As she listened, sipping her wine, she envisioned him as a boy, climbing trees and lending a hand on the farm. Doggo moved over to hook a big paw over her knee. As he’d obviously intended, she took over the ear fondling, letting the silky fur pass through her fingers. It was nice to be this side of the bar, relaxing, she thought. Cosy. She could admire her handiwork with the lights around the bar a jumble of glowing colours above the bijou Christmas trees.

‘Of course, Dad was well then,’ Isaac sighed. ‘Before bloody ME got its horrible claws into him.’

‘Poor guy,’ she sympathised. She thought about the evening his parents had come to The Three Fishes and the gaunt, pale man who’d leaned heavily on a stick. ‘By the way, sorry I was eavesdropping but I heard you saying to your family that you might be here for Christmas Day. Do you realise there’s a lunch and that Chef doesn’t work on Christmas Day?’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘So Nate runs the kitchen?’ Nate was the second chef.

She laughed. ‘None of the kitchen staff come in. Tubb cooks it all himself. It’s his foible. Apparently he knows what it’s like to have nowhere to go and no one to be with on Christmas Day so he opens the pub. There’s just the one menu for the Christmas Day lunch – two if you count the veggie option. Last year, Janice did desserts but otherwise it’s down to him.’

‘Fucksake,’ he murmured under his breath, frowning blackly. ‘I hope everyone wants salad. There are about fourteen people booked.’

A laugh shook through her. ‘Oh, dear. But fourteen’s not too bad, not when you’re serving more or less the same thing to everybody and you have a catering kitchen. My parents have often given dinner parties that size. And besides, the kitchen staff do a lot of prep for the Christmas lunch before they leave on Christmas Eve.’

‘So you could do it?’ Isaac asked in a hopeful-but-not-optimistic way.

Lily put up her hands to halt him there. ‘I’m expected at Mum and Patsie’s for Christmas lunch. Otherwise I would at least take Janice’s role and do the desserts.’

Further up the table Gabe was trying to get the singing going again, teaching them all his own words, singing, fairly melodiously, ‘We wish you a merry Christmas and a sausage on a string. We hope it will choke you for making us sing.’ A wave of laughter greeted his ditty and people began to join in, putting great whooshes of emphasis on ‘We WISH you a merry CHRIStmas’ and trying to come up with silly words to trump Gabe’s.

Beneath the noise Isaac said with mock solemnity, ‘I wonder if I can get your mums to disinvite you? Tell them I want you?’