There were ten of them for Christmas lunch. Dan, Katelin and Alex, Bill and Marion, then Claire and her husband Marcus, and their three, Will, Jack and Molly. Joe was a ski instructor in Courchevel these days. He hadn’t been home for Christmas in years, skied all winter and early spring, then ran cycling tours up and down the same mountains in summer and early autumn. Alex loved his Sheffield cousins, was never happier at home than when they came to stay. There were only these three on the English side, because Uncle Joe had never had kids, but in and around Coleraine there were lots of cousins, nineteen in all, although it was only ever five, the same five, who came to stay. Katelin had four sisters and two brothers and among the six of them, their six partners and their nineteen offspring, there were a few folk she simply couldn’t abide. The Christmases past that they’d spent in the farmhouse in Northern Ireland! Like landing in a latter-day Greek tragedy: intrigue, sibling rivalry, fights over birthright and land and money, and all of it stoked by Guinness and Jameson’s and great-great-granddaddy’s poteen, made by Katelin’s father in a 200-year-old still from potatoes and the original recipe. Dan loved the whole scene, but Katelin wouldn’t go any more. She said she didn’t like herself when she was there.

No such problems today among the Lawrence clan, where a Christmas meal of epic proportions had just been merrily destroyed, the turkey a ravaged carcass, the vegetables, stuffing and gravy only memories. It was late afternoon, dark outside, and sleeting in the deserted Stockbridge streets, but the house hummed and glowed with festive cheer, and the youngsters were sorting the presents into piles, for it was that time in the proceedings when gifts were given, and opened, in a flurry of wrapping paper, a confusion of thank-yous. Socks and boxers; chocolate oranges all round from Marion and Bill; make-up for Molly; scarves, gloves, cologne, calendars, all new this year, but also somehow familiar; it was always music that passed between Alex and Dan, always an LP, Kelley Stoltz this year for Alex, Fiona Apple for Dan. In the hubbub around them, they tried to talk about what they’d given, and why, and then Dan heard Katelin say, ‘Oh, Marion, great present! I’ve been meaning to read this,’ and Dan looked round to see what his wife was holding, and it was Ali Connor’s bestseller, Tell the Story, Sing the Song.

‘Look,’ Katelin said to Dan, waving the book at him while he tried to stay cool. ‘I heard her on Woman’s Hour not so long ago. She’s Australian now, but she’s from Sheffield. I meant to say at the time, but I forgot.’

Dan opened his mouth to speak but his mum beat him to it.