‘Well, Santa will be here soon, so you’d better run and get dressed,’ Cordelia said. ‘Petal, Meadow, your fairy costumes are on your beds, and Forest, I spray-painted your Nerf gun silver, as requested.’

‘Yes!’ Forest pumped the air. ‘Now I can be a boy angel who packs heat!’

‘I’m not all together sure you are a good influence on them,’ Sue said, avoiding Cordelia’s scythe-like gaze.

‘You’re letting him come back?’ she said, while the children were preoccupied chasing each other in and out of Christmas trees.

‘He is coming back,’ Sue said. ‘What else am I supposed to do, it’s Christmas Eve! See how happy the children are, and how much they love him? I couldn’t change that, just because, just because …’

‘He’s a waste of space and you snogged Blake Edwards on the front step!’

‘How did you know?’ Sue gasped.

‘Ah-ha! I didn’t know, I guessed!’ Cordelia pointed. ‘You harlot!’

‘You said I should have revenge sex, and I didn’t, but I could have!’ Sue countered.

‘You could have had revenge sex with Blake Fletcher?’ Cordelia said. ‘Well, obviously I don’t fancy him, but why the hell didn’t you?’

‘Because … Because … I have lumpy thighs and stretch marks, and cottage cheese buttocks and breasts that are slowly travelling south. And I snore!’

‘You wouldn’t have been sleeping!’ Cordelia told her. ‘And besides listen to yourself, you are only forty, you know! And no man cares about cellulite, they don’t even know what it is!’

‘Well, I know. And … anyway it’s academic. It’s Christmas Eve and Rory is on his way home and I’m pleased about it, OK? I am pleased, so just understand, we’ll go back to normal and everything will be just like it was before.’

‘I don’t know how you can live like that,’ Cordelia said. ‘You deserve to be happy!’

‘I am happy,’ Sue said. ‘I am.’

‘Well …’ Cordelia made a sound that most resembled growling, which she didn’t bother to curtail, as Nick, dressed in full regalia, of course, made his entrance, trailing behind him an actual reindeer.

‘That’s an actual reindeer,’ Sue said.

‘I’m not taking it for walks,’ Cordelia said.

‘Well, I thought it might be nice to have him out there, munching on some hay in the little garden, so the little ones could see him as they come in,’ Nick said.

‘Where did you get him?’ Sue asked, rubbing the animal’s muzzle, its head bucking under her palm.

‘Where do you think?’ Nick asked her.

‘Did you rob a zoo?’ Sue said.

‘No, of course not. So what do you say, can Blitzen stay?’

‘Oh well, I suppose so, as long as we aren’t raided by the Feds.’

‘This looks beautiful.’ Nick smiled as he looked around. ‘Feels quite homely.’