‘Well, it’s a good job you’re on my team, then,’ Mum said, patting her quiz partner’s hand.

‘And what about Henry?’ Frankie said. ‘He’s not even in the family so Auntie Bea will have to answer all those questions.’

‘Ooh, I don’t know about that,’ Mum smirked. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

‘Right. Question one.’

By the end of nine questions, we were still matching Jed and Daisy point for point.

‘Last question!’ Dad announced.

‘This has to be about you,’ Henry said, leaning closer so that our competitors couldn’t hear. ‘We’ve had a question on everyone else. It’s a slam dunk, surely.’

We all leant forwards eagerly.

‘What song did Beatrice Armstrong perform in the Charis House Christmas Spectacular ten years ago today. I’ll give you a hint…’

‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No hints! You didn’t give us a hint for Daisy or Jed’s question.’

‘Challenge the quizmaster again and he will automatically deduct you a point.’ Dad peered at me over the top of his reading glasses. I kept quiet. On second thoughts, never mind Jed; I could do with a hint.

‘The theme of that year’s show was Let It Snow. You have thirty seconds to write down your answer.’

I did some quickfire calculations. ‘Okay, I’m pretty sure it was this.’

I wrote down ‘Winter Wonderland’ on the answer paper so our rivals wouldn’t catch a whisper of the answer.

Henry shook his head, took the pen from me and scribbled it out, writing ‘White Christmas’ instead.

I hunched over the paper, frowning.

‘Fifteen seconds!’ the quizmaster called out.

‘No. I’m pretty sure I did that one the year later. I’d just got back together with Adam, and it was his favourite Christmas song,’ I whispered hurriedly.

Henry shook his head. ‘It was this. You wore a shiny white dress with loads of snowflakes dangling off it and had a cloud on your head. You started crying right after the last verse.’

A vivid memory flashed up: me and Adam, backstage, arguing because he’d turned up stinking of beer and he was supposed to be coming back to the Coach House for drinks and mince pies afterwards. He made a cruel joke about needing to self-medicate before spending the evening with the principals – the kind of comment he’d never make if he was sober, and I was furious.

‘Time’s up!’

‘Dammit!’ Jed growled, prompting a stern reprimand from his wife about behaving like a good sportsman in front of his children.

‘DAMMIT!’ Daisy echoed, proving Mia’s point.

‘Rainbow Mermaid Warriors?’ Dad asked.

‘Winter Wonderland.’

‘Astro Quizicists?’

I took a deep breath. ‘White Christmas.’

The tension in the room was thicker than the snowstorm whirling outside the window.

‘The answer is…’