The tinsel was swaying in the breeze from the heaters, the buffet had been well picked over, and the aunts were jigging tipsily to Slade amidst the flashing lights of the dance floor. It was the Mortimers’ pre-Christmas knees-up at the village hall, and everyone had come along. There was John, glancing awkwardly across the room at Robyn and his children, while struggling through a conversation with one of his uncles. There was Alison, hooting with laughter in a corner with Jeanie and her other knitting-group pals, having made firm friends of them all. And there too was Frankie, up for the weekend for the first time – well, the second, if you included the fateful anniversary-party incident – with the rest of the immediate family under strict instructions to make her feel welcome, a part of the clan.

Paula and Frankie had already met once by now; and it was remarkable, Paula thought, how well you could feel you knew someone after just two encounters and a lot of phone calls. Geography and travelling distances meant that theirs wouldn’t be a popping-round-for-coffee sort of relationship, before you even factored in the added complications of children and work and other commitments, but they’d managed a weekend together so far, with Paula venturing down to London in the autumn, feeling excited, if a little apprehensive, about the situation. After all, there were so many things that could go wrong – and her in a strange city, far from home, too. But Frankie had been waiting for her at King’s Cross station when the train pulled in and, after the briefest of hesitations, the two women had thrown their arms around each other. Following a huge breathless squeeze, they drew apart a fraction, to marvel laughingly at the similarities between their own faces; and then basically didn’t stop talking for the next forty-eight hours, until it was time for Paula to go home again. And oh, having a sister was just lovely, Paula thought that whole weekend, and again and again afterwards, whenever they spoke on the phone or texted. You got to your forties and you thought life didn’t really hold any surprises for you, but it did, and they could be unexpectedly wonderful. What a delight this one was turning out to be!