Now, she turned down the street towards Tessa’s house. It was getting dark and the shops would be shutting soon, everyone making their way back to their families. She imagined Caitlin and Ash’s brightly lit flat and the huge floor-to-ceiling tree in the corner of the room. Ash, despite his feelings about Christmas, was given to expansive gestures, claiming a small one in their warehouse space would look ridiculous. She pictured the coloured lights strung, like a twinkling necklace, across the wide expanse of window, smelt the canapés her daughter would be preparing to go with the champagne: chipolata sausages with mustard dip, warm, meaty samosas and maybe aloo tikki with spiced chutneys, some smoked salmon on squares of brown bread …

The family had a tradition of not eating a proper supper on Christmas Eve, just pigging out on plates of little eats. Sometimes, wherever the family was, there would be other people, friends dropping in for an hour or so. Bash would be round-eyed and crazy with tiredness, but Ash kept to the fond theory that the later he went to bed, the longer he would sleep – wishful thinking, of course. Connie sighed as she reached for the front-door key. Stop, she told herself firmly.

Unpacking her shopping from Tessa’s string bag, she laid it out on the table. She wished now that she’d got something spicy – thoughts of the samosas had made her mouth water. She frowned as she picked up one of the packages. She didn’t recognize it. Pulling open the flap of waxed brown paper, she found a cardboard tray stacked with ravioli, lightly dusted in cornmeal. Checking the sticky label, she read: ‘Pumpkin and pecorino ravioli’. Shit, she thought, I’ve got someone else’s supper. Thinking back to the scrum in the deli she was hardly surprised. She remembered putting her shopping bag down while she waited at the counter, so maybe someone had muddled hers with theirs. Or she’d swept it into her bag by mistake, along with all the other stuff. It was expensive, nearly nine pounds, but it was too late to return: the place would have shut by now. She felt guilty for a moment, hoping the person to whom it belonged was not counting on it for their festive meal. But she would eat it with pleasure – it was one of her favourites.

But as she held the tray, she felt a prickle shoot down her spine. It was triggered by a stab of memory that jumped out at her, like a hot coal from the grate. The pumpkin soup Jared had offered her, and him, one eyebrow raised, asking, ‘Remember that pumpkin and pecorino ravioli by the lake at Como?’