But the weather hadn’t cleared. It had proved a Christmas Day as cold as any Esther could remember, the sky a low ceiling of cloud, the fallen snow compacted beneath it to unassailable solidity. Icicles hung off the ends of the gutter and the tap by the front door. Lucas, going out to see if he could climb the hill, had slipped over on a patch of ice and returned crestfallen and swearing. Esther had busied herself in the kitchen with Dylan and Lily, proud of her two children’s determined energy, doing her best to feed off it herself. Once again, John had made it easier for them all, staying holed up in his lair, allowing Dylan to take gleeful charge of the Christmas meal, wielding utensils and pans like a bandmaster, chopping, basting, stirring, and blithely announcing, during the course of sharpening a knife the size of a cutlass, his intention to do a catering course in Manchester. He had already been checking out colleges, he’d declared, throwing a defiant look at his father’s raised eyebrows, while Esther and Lily had whooped with enthusiasm.

‘Lucas, say you are pleased,’ Esther scolded, eliciting the closest thing to a smile Lucas had managed in two days, followed by the astonishing reward of seeing him leave his chair to put his arms round Dylan, and slap him heartily on the back.

‘That is good, Dylan,’ he said gruffly. ‘Well done. I am pleased. I am proud. And what you did, coming here, was very wrong, but how you’ve coped… it is… a wonder.’

‘Actually, there’s a bottle of champagne,’ Dylan cried, looking so lit up from the praise that Esther could have wept. ‘I had a word with Gramps just now, and he said we could have it with the meal if we wanted.’

Esther was aware of Lucas slowing down his movements, of the pause before he answered, the effort to keep his tone free of edge. ‘And why, may I ask, is there champagne if he is teetotal?’

‘To show he doesn’t need it,’ Dylan replied crisply. ‘He explained it to me. Like proof of willpower, sort of thing. It’s there, but you don’t care.’ As if on cue, a faint coughing drifted down from upstairs. ‘Dad? Mum? It’s in the cellar. Shall I fetch it?’

‘Not for me, but you all go ahead’, Lucas murmured, not catching Esther’s eye.

‘Oh, and I nearly forgot,’ Dylan added breathlessly, having started to leave the room and then bouncing back in, ‘when I gave Gramps his presents this morning, he said this was for you, Dad.’ He tugged a small blue box out of the baggy back pocket of his jeans and handed it to Lucas. Stuck on the lid with Sellotape was a large tag, on which was written

LUCAS LOVE DAD

in large, wavering capitals.