The lights were on at home. Billy gambolled through the door and, in an instant, was mobbed by his brothers and sisters. They seemed to think him Father Christmas himself, and nothing could have given Billy greater joy. With a half-dozen pairs of hands clutching him, he allowed himself to be carried through to the living room, where the tiny tree his parents had put up appeared a mere bough when set against the majesty of the fir tree standing in the Buckingham hall. And yet the presents piled up around its bottom in their higgledy-piggledy pyramid seemed greater than any gifts that would be exchanged in the Buckingham tomorrow morning. Billy’s heart soared.

‘I’m about to make your night even better,’ he announced. ‘Stand back, you bairns. Wait until you see what we’re eating tomorrow . . .’

The pig was wrapped in baking parchment. When Billy unfurled it on the floor, his sisters cringed away – all except Roisin, with the ruddy cheeks, who joined her brother Patrick in poking the poor dead thing with the tip of her finger.

‘And I got this too, for those that’s grown up enough.’

The next surprise he produced was a big cut of meat, dark and red with barely an ounce of fat on it. ‘It’s venison,’ Billy announced. ‘It’s what them who’s better than us eat. Well, I say, tomorrow we Brogans are just as good as the rest of ’em. So tomorrow we’re going to eat like kings and queens.’ He paused. ‘What do you think, Ma? Stick it in the oven, thing’ll cook, won’t it? They eat it red and bloody in the Queen Mary, but—’

‘Billy Brogan,’ she said, ‘you’re a wonder. But what about that chicken I got sitting out there?’

‘Chicken, for the whole lot of us!? No, Ma, let’s treat ourselves. It’s but once a year. And we ain’t paupers, are we, Pa?’

Billy’s father nodded and, in silence, returned to his newspaper.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ Billy asked as he and the other Brogans scrabbled into the kitchen to see their ma stow the fresh meat in the larder.

‘Oh, don’t you bother with him,’ said Billy’s mother. ‘He brought us a turbot tonight. It’ll do nicely alongside all this. Good Lord, we could feed the whole parish.’

‘Let’s not,’ grinned Billy. ‘We Brogans got to look out for ourselves.’

But even while he played with his brothers and sisters, fashioning a den out of old chair legs and blankets, then telling Christmas stories and stoking them full of magic for the night to come, Billy had a nagging feeling in the back of his head as his father continued to sit in silence.