After work on Christmas Eve, Mr Jenkins said his farewells and set off for his mother’s for the weekend. The rest of the household, with Agnieska, decorated the tree, which had been waiting out in the garden. Sybil had a box of pretty glass baubles and they made some bows with ribbon, and Katie and Agnieska made some paper chains with Michael and hung them across the dining room. Katie found Agnieska lively company, and she was obviously loving being back in a real home. She had been properly introduced to Archie, who was now satisfied and snoozing by the fire.

Marek and Piotr were joking around in one corner, teasing Sybil and hanging things on the tree, while Katie and Agnieska sat at the table. There was leg-pulling in both Polish and English.

‘What did he say?’ Katie asked, amused, as Marek shot a satirical remark across to his sister in Polish.

‘He say . . .’ Agnieska stopped to think.

‘Not too much glue, Michael!’ Katie intervened.

‘. . . is good my hair is . . .’ She indicated its length.

‘Long? Grown?’

‘Grown – yes. Before, is very . . . um . . .’

‘Short?’

‘Yes – short.’

‘She looked like a boy when I last see – er, saw her – before England,’ Marek teased. Seeing Katie’s puzzled expression, he said, ‘In the Uzbek camp they shaved her head: she was sick, with typhus.’

‘Oh, my goodness,’ Sybil said. She was directing operations from a chair near the Christmas tree. ‘You poor girl. That sounds terrible.’

‘Is bad,’ Piotr agreed. ‘I had also. Bad fever, markings – rash on body, bad head – bad everything. We catch from lice.’

‘Yes, so my hair – all gone,’ Agnieska agreed. ‘His hair too.’

Marek chuckled.

‘That’s not funny!’ Katie scolded him.

‘Is OK,’ Agnieska laughed, shaking her fist at him. ‘Later I kill him.’

Christmas was one of the many times Katie had to be grateful to Sybil, for the way she let people into her house to share her life. It seemed to be her instinctive nature to do so; perhaps, Katie thought, because she had been one of a large and quite loving – if eccentric – family.

On Christmas Eve, Katie and all the Poles went to Midnight Mass, leaving Michael asleep with Sybil.

‘I can’t be doing with going off at night any more,’ Sybil said. ‘I’ll go to the service on Christmas morning.’