The room was decorated for Christmas. He and the children had worked all afternoon on it, with Delia running up and down from the kitchen to see how they were getting along. They had all had a great time. Even Margaret had come out of herself and made suggestions. There were swags of red and green paper chain across the ceiling, and he had put a sprig of holly behind every picture. The mistletoe was over the door going out into the hall. At one point Delia had come hurrying up to say they must save a bit of holly to stick in the Christmas pudding, and he had caught her under the mistletoe and given her a kiss. Her skin was very soft. She looked like her old self as she put her hand up against his chest and pretended to push him away. Then the children came running over and wanted to be kissed too. First he kissed them and then Delia kissed them. They were all bundled together for a minute and then the children began screaming, “Daddy, kiss Mummy again! Daddy, kiss Mummy again!” and Delia said, “Oh, I have to get back to the kitchen. All this playacting isn’t going to get my work done.” Lily said, “Women’s work is never done.” Lily was always coming out with something like that. You never knew what she’d say next. Margaret said, “I want to kiss little Jesus,” and she went over to the window where the crèche was all set up, with imitation snow around it and on its roof.

The window was quite big, a bow window that bulged out into the street. Delia had filled it with her fern collection. They were mostly maidenhair ferns, some of them very tall, and she had them arranged on a table. Sometimes Martin felt the ferns were a bit overpowering and that they darkened the room, but tonight they made a wonderful background for the crèche, making it seem that the stable and the Holy Family and the shepherds and their animals were all enclosed and protected by a benign forest where they would always be safe and where snow could fall without making them cold. The Three Wise Men stood outside the stable as though they were just arriving. Lily had carefully sprinkled snow on their shoulders. Some of the snow had sifted down onto the carpet, where it lay glittering in the firelight.