‘And how are you doing?’ I asked.
She poured a packet of sweet chili crisps into a big green bowl and laughed.
‘I’m knackered, all the time. Constantly exhausted. But do you want to know the messed-up thing?’
I nodded, immediately stealing a handful of crisps.
‘Even though I’m doing everything on my own, it actually takes less time than it did with Oliver around. It’s quite freeing, knowing you’re the only person who’s going to clean the toilet rather than seething about the fact that there’s another adult in the house who isn’t going to lift a bloody finger.’
‘I know exactly what you’re talking about,’ I assured her, shuddering at a flashback to the time I tried to explain to Michael how to use a bottle of Toilet Duck. ‘Is he coming to see the kids tomorrow?’
Cerys smirked as she popped the top of a tub of hummus. ‘He’s gone on holiday with his new girlfriend. Totty.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. She’s his brother’s wife’s cousin or something? They introduced them because she wanted to sue Marks & Spencer for discrimination. She claims the rise of Percy Pig has made her a social outcast.’
I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing.
‘Dare I ask why?’
‘She’s a pig farmer,’ Cerys replied gaily. ‘She farms pigs.’
‘It’s a match made in heaven,’ I said, almost choking with laughter. ‘She can chuck him a bowl of slop every night with the rest of them.’
A little bit of schadenfreude is allowed at Christmas, especially when it’s for your sister’s ex-husband. She tried to fix things, as she told me over several bottles ofwine when she came down to visit at Easter, but he didn’t want to face reality and eventually she had to make some hard decisions for her own sake as well as for the kids. I was so proud of her.
‘Here she is!’ Dad cheered as I walked into the living room bearing a platter of cheese. ‘That’s it, Christmas has officially started now.’
It felt so strange, celebrating in a house that wasn’t our childhood home. The tree wasn’t as big and all of Cerys’s ornaments were colour-coordinated instead of a higgledy-piggledy colourful record of Christmases past. But that didn’t matter. What was important was standing in a room with the people I loved. And the massive glass of whisky Drew held out to me in his giant bear paw of a hand.
‘Merry Christmas, pet,’ Mum said, turning her cheek up for a kiss.
‘Good drive?’ asked Dad.
‘Why does everybody always ask that when they already know the answer?’ I replied. ‘Yes, Mum, it was the most wonderful drive ever, the roads were not full of lunatics, everyone drove very safely and Manny wasn’t a complete nightmare from the moment we set off to the moment we arrived.’
‘Talking about me?’ Right on cue, Manny strolled into the room all dashing smiles and hugs for everyone.
‘Only to say how wonderful you are,’ Mum gushed as Drew gave him a drink and a kiss on the cheek before turning back to the kids, accepting his role as a human climbing frame. Artemis and Arthur were almost as obsessed with him as Manny. Who knew true love couldblossom from Christmas dick pics? It really did work in mysterious ways.
‘You two should be in bed,’ Cerys said, plucking her son off Drew’s shoulders and grabbing her daughter’s ankle as she climbed up his back. ‘If you’re not asleep when Father Christmas comes, you won’t get any presents.’
Artemis gave a comically exaggerated frown, hands on her skinny ten-year-old hips. ‘But you stay up later than we do, and you still get presents.’
‘That’s because we know Father Christmas,’ Manny replied smoothly. ‘We’re all old mates.’
‘Why can’t we be friends with him?’ Arthur asked. ‘Doesn’t he like children?’
‘Doesn’t want to get in trouble with the authorities,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘Wouldn’t look good, would it? An eccentric old man hanging round with loads of kids. You don’t want to get Father Christmas cancelled, do you?’
‘Manny,’ Cerys warned under her breath.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Arthur mumbled into his chest. ‘He doesn’t exist anyway.’
Everyone gasped.
Cerys crouched down in front of her son and poked him gently in the shoulder. ‘Are you sure about that? Because I believe someone asked him for a PlayStation and if he doesn’t exist, how are you going to get one when they’re all sold out?’