Fiona Gibson 3 Book Bundle. Fiona Gibson

song, when he’d sensed a distinct spark between them. But then the leaky ear thing had happened, and James had felt awful for being unable to help; plus, Kerry’s sudden coolness towards him had suggested that, really, he shouldn’t have been there at all. Who could blame her after all the horror of her cheating ex and his pregnant colleague? Sure, James was dumped too, but compared to Kerry’s situation he feels – perhaps for the first time – that he might have got off pretty lightly.

      ‘Are you going to do website stuff instead?’ Luke asks, inspecting his handsome reflection in the shiny chrome kettle before pulling on a grey hoodie over his T-shirt.

      ‘No, I’m having a day off. You know, the old-fashioned concept of not actually working every single day? And doing something for yourself instead?’ It comes out sounding sharper than he’d meant.

      ‘Er, yeah. All right, Dad.’ Luke rolls his eyes.

      ‘I might see a film,’ James adds.

      ‘Great. Something foreign and completely weird, yeah? Oh, and listen, I hope you don’t mind but Charlotte’s parents are off to their holiday house for Christmas – the one with the hot tub and a Jacuzzi. And she’s asked if I’d like to go too.’

      ‘What, for actual Christmas?’ James’s brows shoot up.

      ‘Er … yep.’

      ‘But that’s, like, four days away!’

      Luke shrugs, at least having the decency to look embarrassed. ‘You know how it is, Dad. We’ve only just got back together …’ Yes, so I bloody heard. ‘And it’ll save you getting so much food in,’ Luke adds lamely.

      ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ James musters a faint smile. ‘I was hoping for a quiet Christmas anyway.’

      ‘Great. Thanks, Dad. I knew you’d be cool about it and I’ll only be gone a couple of days.’ There’s a quick hug from his son, then he’s gone, leaving James regretting his grumpiness when Luke was being perfectly pleasant. And hadn’t James told Kerry that he desperately needed some space? It’ll be great, having Christmas Day all to himself. He’ll be able to, um … what exactly? Watch so much TV and gorge on so many chocolate brazils that he makes himself feel ill? He has never spent a Christmas alone and now, at the ripe old age of forty-three, he’ll have to figure out how to do it. If he still had Buddy, they could go for a long, festive walk that would at least give the day a sense of purpose and structure.

      James makes a coffee and wonders what to do next. He’s become so unused to having time on his hands that he is, literally, incapable of knowing how to fill it. Should he call Kerry to find out if they managed to excavate the sweetcorn last night? How would they do it – with a little suction device like they use at the dentist’s? It seems rude and uncaring not to get in touch, but maybe it’d be a bit much to call right away. He’s forgotten how to be with women, that’s the trouble, especially one who’s so attractive and intriguing, yet gives the impression that she doesn’t actually need anyone very much at all. Not a boyfriend, anyway. James feels terribly out of practice with this kind of stuff. He’s been single for nine months now, and the last person – Sarah with the pie-crust collared, libido-murdering nightie – wasn’t what you’d call a proper girlfriend. She’d been a client; he’d built a website for her angel-channelling business. Then he’d sort of fallen in with her, or rather, fallen into her four-poster bed with its dreadfully-painted cherubs peering down from the canopy. It was disconcerting, having sex beneath the gaze of dozens of chubby little baby faces. Off-putting in the extreme. So James had retreated, deciding he was finished with women – until Kerry had appeared in the shop, oohing and ahhing over his chocolate brownie … Perhaps the cherubs/pie-crust-nightie combination hadn’t killed his sex drive after all.

      The thought of Kerry and the brownie has perked him up, and he heads out at midday, making his way to the town centre. An enormous Christmas tree stands proudly in front of the town hall, and the assortment of gift shops are crammed with Shorling-acceptable decorations: silver stars, paper lanterns and plain glass vases filled with fir-cone laden twigs. Nothing as crass as fake snow or tinsel around here. James stops outside the arthouse cinema – the one that sells proper coffee and carrot cake – and is drawn in through its beautiful art deco doors.

      Why not see whatever is on, just for the hell of it? In typically arrested-development fashion, Luke still favours American Pie type trash, and Amy was always dragging him along to see terrible rom-coms which she’d weep over and insist on re-watching at home on DVD. A small realisation brings a smile to his lips: he will never have to watch another Jennifer Aniston movie ever again. Today, James reflects, he can do whatever the hell he wants, so he buys a ticket for a Hungarian movie he’s never heard of, looking forward to broadening his mind. Two hours later, he blunders out, having watched a young woman with self-cut hair and smeared lipstick screaming in a hospital ward for pretty much the duration of the movie. He heads for the seafront, blinking in the sharp December sunshine, feeling as if he, too, is in dire need of psychiatric help.

      And now he’s on the beach, where everyone seems to have a dog except him. A girl in a sky-blue tracksuit jogs past with a poodle-type hound, its neatly clipped coat resembling her prim blonde bunches. A gang of excitable spaniels are bouncing around together on the sand, and there’s that woman in the bright pink coat with the little white terrier – the one who took delight in dispensing unasked-for training tips for Buddy. He must understand who’s boss … You need to show him that you’re the leader of the pack, and you MUST get a whistle and a Halti lead … Yeah, yeah. He’d always thanked her politely as Buddy launched into a terrible display of barking and lunging at the sight of her (perhaps it was the pink coat, in a similar way in which bulls go mad for red?). She flashes him a quick smile now, glancing down at the space where Buddy should be. ‘Oh, where’s your dog today?’

      ‘Erm … I don’t have him anymore,’ James says levelly.

      ‘Really?’ She frowns with concern. ‘Nothing … happened to him, did it?’

      ‘No, no, things just got too … hectic. Couldn’t manage to walk him as much as he needs so I decided, sadly, that I’d better rehome him—’

      ‘Does that piano teacher woman have him now?’ she cuts in.

      ‘Er … yes, that’s right.’

      The woman flares her nostrils. ‘I thought it was him – your Buddy, I mean. Ruined my coat, had to get it dry cleaned and even then it didn’t all come out, look …’

      She points to a small, greyish mark a few inches below the collar. ‘Oh dear,’ James says flatly, then turns and walks swiftly towards the kiosk at the end of the beach.

      He starts to feel better as he perches on the rocks and sips an Americano. The sky is a bright winter-blue, his rather watery coffee making a pleasant change from the fierce stuff they sell in the shop, brewed with freshly-ground Ecuadorian beans. Sometimes, he reflects, something ordinary can be pretty good.

      James sees her then – or rather, he sees Buddy first, leaping to catch a stick. And there’s Kerry, striding along in the distance with her two children – she must have kept them both off school today – looking quite the happy, well-functioning family. He sees the pink coat woman’s white terrier doing a dump on the sand, and its owner glance around before quickly walking away. James is transfixed as Kerry clearly sees what’s happened, and hurries over to hand the woman something – a little black poo bag, he thinks. The two women chat for a while, their dogs pottering about happily together.

      The way Kerry looks so happy and natural with Buddy has triggered something else inside him: a fierce and sudden wave of missing Amy, as if it could be her over there, walking their dog. To his horror, tears fill his eyes. He lost his wife, and now his dog – what is wrong with him? Or is it the prospect of spending Christmas alone, which now feels far from okay? He knows he should head across the beach to say hi, and ask if Freddie’s fully recovered – but he can’t, not when he’s struggling to control his tear ducts. James gets up from the rocks and tips away the remains of his now-tepid coffee. He