I woke early on Christmas morning. I could hear church bells. We’d never had much in the way of Christmas mornings when I still lived with Mam and in the convent school we were lucky if our presents weren’t a cold shower and a slap around the face. But I still felt oddly pleased with the world as I opened the curtains and looked out upon fields that had been turned a muddy white by the soft snowfall. I lit the fire in the hearth and pulled on warm clothes, filled the kettle and spooned real tea into the pot. I’d stopped bothering with the coffee machine. I’d lost the taste for it. Then I switched on the wireless and ate thick bread with jam and felt absurdly happy with myself. Even now I can’t fathom it. Perhaps it was simply that I had made it to Christmas. Stefan had been gone for nearly eleven months and I had managed to keep on breathing. Last Christmas it had just been him and me and we had delighted each other with crackers and silly hats and stuffed ourselves with chocolates and clementines, brazil nuts and lemonade. This year it was just me. There would only ever be just me, of that I was certain. But it didn’t mean he hadn’t lived. It didn’t mean that all was for nothing. He’d lived a life full of smiles and though it had ended decades earlier than it should have done I could take comfort in the knowledge that none of his life had been anything other than glorious. I couldn’t think of anybody else who felt the same.

After breakfast I made a decision I had been avoiding for some time. I should go and see the Parkers. We had only glimpsed each other fleetingly since that night in November. We’d exchanged waves across the boundary wall and Mrs Parker had honked the horn of her car as she passed me on the lane. But nothing real had passed between us. Christmas Day seemed the right time to make a gesture. I opened the box of Christmas cards that I had bought and then not bothered to send to my university friends. I wrote a simple, heartfelt message inside and placed it in the envelope. I had a box of ribbons in a button box in the dresser and I carefully selected a neutral spool and wrapped it around one of my bottles of wine. The finished product looked rather fetching and it was with some remarkable joie-de-vivre that I set off to my neighbour’s house. I suppose I felt like a grown-up. I don’t think I’d ever felt that way before.