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A little girl held up her picture. ‘Is this good?’

It was mostly wet glue and one sticker hanging on for dear life.

‘Wow! It’s brilliant,’ I said. ‘Very . . . artistic.’ She beamed.

I moved around the tables, helping where I could, fixing things, peeling paper off kids’ fingers and offering suggestions to those who were stuck.

Jamie hovered nearby, handing out sausage rolls while they concentrated on their projects.

‘You’ve gone all teacher mode,’ he said quietly as he passed by. ‘You can be quite bossy, you know. I like it!’

I turned to him. ‘Don’t ruin this for me,’ I muttered. ‘And stop being such a pervert.’

He smiled, then left me to it.

I sat down at one of the tables as they worked. ‘So,’ I said casually, ‘is everyone excited for Santa coming?’

A few nods came back as they tried to keep their focus.

I paused before asking quietly, ‘What’s everyone having for Christmas dinner then?’

Silence.

Not the usual excited chaos of menus, just a few shrugs.

One boy said, ‘Don’t know yet.’

Another picked at his glue stick. ‘Whatever my mum gets.’

A wee girl across from me said, ‘We might go to my auntie’s. If she does it.’

If.

Something in my chest shifted. A sense of purpose, an understanding.

‘Yeah?’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘That sounds nice.’

She shrugged. ‘Sometimes she does it. Sometimes she doesn’t.’

Another boy said, ‘We had pizza last year.’

‘Pizza’s class,’ I said. ‘Can’t go wrong with pizza.’ He nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

There was no arguing over turkey. No strong opinions on sprouts or pigs in blankets. No, ‘My gran burns the roast tatties every year.’ Just lots of uncertainty.

‘What about you, Harri?’ one of them asked suddenly. ‘What do you have for dinner?’

I smiled automatically. ‘Oh, loads of rubbish. I go all out. Too much food, honestly.’

Too much. Always too much. I thought about the table. The entire day was filmed for Instagram, and everything had to be perfect. I’d make the dinner, of course. Rupert would complain how full he was, but still go back for seconds, the greedy bastard. Then I’d watch him lie on the sofa afterwards in a total food coma, while I steeped, cleaned and scrubbed the kitchen back into normality. I swallowed.

‘It’s chaos,’ I added lightly. ‘Absolute chaos.’ That got a few smiles.

‘Harri,’ a boy said, holding up his decoration, ‘is this a good snowman?’ It looked like three blobs of smudgy white and a questionable weapon.

‘It is,’ I said firmly. ‘Very festive. Slightly threatening, but still festive.’

He grinned.