Liv felt vaguely guilty for counting down the time until Barbara Quirke left before she had even arrived, but then she could easily convince herself she was only doing it out of consideration for her own family. Anyway it would all be worth it when Eddie dropped down on one knee and… She felt that familiar rush of prickliness creep over her, a mixture of excitement and something else she couldn’t quite put a finger on, but it had to be all good – after all, it was all she’d ever wanted, wasn’t it?

‘Okay,’ her mother said examining a list of foods on Google. ‘The only thing that I can see here that might be a problem is the gravy, stuffing and the pudding.’

‘It will be fine. She can steer clear of the stuffing and we’ll give her stewed apple and cream for dessert,’ Maya said. She had already checked the deep freeze in one of the sheds and pulled out a container that she’d filled with apples stewed in sugar, ginger and cloves at the beginning of autumn when the trees around the farm were weighed down with far too much fruit to get through in apple tarts. Maya had even less time for Barbara than her mother, but because Maya was a solicitor, Barbara tended to look at her with a certain amount of grudging respect. Probably, she would much prefer if Eddie had fallen in with the solicitor in the family than the nurse, but the truth was, Maya wouldn’t have looked twice at Eddie. She was happily single until she met someone amazing – Liv figured; she was waiting for the movie-star version of their father.

By the time Eddie and his mother arrived, the Latimers were all suitably braced for Barbara. They’d dressed up in their finest; Liv’s mother had bought a dark green velvet dress for the occasion, which showed off her still-great curvy figure perfectly. Maya looked elegantly expensive in palazzo pants and a silk blouse and Mikey had donned the Christmas jumper, complete with a flashing-nosed Rudolph that Liv had given him earlier just for fun. Liv had brought down a simple cream woollen dress she’d bought at the local mills a year earlier when she and Eddie had been invited to a rather posh party one of the consultants was throwing for New Year’s Eve. For now, of course, it was covered over with one of her mother’s aprons, but she quickly tugged that off to welcome Eddie and Barbara.