She said, ‘All I ask is that it doesn’t sleep on your bed and that you give it a bath every week. And Ruthy claims you’ll want to call it Plops, and I’d prefer something nicer than that. This is your responsibility now, Dorcas. This is your dog, although I expect you to share her with Ruthy too.’ It was almost a relief to hear something sort of usual coming out of her mouth, but she was still smiling, so I just nodded and nodded, probably about twenty times I think.

Suddenly there was another figure at the bedroom door. We hadn’t heard Mr Driver come in, but I grabbed my puppy from Ruthy and ran to show him. He couldn’t take her from me because he had a large tray in his hands.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I know it’s breakfast time on Christmas Day, but I think a new puppy calls for chocolate self-saucing pudding whatever the time is.’ And he pulled off the tea towel and let all the chocolatey smell and steam fill the room.

At that very moment I knew what I would call my new friend. ‘Her name is Mona after your dead wife, Mr Driver,’ I said. He looked startled and then laughed his head off. We all followed him into the kitchen where Mum took out bowls and Dad took out spoons and we had the best Christmas Day morning breakfast probably in the entire world.

After we’d all had pudding around the kitchen table, I cleared away the dishes and piled them up on the sink ready to wash. I filled the sink with hot water and carefully put one splodge of Sunlight liquid in ready to go. I started washing each bowl while my family laughed and chattered away behind me. It was a comforting kind of noise and I was back in my own house looking out of my own kitchen window.

I was up to the third bowl and about to lift it out of the water to lean up against the others on the drain board when an elegant hand with lovely pink nails took it from me.

‘Sorry, Mum, I’ll just check it’s right,’ I said, turning the bowl over to make sure I’d found every bit of sauce.

‘It’s perfectly fine, Dorcas. And thank you very much for doing the dishes. You’re doing a lovely job. And, Dorcas, I thought after Christmas we’d go to the pet store and choose a nice collar for … Mona. Just the two of us. They only had orange ones the day I picked her up, and I knew that wouldn’t do.’

I just stared at her. My lovely mother. My mum who had chosen me a puppy and refused an orange collar because it was my least favourite colour, and she’d remembered. My mum who just thanked me for washing the dishes without being asked. My mum who didn’t ask me to put the bowls back in the water and do them over again properly. And then she said: ‘Close your mouth, Dorcas. You look like a guppy.’ But she was smiling, and so I was smiling too.