Page 47 of Last Christmas in London

Pim, still in full fury over the BBC’s inability to spell her name, folded her arms with a suddenly amused smile. Had this encounter really just brightened her day? ‘Well, maybe watch where you’re going next time.’

‘Excuse me?’ Michael threw his cup away and began to push himself up from the damp ground.

I was still chasing after Gerald, who was gleefully zigzagging between BBC workers who were gathering around the mess he had just created, while he remained adorably ignorant of the chaos he’d just caused.

‘You heard me,’ Pim continued, brushing imaginary lint from her coat and not bothering to assist Michael, though she was less than a foot from him. ‘If you were paying proper attention, maybe you wouldn’t have been completely taken down by a ten-kilo ball of fluff.’

Michael’s nostrils flared. ‘I was paying attention. I was minding my own business until your rat in a fur coat launched an attack on my legs!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Pim gasped, scandalised. ‘Did you just call Gerald a rat?’

‘A rat would be better than what you’ve called it? Gerald? Ridiculous.’

‘He’s a Chow Chow, you imbecile.’

I tuned them out, pissed off now that Pim had failed to notice that I was still desperately trying to maintain control of the little rat, dog even. He had just decided to dart across the pavement towards a delivery cyclist. ‘Gerald, STOP—’

As I ran, my phone buzzed in my bag.

One buzz. Then two.

I wrapped the leash around my wrist and tugged until Gerald gave way, finally allowing me to scoop him up, hair plastered to my face in the sudden sweat that effort had caused, and I fished out my phone from my bag. Breathlessly I answered without checking the screen.

‘Hello?’ I failed to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

At first, all I heard was a sharp intake of breath.

‘Can I help you? Who is this?’

‘Evie—’ Megan’s voice was unsteady, thick with emotion, but entirely recognisable to me. ‘He’s gone.’

My stomach dropped. ‘Wait… what? Who’s gone?’

‘Alex.’

The noise of the street faded into the background as Gerald nipped at my fingers with his long, scratchy tongue.

‘What do you mean, gone?’ The world had seemingly frozen as I suddenly thought all the worst things: Alex is dead. Megan’s a widow. Alfie’s without a father. Oh, God. I felt sick.

‘I mean, gone, Evie. As in, left. He’s left me.’

I stopped and breathed. Relief flooding me, followed quickly by a horror that I was relieved in the first place. ‘Wait – what? When? Why?’

‘I don’t – I don’t know. He just—’ She sniffed loudly, gasping in between sobs. ‘He packed a bag and said he couldn’t do it any more and now he’s just gone.’ Her words were followed by a wail that was utterly unlike anything Megan ever did.

My head spun. Megan and Alex had been together for years, since they were teenagers. Sure, they bickered, and Megan sometimes called him ‘an idiot in a nice coat’, but they loved each other. They had had a child together and spent anniversaries holidaying in Mexico, drinking margaritas on beaches and turning their phones onto airplane mode during sex.

Didn’t they?

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Did he say anything? At all?’

‘I—’ She made a small, broken noise. ‘I don’t even know what I’m saying. I just – I thought maybe you could come over.’

‘Of course,’ I said instantly; she didn’t even need to ask. I was already walking back towards Pim. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I—’

A loud ‘Oh, grow up, you pretentious git’ rang out from behind me.

I looked up just in time to see Pim and Michael still locked in a furious standoff, entirely oblivious to the fact that someone – a man in a dark coat, phone held high – was recording them from the street in front of the office. A small party of BBC employees returning from various lunch breaks hovered in the corners, their phones out too, all held high in an act that was definitely recording.