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did you?”
    “Bumped into an old friend,” he said, trying to keep his voice casual. “Someone I haven’t seen since I left here.”
    Janice grinned at him impishly. “Pretty old friend, was she?”
    “He,” Jonah corrected, and waited for the inevitable moment where she paused to stare, reassessing him. It was funny how people always seemed taken aback. Given the amount of grief he’d been given at school for not being part of the whole macho rowing and rugby crowd, he’d have thought people’s assumptions would run the other way.
    After a moment, she nodded. “Handsome, then?”
    Jonah gave her a sheepish smile but went back to work, letting the old songs bubble out of him. His adult voice wasn’t good enough to make a career from, but he could still sing and he knew this music, better than he knew himself, a lot of the time. He just hadn’t felt like singing for so long.
    He and Janice finished at half five, which gave him a few hours to fill, so he went to evensong. He didn’t believe in a Christian god anymore, nor did he attend church services, not when he knew the church didn’t want him, but he took comfort in the rituals. They had given shape and structure to his childhood, and there was a comfort in falling back into those old routines. As a child, he had thought the cathedral was the world in miniature, with a role for every person and a deeper meaning to every act. Reality wasn’t anywhere near so orderly and measured, though. It was more like the market outside, vibrant and messy, full of excitement and avarice, rash choices matched by thoughtful calculations, and everyone mingling together in a fast, sometimes frustrating, muddle of humanity.
    It was a relief to step outside after the service, though the crisp night air made him catch his breath and hitch his scarf a little higher. He wasn’t sure whether Callum’s invitation had included food, but he wasn’t really hungry. A twist of nerves had settled in his stomach. It had felt right to flirt with Callum, as if finally he’d found the true path in his life again, but he wasn’t sure how to turn that conviction into reality. It might turn out to be nothing, but he knew it was one of those things he had to try. He could still just about remember the very first time someone had told him he could be a chorister, and the determination that had flooded him then. He had made that choice in an instant, and it had been right. He had chosen his course of study just as fast, and that had been right. Callum felt right in the same way.
    Of course, now he had to persuade Callum of that and get him to give them a proper chance. That was going to be the difficult bit. He wandered as he thought about it, a vague peregrination around his childhood haunts. He’d been confident here, once upon a time, and he tried to remember how that had felt before the intervening years had chipped it all away. He’d had certainty, once.
    It was funny to realize some of that had been because of Callum. All the fixed points in his life had been here in Aylminster: the cathedral, the music, and Callum’s arrival every Christmas. No wonder he’d frayed apart so badly when he left.
    By the time he got back to the Christmas market, the traders were starting to pack up for the night. After the quiet darkness of the surrounding streets, it was a pleasant shock to stumble back into the lights and good cheer of the market, and he edged his way politely through the last of the crowds to look for Callum.
    When he found the stall, he was taken aback. He hadn’t been quite sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Meeching Woodcraft sold polished wood: smooth bowls that looked like they’d been carved from one piece of wood, the patterns of the grain drawing the eye; more bowls and platters where the bark had been left on the rims; pen holders made from curls of wood; Christmas-tree decorations by the boxful; and further back, on the shelves at the back of the chalet, nativity