Nothing was going to turn Peg’s preparations for Hogmanay from their traditional course. The black bun, like a pastry brick filed with spiced fruits, stood in the pantry; a rich Dundee cake glazed with hoarded nuts sat majestically in the round tin. Angus had killed a fat cockerel for the pot. The attic bedroom was cleared and aired for the Hustons’ visit, with a cot borrowed for Morag. Netta’s unexpected arrival had kept Peg awake all night. What a time to impose herself on them! Peg kept her busy in the kitchen like Cinderella, allowing her a dispensation to give the baby his midday slops, change him by the hearth and wheel him down the path to sleep in his bucket pram. Netta made herself useful doing his hand washing and steeping the nappies, feeding the livestock and poultry, content to hang around his lordship all day if Peg didn’t chivvy her away.

Peg hovered over her like a hawk ready to pounce on any infringement of her own routine, gritting her teeth to choke back the frustration. Resentment at Netta’s return hung in the air like a bad smell. It made the girl clumsy and flummoxed. ‘It’s a good job you weren’t carrying the bairn with your butter fingers,’ Peg sneered when Netta almost dropped a batch of scones.

With two pairs of hands they could polish the furniture in the parlour to a sheen; the log fire was lit to air the room and decorations strung across the ceiling, the faded pre-war paper bells which reminded them both of happier times.

Christmas was never the main celebration here but a side show in which they all trooped off the kirk and then politely exchanged a few small gifts. Angus had made the bairn a fine wooden cart full of bricks to push around when he was walking; hours of work he had put into the toy. All Netta produced for him were hand-made clothes which Peg dismissed as ‘coming in handy and very serviceable when he grew into them’.

New Year was to be the main event, the climax of this year’s end when lucky relatives with petrol coupons drove for miles to first foot. The darkest-haired would cross the threshold after midnight bringing a lump of coal for good luck; then the singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and the wee dram of whisky and slice of black bun to toast in 1946. Peg was dreading Netta’s making some scene in front of company. You never could tell with mental patients what they would come up with next. It was not often that her relatives came to visit so she kept the myriad questions she had for that young lady until after their departure.