I left footprints in the snow as I walked and it was all I could do not to run in a circle just to enjoy the image they punched into the pristine surface. It was a little before twelve. The Parkers would no doubt be at church. Everybody else would be too.

Nobody answered when I knocked on the door. In many ways, that was a relief. I wasn’t really sure what kind of conversation I was expecting but I knew there would be awkwardness aplenty and my shoeprints in the snow would be a better indicator of my gesture of friendship than any amount of stilted conversation. I decided to leave the gift where it would be easily seen. The front step seemed the obvious place but I had seen plenty of magpies and crows pecking at food parcels and shiny bottles and could imagine nothing more likely to send the wrong message than the Parkers returning from church to find smashed glass and a puddle of red against the pristine whiteness.

I wondered if the back door might be better. I crunched around to the side of the building and towards the courtyard that led down to the outbuildings. I could hear the distant sound of a cow making a racket. I wondered if the calf it mourned was currently laying in a roasting tin surrounded by onions and potatoes, then shuddered when the cruelty of the notion hit home.

The back door was set back into a rough-hewn wall of grey stone. The red slates that made up the porch had been turned into a stripy Christmas scarf by the fine dusting of snow. And through the glass I could see the little room where the Parkers would change into their workboots and hang up their damp clothes. I decided it would be a good place to leave the gift and reached out for the handle of the outer door.

I can’t remember exactly how it happened but one moment I was lost in a haze of thought about Christmas and cattle and whether or not I had been right to send Mam a card when I had received none in return, and then I was staring at a set of boot prints that were so familiar to me I could just as well have been staring into a mirror.

The prints led away from the back door and towards one of the outbuildings. The pattern was unquestionably the same as the one that had been left on the floor beside my bed several weeks before.