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‘What’s this? What’s this? Did I hear my name being mentioned?’ Crystal had swung into reception, bright, bubbly, full of cheer. This was more like it.

Beryl wobbled on her perch. ‘I was just saying about the tree …’

‘Ah, yes, what a good idea. Just the thing to give the place a bit of festive cheer, don’t you think?’ Crystal flashed Beryl a smile.

‘Well, if you say so …’ faltered Beryl.

I picked up the tree and took it through to the waiting room humming ‘We wish you a merry Christmas …’ conscious of the filthy look Beryl was giving me.

That lunchtime, Mandy and Lucy went into Westcott’s ‘Everything a Pound’ store and returned with boxes of lurid purple-and-emerald-green glass balls and red amorphous plastic figures which could have been angels, elves or Victorian carol singers depending on how they caught the light and at which angle you viewed them.

They set to work festooning the tree with this clutter of tat but found they had underestimated its size and were forced to supplement the decorations with blobs of cotton wool and lengths of white bandage draped across the branches. As a result, the tree ended up looking like something Florence Nightingale might have practised on prior to going out to the Crimea – the splashes of red ornaments adding a certain bloody realism.

‘No, I think that’s going a bit too far,’ I said, throwing up my hands when they showed me some blown-up latex surgical gloves sprayed with gentian-violet, the idea being to tie them in pairs over the doorways.

However, the tree, despite its wounded appearance, did lend a touch of festive cheer to the hospital. And I certainly needed it to help boost my spirits – for two reasons.

For a start, I was going to be on duty over the two days of Christmas; I’d thought it likely being the new boy, so no real surprise. Though to be told in July, only two weeks after starting at Prospect House, did seem a little over-eager on the part of Crystal and Eric. Still, there we go.

Then there was the problem with Lucy. A week before Christmas, I learnt that she was going to be the duty nurse for those two days. Oh dear; I could foresee difficulties there. Communications between the two of us were still patchy, to say the least. We weren’t really speaking … not in the heart-to-heart sense. Everything was very much on a neutral footing, everything on hold. So … great! What a Christmas I had to look forward to. More ‘woe, woe, woe’ than ‘ho, ho, ho’.

Crystal called me into the office to discuss the matter. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m prying, but how are things between you and Lucy?’ she asked.

I outlined the situation without going into too many details. I had been warned not to let it interfere with work. But then I didn’t think it had; both Lucy and I had got on with what was needed to be done each day without the atmosphere becoming too strained. Though, obviously, there’d been enough tension for Crystal to have picked up on it. Probably Mandy had kept her informed. Sweet girl.

‘Thing is, Paul,’ Crystal went on, ‘the Christmas duty roster means the two of you will be working on your own together. Do you foresee that being a problem?

‘Don’t see why it should be. We’ve managed so far.’

Crystal tapped her nails on the desk. Those neat pink shells … so dainty. She continued to tap. Clearly something was on her mind. ‘Eric and I have been discussing the phone cover. In past years, we’ve always had the calls diverted to our home number and assume you’d like to do the same and have them put through to Willow Wren this Christmas.’

I shrugged. ‘Fine by me.’ As I said it, I suddenly realised what she was getting at. Of course – what would Lucy do? By having the calls diverted, there was no excuse for her having to stay at the hospital those three nights like she had been doing these past few weeks whenever she was on duty. She could just as easily be with me at Willow Wren, only needing to go in to see to the few remaining in-patients each day and to help me out with any emergencies