‘What are you getting for Christmas? I’m going to get pony-riding lessons. Because my birthday is six days afterwards, I always get smaller things for Christmas and bigger things for my birthday. But I think pony riding lessons are quite big. So my birthday is going to be brilliant.’

A man came out with shopping bags. ‘OK, Sheanna?’ He sounded American. Gave Matty a cursory, though not unfriendly glance. ‘Hi.’

‘Merry Christmas,’ Sheanna said.

‘You too, mate.’

Matty heard her dad say, ‘Making friends with everyone again, are you?’ as they walked off and Sheanna saying, ‘I can’t help it. I’m really friendly.’

***

Christmas morning. Brigid gave Matty a book while they were still in bed – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – then flicked through it and talked about metaphysics. Matty had used the car earlier in the week to find something two villages south – a necklace that it was obvious Brigid didn’t really like, though she did her best to pretend.

They were raised by the phone. It was Brigid’s aunt, saying her mother had not been well. Brigid sighed heavily over a late breakfast before heading off to Cork.

Matty drifted through the house, listening to its taps and clicks, looking at all the cling-filmed dishes of food that Brigid had made yesterday. It was better to be here, alone. The first Christmas with no one.

A phone call to Heather.

‘You were going to be our little Christmas gnome.’

‘Yeah, well, you can probably pick another up off the street.’

A snort. ‘Bloody heroin addicts and wasters round here, mate. Santa and me are passing them by. Who’s this woman again?’ Half-suspicious, her territory being strayed onto.

‘Brigid. She’s a teacher.’

‘Well, tell her this from me: she’s going to give you back at some point or I’m coming over there to have fisticuffs at dawn. Got new nails in for the season. Green and red.’

There was the sound of Val saying something in the background.

‘Happy Christmas, mate.’ Matty tried not to croak. Heather was the nearest thing to family in years.

‘You too, nutcracker. Laters roast potaters.’

Matty felt an ache for Rosa, even though the last three Christmasses hadn’t been spent with her, and though the ones before that had been laboured, sullen, hellish. There was a deeper, bruising ache for the Christmasses of long ago, when Joe would ceremoniously lay out a double measure of Jameson and a plate of malted milk biscuits, and be astonished the next morning, his mouth a perfect ‘o’, even after Matty was eight and knew perfectly well that it was all a charade. ‘Now, what did my man bring for me this year?’ he’d say, sitting down on the chair nearest the baubled tree. ‘I’ve definitely been good enough.’ Wink. ‘Mostly.’