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We serve curry in big mugs with spoons, because everything else is packed, and Will hands them round while Horse encourages the fire back to life where he’d let it die down when the last of the customers left. Through the window of Ty Coed, on the table there, I can see his bag packed and his motorbike helmet ready for him to leave, after we close tomorrow. I snatch my gaze away from it and focus on the lights and fire, and Will’s excitement.

‘I brought you all presents,’ he says, eating mouthfuls of curry from the mug, his legs jiggling with joy as he sits by the fire. ‘Can I give them to you now?’ he asks me.

‘Yes, of course,’ I say. After all, it’s the last time we’ll all be together like this. ‘Let’s make this our very own Christmas.’

‘Lara, this is for you,’ Will says, passing her a paper carrier bag. She takes it from him and looks inside. ‘It’s a photo frame,’ he says. ‘That you can put different pictures in, so you can remember Christmas Tree Farm. There’s room for a picture of the puppies, Delilah, Horse, Gwen and Luke.’

Lara looks lost for words for a moment. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’ She hugs Will, and he hugs her back.

‘Luke, this is for you . . .’ He moves on to Luke and hands him a bag. Luke looks inside and beams.

‘The Beano annual!’ he laughs. ‘Brilliant! Thank you, mate!’ They do an expansive handshake they’ve obviously been practising together.

‘Horse, we got you this,’ Will says next, and hands a carrier bag to him. ‘It was a bit more than the others, but Lara said it was fine.’

Horse looks inside the bag, then reaches in and pulls out a shiny round tin.

‘A masala dabba of your own,’ says Will. ‘I thought we could split the spices, so that we’ll both think of each other when we’re cooking . . . from the family spice tin!’

And Horse wells up, and I have no idea right now how I’m holding it together. I just want to sob. But I’m not going to. I want Will to know how much these gifts are loved. How thoughtful they are. Because they really are – and that’s one of the things that makes Will who he is: his thoughtfulness.

He puts a new collar on Tegan and gives both Dinky and Tegan a dog biscuit, then turns to me. I’m almost too nervous.

‘Gwen, this is for you,’ he says, handing me a small paper bag with handles, with a curly ribbon sealing it together. My hands are shaking as I open it.

Inside is a box, with another ribbon and sticker from a small gift shop in town keeping it closed. I put the box on my lap and open it to pull at a ribbon; and hanging from it is a small, green, sparkling Land Rover, with a Christmas tree on top.

‘It’s a tree decoration!’ He laughs at his own joke. ‘Because there’s a tree on it, and it’s for the tree!’ he explains.

I hold it up, and the light catches it as it spins slowly in the wintry air.

‘It’s to celebrate Christmas, here at Christmas Tree Farm!’ Will beams. And then I see his smile start to slip and his face crumple, his bottom lip quivering. He looks back at Paddy’s tree, and says, ‘And to remember me when I’m gone.’ He sniffs and wipes tears away with his sleeve. ‘. . . Lara says she’s talked to a new family about me.’

I cover my nose and mouth to try and stop the tears, but I can’t, it would be like trying to stop a tsunami. I stand up and hug him tightly, and he hugs me back. Together we take hold of the ribbon and place the decoration on Paddy’s tree, in pride of place right in the middle. Exactly where Will should be. Right at the heart of this place.

Nobody says a word. The only sound in the forest is an owl hooting to its partner. And very faintly, in the distance, the sounds of Christmas Tree World reach us: the merry-go-round and the festive pop music.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘Just like you. Brave, clever and funny! Never be anyone else but you, Will.’

He takes my hand and guides me back to the log and sits beside me, in between me and Horse, snuggled in.

‘Let’s open our Christmas wishes!’ he says, throwing up his hands as if bringing some joy back to the group. We all raise our eyebrows.

‘Read them out!’ he declares. ‘I want to know what everyone wanted for Christmas.’

‘Will we find ours?’ I say, looking at the wishing tree covered in little paper messages and decorations. One big downpour of rain, and they’d all be ruined. Or maybe granted, I think to myself with a small smile.

‘Well, let’s try,’ says Lara, standing, and Luke stands at the same time, nearly bumping into her so that they both laugh. They start scouring the tree for the envelopes with our names on. Horse joins in for the high-up ones.

We hunt around the tree until we have them all. Then we sit back down, the fairy lights from Paddy’s tree lighting up our faces along with the now roaring flames from the fire, and hand round the envelopes.

‘Let’s read out each other’s,’ says Will, and his confidence and bossiness makes us all laugh. He stands up and promptly swaps the cards round, mixing them up.

‘I’ll start,’ he says, keen to show off his new reading skills. ‘I’ve got Luke’s.’ He pulls it out of the envelope and tosses that on the fire, where it whooshes up in colourful flames. He clears his throat. ‘I wish for . . .’ he reads steadily, then frowns, ‘a life with me . . . me . . .’ He stutters, trying to sound a word out.

‘Take your time,’ says Lara softly. ‘Remember you can hold your finger under each letter, like we did with the recipes.’

He takes a deep breath and puts his finger under the first letter, then begins to spell out the word.