Nico shoved his phone back in his pocket and returned to the Goodbody table to stew silently, his pleasure in the gathering ruined. And Hannah? Vivvi’s phone call had proved that he’d been right to hesitate. His baggage just grew by the day.

It was several hours later that he sat down at his new kitchen table with his laptop open and Vivvi on the phone. By the end of the session – interrupted three times by the girls – he’d discovered from the Home Office website how to travel with a child who didn’t belong to him. He’d forwarded the template letter of parental permission and all Loren would have to do was fill in dates, destination, reason for the trip, Nico’s relationship to Maria via Josie and sign it. Vivvi pledged to courier it to Nico along with Maria’s passport. Nico emailed Gloria Russell, Maria’s case worker, to apprise her too.

Booking a flight ticket for Maria proved easy enough and, by phoning the airline, he managed to get the two bookings under one reference. He requested that Vivvi meet the cost and, after a silence, she supplied the credit card details to allow that to happen.

They were both glad to hang up by the time they’d thrashed everything out and Vivvi didn’t ask to speak to either of her granddaughters. Nico didn’t suggest it. Vivvi couldn’t see past her own problems and he’d had enough of listening to her.

When he got off the phone, though he knew he must call his parents, he chose to spend time with the girls first. Josie, he discovered, had decided to dive into her Christmas card kit and the bedroom looked as if it had been glitter-bombed. So did a giggling Maria.

Josie was blinking back angry tears because she hadn’t done a good job on the cards she’d made. ‘Maria was crawling all over them!’

Nico ruffled her hair. ‘It probably would have been better to sit up at the kitchen table and let me help you but it was me who asked you to take care of Maria so I’ll buy you a new set soon. How about we throw this lot away and vacuum, then you two mucky kids can jump in the bath and wash the glitter away?’

‘Yeah!’ Josie, good spirits restored, grabbed a rubbish bag while Nico wielded the vacuum cleaner and accidentally hoovered one of Maria’s socks off the end of her foot. She shrieked in delight so, refusing to tackle a filthy dust bag in pursuit of a sock, he hoovered the other off too, reducing both girls to tears of laughter.

When they’d bathed and the glitter had gurgled down the plughole, they returned to the girls’ bedroom and Josie suddenly squealed, ‘Snow!’

Nico squinted through the window to watch the occasional floating flake in the light from street lamps. ‘Wow, yes, just about.’