hard to overlook. If Harvey spotted her, he’d assume Ava to be nearby.

‘Boyfriend?’ Patrick sounded wary.

‘Ex. He just can’t seem to get used to it.’ Ava took a surreptitious peek, absorbing, between the sea of constantly moving heads and shoulders, Harvey’s bloodshot eyes and uncertain movements. ‘Damn, he’s drunk.’

Izz shifted uneasily. ‘Nothing new there, then. He’s heading over.’

‘Hell.’ Ava tried to make herself smaller still.

Sam leaned in, as if to help her hide. ‘You don’t have to talk to someone if you have concerns about them.’ His face had set in forbidding lines.

‘I know.’ Touched at this unlooked-for support, Ava found herself unexpectedly aware of the brush of warm breath against her cheek. ‘He’s not a concern. Or not exactly. I ended things and he’s proving that he’s not a good loser.’

‘Ava!’ Harvey hailed her when he was still yards away, making no friends as he shoved his way rudely through the crowd, pulling tinsel awry as he brushed past the big wooden pillars. ‘I’ve been hoping to bump into you. Haven’t you been out in Camden?’

Resignedly, Ava was obliged to acknowledge him. ‘Harvey. How have you been?’

In the heaving bar most men had discarded jackets and ties. Harvey, however, was tailor-shop perfect, his dark curls running smoothly over his head and even his thick eyebrows looking as if they’d been brushed. Only his movements and his sliding gaze were untidy. ‘I could have been better,’ he proclaimed meaningfully. ‘A lot better.’ All his attention was on Ava. He treated Izz as if she were invisible.

Ava tried to head him off from yet another dissection of their relationship’s demise but Harvey plunged in. He was sorry, he vowed. How many times did he have to apologise? She must understand he’d had a few drinks and hadn’t known what he was doing. How could he make her forgive him? They’d been good together, hadn’t they?

A couple of times she tried to break in, ‘There’s no point—’, but Harvey just became increasingly hectoring. Ava’s compassion for his struggle with rejection warred with her irritation at being harangued, and her feeling of vague surprise that they’d ever been an item. They had had fun, in the early days. It was just that the good memories had been overlaid with bad. Hard to credit though it was, looking at the red-faced loud-voiced embarrassment standing in front of her, when Harvey wasn’t drunk he was smart, articulate and interesting.

They’d met just before Ava left Ceri, who had become a client of the accountants Harvey worked for. His dark eyes had glowed whenever they rested on Ava and the time they’d been together had begun fuelled by lust. Healthy lust, admittedly – but that had fizzled on Ava’s side as she became increasingly aware of Harvey’s hard drinking taking up more and more of his life. She’d fallen for sober Harvey and fallen out with drunk Harvey. Crunch time had been more about relief than grief for Ava.

Now, as he loudly pleaded his case, Harvey managed to edge out Izz and Patrick by insinuating his way between them and Ava, but Sam proved harder to turn his back on. Quite openly listening in, he shifted, coming to rest with his arm against Ava’s.

Harvey focused on Sam and scowled. Then he switched on a big smile for Ava. ‘You’re under the mistletoe! If you don’t kiss anyone you’ll get bad luck all year.’ To Ava’s horror, he made an unsteady but purposeful lunge in her direction.

Before she could decide which way to dodge, an arm around her shoulders swung her neatly out of Harvey’s path. Sam brushed a kiss on her temple. ‘Just in case you’re superstitious.’

Ava blinked, stunned and half-admiring that he’d thwarted Harvey so effectively, even if it had meant taking a bit of a liberty.

Harvey halted foolishly, mouth ajar. Then, frowning like a goblin, he began to back up, barging into people and spilling their drinks, lifting his voice higher the further away he travelled. ‘Ava, Ava, I need a private word with you, Ava. Over here.’

Sam looked down into Ava’s eyes. ‘If you don’t want to go with him, you can tell him we’re on a date.’

Ava debated, twisting her hands in indecision. ‘That’s a tempting offer.’ But people were wincing at Harvey’s loud mouth, frowning from him to Ava, making her feel responsible. She squared her shoulders. ‘But it’s obviously time I put an end to his pestering me. I must be able to find a way to convince him.’

‘It’s probable that he’ll only—’

Disregarding whatever advice Sam was about to dish out, Ava dumped her empty glass and followed in Harvey’s wake, fighting through the crowd, attempting, at the same time, to convey apologies to everyone he’d knocked into, remembering how this behaviour had proved the norm amongst his friends. However well-cut their suits and dresses and however shiny their expensive shoes, they’d habitually begun an evening as clever, funny, successful people yet been mortifying embarrassments by the end. Cocktails or ale, it hadn’t mattered, just as long as they could get drunk on it. Then they’d play down each other’s behaviour by terming it ‘getting merry’ or ‘taking the edge off’.

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