Reverend Mother’s presence brings a tension, an edge to the gathering. Everyone is on their best behaviour. Even laid-back Margaret is looking unnaturally spruce, her unruly red locks that usually escape in every direction imprisoned in hairpins.

Mother claps her hands for silence. ‘We will sing “Silent Night”,’ she instructs as the room quietens down.

The old familiar carol brings a loneliness that catches her unawares. It is worse than loneliness. At home they have a name for it: uaigneas. That aching aloneness and loneliness that words cannot describe. She is apprehensive. What will become of her? With superhuman force of will she gathers herself and, by some grace, manages to join in the next verse.

Later, when all the guests are feasting on the eagerly awaited Christmas Eve supper, the children trying but failing to be polite as they cram food into their mouths, he comes to stand beside her at the buffet.

‘Bon nuit,’ he says casually, trying to ignore Mother’s gimlet eye.

She keeps her head down, placing a slice of mango on her plate although her throat is so constricted she can hardly eat. ‘Oíche maith,’ she says. She has been teaching him Irish. At that moment one of the children trips over and a plate smashes. There are squawks of dismay and flurries of activity as the broken pieces are swept off the floor, and while Mother’s and everyone else’s attention is elsewhere, she whispers urgently, ‘I’m pregnant.’

‘Mon Dieu!’ he utters, his face turning ashen.

For one awful moment she thinks he is going to abandon her and leave her to endure the future alone, and then she hears him say, ‘I am with you. We will face this together,’ before someone comes to claim his attention.

Relief washes over her. Just as Joseph had stayed with Mary and helped her bring her child into the world on this Holy Night over two thousand years ago, her St Joseph will be with her on this new, unplanned journey that lies ahead. Joy fills her. There will be uproar when the news breaks. She knows a hard road lies ahead, but every fibre of her body rejoices at the new life she is carrying.

CHRISTMAS EVE

2017

She was a little girl again, back in the Four Winds. The easterly gale howling, keening like a banshee as it swirled around the chimney pots, almost drowning out the angry roar of the sea as it hurled itself against the rocks standing sentinel beside the half-moon bay at the foot of the bockety wooden steps at the end of the vegetable garden.