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And a merry Christmas to you too, Mrs Fortescue!’
Josephine waved goodbye to her last customer and turned over the ‘closed’ sign.
‘Who’d have thought,’ she addressed herself in the mirror opposite, ‘so many people would want a new hairdo on Christmas Eve?’
‘Good for Jo-Jo’s business,’ her reflection replied, ‘but it does mean it’s already…’
Josephine glanced up at the wall clock.
Oh, Heavens! Nearly 2.30pm.
‘You work too hard!’ her mother had cautioned the previous evening. ‘Businesswoman of the Year is no use if you miss your new niece’s first Christmas!’
‘So they’ve definitely decided on Carol?’ Josephine had asked.
Her mother had mock-groaned. ‘They keep insisting she’s a Christmas baby. The sixteenth of December is Christmas week, I suppose.’
‘At least they didn’t pick Noelle,’ Josephine had laughingly pointed out.
Now she chuckled, scrawling a note for the assistant who would come in early, after the Boxing Day bank holiday.
‘And then it all starts again,’ she observed, straightening the