Joining them, she found Josie and Maria sitting on the carpet near the Christmas tree. ‘Your mum said we’d get our presents if we waited nicely,’ Josie said guilelessly.

‘My mum’s always right,’ Hannah assured her, as Nico walked in, hair tousled as if the wind had run its hands through it.

Taking pity on the two excited girls, Hannah gave them her gifts: matching jumpers with unicorns on, books and DVDs about princesses. They grabbed and unwrapped with seamless efficiency, Josie yelling thanks, Maria yelling because Josie did. The rest of the family, used to absorbing whoever Mo invited at Christmas, even at what had to have been short notice, had managed small gifts – colouring things, stickers, puzzles and games for the girls, beer and shower gel for Nico.

Hannah’s gift to him was an experience day he could build up out of various sporting activities from swinging through trees on ropes to hill biking. To facilitate it, she’d created a voucher for One babysitting day from Hannah.

‘Wow,’ he breathed, flicking through the brochure of what looked to her to be brutal activities with glowing eyes.

‘What? Without us?’ Josie demanded indignantly.

Hannah hugged her. ‘You, me and Maria will do something fun of our own.’ Josie looked mollified and Hannah congratulated herself on developing her child management skills.

Then Nico pressed a small, rectangular parcel on her. ‘God jul,’ he murmured. ‘Something from Stockholm.’

‘What is it?’ demanded Josie, crawling closer to investigate.

The gift was wrapped in gold paper with a red ribbon rosette. A red box lay inside and when Hannah opened it she found a necklace with two hearts in amber, secured together by two tiny golden clasped hands. She looked at him with glowing eyes, seeing past the prettiness to a message of two hearts secured by two small children.

Josie, however, dismissed it with small-girl scorn. ‘Soppy, Dad.’ Then, brightening, ‘But it definitely means Hannah’s your girlfriend if you bought her hearts, so yay!’

Hannah’s face heated to the tips of her ears. ‘Apparently, I needn’t make any announcement so long as Josie’s around so – yay!’ She looked at her parents, hoping they didn’t mind.

Mo beamed. ‘Your face made the announcement for you when you walked in, lovey. You look like one big happy.’

Her dad lifted his whisky glass to her in a toast and repeated, ‘Yay!’

Nan did the same with her sherry glass and soon the whole family was showering Hannah with their laughter and approval.

Nico waded through the discarded Christmas wrapping to scoop her up and settle her in his lap. He fastened the necklace behind her neck then opened his arms so Josie and Maria could scramble into the hug too. ‘I have everything I could wish for.’

Josie nodded wisely. ‘Good job it was you who got the Christmas pudding sixpence.’

It was nearly midnight.