Page 48 of Make You Mine This Christmas

‘What is that?’ whispers Haf, figuring that library rules are in play and everything that must be said must be whispered, if said at all.

‘The dogs are ringing to go out for a wee. There’s a bell hanging from the door that they hit when they want to go out.’

‘Oh! I’ll take them out,’ she says. ‘I’m already up after all. Do I need to put leads on or anything?’

‘No, just keep an eye on them if you can,’ he says.

Perfect. If I cannot be academic,I will continue with being useful.

Stella and Luna sit patiently on the back-door mat next to the garden clogs and some truly muddy wellies. Haf hazards a pair of clogs are almost her size, pulls on her naughty Christmas jumper, which she’d left in the kitchen, and slips out the back door with the dogs in tow. They disappear off into the darkness, though the security light on the back of the house clicks on after a few seconds, illuminating them like deer in headlights. They scamper about, sniffing around the lawn for the absolute right spot to pee.

Haf takes her phone out and video calls Ambrose.

Surprisingly, they answer in seconds.

‘Evening,’ they say, face covered in a sheet mask, the nose-flap hanging over the end of their nose like a curtain.

‘Hi,’ says Haf hesitantly. ‘I didn’t think you were going to answer.’

‘I did consider not picking up, but then I remembered that you’ve been there for, what, six hours? That must mean several Haf-made disasters, and I thought that might be worth tuning in for.’

‘Oh, cheers,’ she hisses. ‘It’s not helped by this fucking jumper, by the way.’

‘Oh, God, please tell me you didn’t wear that in front of anyone.’

‘Obviously I did!’

Ambrose drops the camera, so all Haf can see is the magnolia ceiling of their bedroom, but cackles sound from the speakers. ‘You knob,’ they wheeze. ‘It has reindeer shagging on it!’

‘I know that now!’

‘Didn’t you notice?’

‘No, because when I unwrapped it, I was crying, as I wastouched by your gesture, you absolute dickwad.’

‘Oh, no,’ they say, still laughing as they wipe a tear from their eye. ‘I thought you’d, like, wear it in bed or something.’

‘His mother pointed it out to me at the dinner table,’ Haf moans. ‘I was trying so hard to be a good fake daughter-in-law and it was just going wronger and wronger, and then that was an absolute reindeer turd on the top of it all.’

Stella and/or Luna bark in the distance, and something specifically non-dog rushes through the undergrowth near her.

‘Okay, I do feel bad. But only like five per cent bad. I still can’t believe you went. I could have strong armed Mum into letting you come home, though you’d have probably had to share a room with all my preteen nephews.’

Somehow a room full of Lynx Africa-wearing boys discovering their first pube would be preferable to the situation she finds herself in now, just about.

‘Yeah, well, maybe I should have listened to you,’ she sighs.

‘Wait, what happened? Are you okay?’ Everything in Ambrose’s demeanour changes. They wipe the sheet mask from their face. ‘I’m listening.’ The love in this movement makes Haf want to cry. All she wants is to be talking this out together on their little couch in York.

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Go on.’

‘On the way here, at the train station... I met a really beautiful girl at the bookshop. She recommended me a book,Carol?’

‘A sapphic classic, slick move.’

‘And there was... this spark. Something I haven’t felt in ages, and she was just so magnetic. I just wanted to talk to her forever. And she was so hot, Ambrose. Like I cannot impress on you how hot she was. But she had to leave, and the bookseller tried to get me to leave my number, and I chickened out.’