Until Christmas, everything was fine.

Well, not entirely fine. Going out with someone who was away working for days at a time wasn’t fine at all, really, but when he was around, everything was good. When he was going to be working on a job for several days, he warned me first. And when he reappeared, I was always so ridiculously relieved to see him back in one piece that any reproach I had just melted away.

When he was around, he practically lived with me in my house. When I was at work, he would tidy up, fix things that needed mending, cook dinner for when I got home.

When he was away, I missed him more than I thought it possible. Every night I wondered if he was safe, and whether I would ever get to find out if anything bad happened to him. Although he usually turned up shattered, starving hungry and in need of a shower, he didn’t appear again at my front door with any injuries. Whatever happened that first time, I wanted to believe that he was more careful now, because of me.

Not for the first time in my life, I was alone on Christmas Eve. Lee was working somewhere – it was his turn, he said. He’d tried to get out of it so that he could spend time with me. He said he was going to try to leave early, but by ten o’clock on Christmas Eve there was no sign of him.

Fuck it, I thought.

Getting ready to go out didn’t take that long. My favourite dress, heels, a quick bit of make-up, hair up, bits of it falling down just moments later, and I was ready.

By ten-thirty I was in the Cheshire, and Sam and Claire were in there too. I was several shots behind them and had some serious catching up to do. Claire had already found a likely candidate for a festive night in; he looked rather young, though, and a wee bit too pissed to be able to put up much of a performance.

‘Don’t fancy hers much,’ I yelled into Sam’s ear, above the noise of Wizzard singing ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’ for the millionth time since October.

‘Yeah, but you should see his mate,’ Sam shouted back, pointing with the top of her beer bottle over to the corner, where someone dark and much more appealing was watching them both with an expression that was hard to determine.

‘Friendly, is he?’

‘Not so far.’

The friend came over and introduced himself, and actually he turned out to be rather nice. His name was Simon, and he was in the army, he said into my ear. Off to Afghanistan in two weeks’ time. I listened, and watched Sam’s eyes which showed total adulation, and slight mortification that this dark-eyed sex god seemed to be paying rather too much attention to me.

‘Simon,’ I shouted into his ear, ‘this is Sam. I’m just leaving. Happy Christmas!’ I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, for luck maybe, gave Sam a wink, and went off to find where I’d left my coat.

The Cheshire was out, then. And I wasn’t nearly pissed enough yet, I thought, as I clattered up Bridge Street to see if the Hole In The Wall was too packed. Grateful that I’d actually worn my coat over my dress, because it was starting to rain. Not cold enough to snow, but it felt freezing none the less, and for a moment I wondered if I’d have been better off staying at home after all.

‘No, mate, I’m not fucking doing it. No way. You can fuck off!’

The sound of an argument from an alleyway, and something made me look over. There were three men having a bit of a set-to, one of them drunker than the rest. Half in shadow. Probably a drug deal, I thought absently, head down, keep walking, you don’t want to know.

There was a queue outside the Hole in the Wall, but not a big one. I huddled into the doorway of the supermarket, next door, along with a couple of other people I knew vaguely.

Just in time to see two of the three men who’d been arguing in the doorway walking up Bridge Street past us.

One of them was Lee.

He didn’t look over, just kept walking, laughing at something the other man was saying, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Just then, a pile of drunken blokes spilled out onto the pavement and moved off in search of a festive kebab. The noise from the bar crashed out with them, some Christmas music, just for a change, along with a gust of warmth and a smell of beer and sweat.

‘You coming in, or what?’ said the doorman, holding the door open for me.

Fuck it, I thought. And I gave the doorman a Christmas kiss on the cheek and sidled into the warmth and the chaos.