‘I was thinking,’ said Jack, looking up from the TV after I had put Elodie up to bed. ‘What does Mrs Barley do at Christmas? Maybe we should invite her to spend it with us. I mean, she’s done a lot to help us out these last few months. It would be a nice gesture. What d’you reckon?’

‘Yes, that’s a lovely thought. I bet she’s spent Christmas on her own ever since she lost Frank. I’ll ask her tomorrow.’

‘She hasn’t got any funny ideas about it though, has she? I mean, she’s not exactly conventional …’

I laughed. ‘Hopefully not. I mean, Christmas is Christmas, isn’t it?’

Apparently it wasn’t. Mrs Barley was in the garden hanging out washing the following morning when I broached the subject.

‘Oh, that’s very thoughtful of you. My own celebration actually starts with Mother’s Night on the 20th – I haven’t really kept up Christmas since Frank passed. The whole thing was commandeered by Christianity about four hundred years after Christ, you know – its roots are very much pagan. I celebrate Yule, the winter solstice, which will fall on the 21st this year.’

I was beginning to regret saying anything, but she added quickly, ‘But it would be lovely to spend the day with you and your family. And thank you for asking me – I’ll look forward to it.’

I always found the season a bittersweet time. Christmases spent with my mum were wildly unpredictable, and how things panned out would depend invariably on her current mood. I recall one particularly bad year when I was about ten. She couldn’t drag herself out of bed and I spent the entire day in front of the television and ate beans on toast for my Christmas dinner. No presents had materialised. Rather than looking forward to it, I would always feel apprehensive as the day drew near, wondering what it would hold for me.

Although more calculable, Christmas with Auntie Jane was a staid affair, and with it being just the two of us, dull and even depressing for a teenager. I look back now and realise that she must have had a miserable time spending it alone for so many years, and as such didn’t really make much of an effort. There was always the tiresome ritual of decorating a small, balding Christmas tree that was brought out of an upstairs cupboard and placed in the corner of the living room. We would pull a cracker at the table and exchange small gifts after dinner (she would usually buy another book to add to my growing collection; I would give her a pair of gloves or a scarf), and then settle down to read or watch the standard Christmas Day repeats on TV.