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The day itself was always spent at Connie’s parents, a noisy, boisterous and boozy affair, the tiny terraced house packed with a mind-boggling number of nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, both Cypriots and Londoners and combinations of the two, the children ever-multiplying, everyone laughing and joking and arguing in a smoky room with the TV on. Later, there’d be ridiculous dancing, four generations trampling walnut shells and Quality Street underfoot. Once upon a time these Christmas Days had seemed like a refreshing change from the rather chilly and restrained affair I was used to from childhood, but since the loss of my parents the event had taken on a melancholy air for me. I was the stranger here, an elderly orphan, an appendix to someone else’s family, and the discord between my wife and me served only to heighten my gloom. There was work at home in my briefcase — perhaps I could sneak off early and do that? No, only lemonade for me. No, thank you, I don’t smoke. And no, thank you, I do not wish to conga.

Of course Albie loved it there, sipping creamy cocktails when no one was looking, flirting with his cousins, dancing on his uncles’ shoulders, and so I sat and watched and waited. We returned home after midnight, Albie falling asleep in the backseat, and I carried him up to our top-floor flat — the last year I’d be able to do this — and fell backwards on to our bed. The three of us lay together, too exhausted to undress, my son’s breath hot and sweet on my cheek.

‘Are you unhappy?’ said Connie.

‘No. No, just a little blue.’ That silly word again.

‘Maybe we need to make a change.’

‘What kind of change?’ I asked.

‘Perhaps a change of scene. So that you’re not tired all the time.’

‘Leave London, you mean?’

‘If that’s what it’s going to take. Maybe find a house in the country somewhere, so you can drive to work. Somewhere with a good state school nearby. What d’you think?’

What did I think? In truth, I didn’t love the city any more. It didn’t belong to us in the same way. I did not like explaining to Albie why there were bunches of flowers tied to the railings, or instructing him to avoid the vomit on the way to the shops on Saturday morning. I was bored of road works and building sites — when would they ever finish the place? Why couldn’t they leave it alone? When I returned at night, the city seemed an unnerving and aggressive place; I could feel my grip tightening on the handle of my briefcase as I left the tube, keys clenched in my other fist. Every siren, every terrorist threat seemed more urgent and more personal. And yes, there was all the great art, the wonderful theatre, but when had Connie last been to the theatre?

Perhaps the countryside was the answer. Sentimental, perhaps, but wouldn’t it be great for Albie to know the names of birds other than magpies and pigeons? When I was a child, on walks my mother would habitually name all the grasses, flowers, birds and trees we passed — Quercus robur, the oak, Troglodytes troglodytes, the wren. These were my warmest memories of her, and even now I can recall the binomial for all the common British birds, though I’ve yet to be asked. But Albie’s knowledge of nature came from trips to the city farm, his sense of the seasons from changes in the central heating. Perhaps exposure to nature would make him less sullen, moody and resentful towards me. I imagined him racing off on a bicycle with fishing net and spotter’s guide, all rosy-cheeked and tousle-haired, then returning at dusk, a jam-jar full of sticklebacks sloshing on the handlebars, the kind of childhood I’d longed for. A biologist in the making; not hard science, but a start.

It was much more difficult to imagine Connie outside London. She had been born here, studied and worked here. We had fallen in love and been married here, raised Albie here. London exhausted and maddened me, but Connie carried the city around with her; pubs and bars and restaurants, theatre foyers, city parks, the top deck of the 22, the 55, the 38. She was not averse to the countryside, but even in a Cornish cove or on a Yorkshire moor, it seemed as if she might lift an arm and hail a cab.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘Sorry, I’m just trying to imagine you in a field on a wet Tuesday in February.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Not easy, is it?’

‘What about your work?’

‘I’ll commute for a change. Stay over at Fran’s if I have to. We’ll sort that bit out. The main thing is d’you think you could be happy there?’

I didn’t answer, and she continued:

‘I think you would be. Happier, I mean, or less stressed. Which means that we all would be. In the long run.’ Albie shifted in his sleep and curled towards his mother. ‘I’d like you to be happy again. And if that means a new life in a new town … village …’

‘Okay. Let’s think about it.’

‘Okay.’

‘I love you, Connie. You do know that.’

‘I do. Happy Christmas, my darling.’

‘Happy Christmas to you.’