Humbugs and Heartstrings: A gorgeous festive read full of the joys of Christmas!

Odd. She knows Monday is laundry night.

Wondering what’s going on, I leave the street door on the latch so they can come straight up, then I take the stairs to my first-floor flat, glad to get in out of the gusty wind that has virtually blown me home.

My flat is in a slightly dodgy neighbourhood at the ‘wrong end’ of the High Street. A new money shop springs up practically every week. You walk down to Mr Singh’s corner shop on a Sunday morning for a loaf – and ping, there’s another! The second-hand furniture shop has vanished and in its place is yet another pawnbrokers, masquerading as an easy and harmless route to paying off your electricity arrears.

Estate agents describe this part of town as ‘trendy’, ‘up and coming’ and ‘café bar edgy.’ That’s all well and good, but actually, I’d rather it stayed scruffy because then the landlord won’t be tempted to hike up the rent yet again.

When I walk in, my breathing instantly feels easier somehow.

I painted the walls in muted tones – a neutral backdrop for my dramatic artwork – and the furniture is an eclectic mix, much of it collected from markets and antique stalls. The effect is softened by the gorgeous fabrics I acquire from house clearances and car boot sales, turning them into cushions and throws on the little sewing machine in my bedroom.

I switch on the light and then shrug off my coat, hanging it up on a peg by the door. The hallway is small. But a vast, wall-mounted mirror, framed in bleached driftwood – echoing the pale wood flooring – casts its magic and turns it into an airy, light-reflecting space.

Mum phones as I’m fiddling with the boiler in the kitchen, trying to get the damn heating to come on.

‘Are you in tonight?’ she asks, sounding a little tense.

‘Yes, of course.’ She and Tim live about a mile away in a little two-bed council house, and I call round for tea on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She knows my schedule as well as I do.

‘I was thinking we could come over.’

Remembering Mrs Cadwalader’s prediction about messengers, I almost laugh out loud. ‘Why? Have you got a message for me?’

‘A message?’ Mum sounds puzzled. ‘Well, not really. I just—’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I say quickly. ‘It was just something someone said. Never mind. Are you sure you want to venture out tonight? It’s carnage outside.’

‘I know. I just feel terrible … ’

Fear clutches my insides. ‘Why? What’s wrong? It’s not Tim, is it?’

‘No, no. Nothing like that. I’ve just had the final reminder through, that’s all.’

‘For the gas? But we paid that weeks ago.’

There is another, very ominous, silence.

‘Oh, Mum. But I gave you the money, remember?’

‘I know, love, and I meant to send the cheque. I really did. But then Tim was invited to Josh’s birthday party and I couldn’t let him go in his scruffy old trainers, could I? He never gets any treats, bless him, and he’s so unbelievably chuffed with the new ones.’

Instantly, my brain starts feverishly calculating how much I have in my account and whether I can make the money stretch to paying Mum’s bill and manage to deposit something into the Tim Fund this month.

My mum has the biggest heart of anyone I know. But she’s not great when it comes to budgeting. Money, what little there is these days, barely makes an appearance on her bank statement before it’s whisked out again. It doesn’t help that because of Tim’s condition, she had to give up her job as a school meals assistant so that she could teach him at home, and now relies totally on benefits.

I know that giving up my little flat and moving back in with her and Tim would lessen my financial burden hugely because at the moment I am trying to keep two households going on one wage. The last week of the month is always the scariest. I like baked beans, but not five nights in a row.

The problem is I love my one-bedroom flat with its open-plan kitchen-living space and its teeny tiny excuse for a bathroom. Signing away the large chunk of money for rent each month always makes me slightly tense, especially as the landlord is a proper shark. But I put up with the temperamental boiler, the dodgy wiring and the rotting skirting board in the kitchen on the basis that I’ve invested far too much time and energy transforming it into my sanctuary to let it go now.

When I fled from London three years ago, I moved back in with Mum and Tim. Looking back, I don’t know how I would have coped without their support. But inevitably, as time went on and my life got back on a more even keel, little things started to irritate. Mum and I are different people with different ways of doing things. I hated the tropical heat and Mum’s bizarre fondness for celebrating Christmas all year round. And it didn’t do Tim any good to see us nit-picking at one another all the time.

We were all mightily relieved when I moved out.

Especially Tim, as it meant he had a room to himself.

Tim was born with a condition called Scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that worsens over time. He wore a back brace for many years, which the doctors thought would correct the problem. Then, last year, they suddenly decided that the brace wasn’t working and Tim would need an operation. But the waiting list is long and it could be years before we get to the top. So we’re trying to save up to go private.

Apart from suffering back pain when he over-exerts himself and always wearing bulky jumpers to disguise the prominent lump between his shoulder blades, Tim is no different to any other twelve-year-old boy. He loves his Xbox, creases up at any near-the-knuckle joke about sex, and thinks the older generation knows absolutely nothing about anything.

In an ideal world, he would have the operation now, in a private hospital, because the longer he waits, the worse his condition grows.

But private hospitals cost money, which is why I now walk everywhere instead of taking the bus, eat from the reduced section in supermarkets whenever I can, and no longer buy clothes.

On the wall opposite my bed is a six-foot-high painting of some grey goal posts. The space between is sectioned off, line by line, into units, each representing five hundred pounds. When our total savings rise by five hundred, I fill in another section with sky-blue paint.

The goal post chart serves two purposes.

It reminds me that Tim’s burning ambition is to play footie for his school team. And it spurs me on to continue economising and saving every penny I can. As we creep nearer to our goal, more and more of the space between the goal posts is filled with paint. When we reach our target, there will be nothing but blue sky.

Occasionally, I am overcome with guilt at the money I shell out in rent. But as soon as I mention it, Mum shakes her head and says that I need my own space and to remember what it was like when we were living on top of each other and having fights over the bathroom. She’s much calmer about everything than me.

‘Look, don’t worry, I’ll talk to the gas people tomorrow,’ I tell her. ‘Stay at home, keep warm and tell Tim to behave or I’ll sort him out tomorrow.’

I go back to fiddling with the boiler. Usually, I can press a sequence of buttons that will rev it into action. But this time, it is resolutely dead. So I phone the landlord and leave a message, then I pull on my cow onesie and a pair of slipper socks, and prepare supper to eat on a tray in front of the TV.

I’m just finishing, when the lights in the room start to flicker.

I stare at the lamp on the chest of drawers opposite. Please, not a power cut!

On and off it flashes.

Three times in all.

Then, with a big electronic clunk, the TV cuts out.

Damn! That’s all I need.

Except it can’t be a power cut, because the lights are still on. And the next minute, the TV springs back to life. But just in case, I go in search of candles and matches, thinking it’s probably just as well that Mum and Tim stayed at home.

Remembering I left the street door open to let them in, I go into the hall and pull on some wellies, the only footwear I can squeeze on over my thick slipper socks.

When I open the door, my heart nearly leaps out of my chest.

Someone is standing there in the gloom on the landing.

A big, shadowy shape.

With a racing heart, I step back to slam the door shut.