“But Valentina and Stanislav-maybe they would like presents,” he says. “They are really quite traditional, you know.” Ha! Not the Nietzsche-reading intellectuals he took them for.

I enjoy choosing presents for Valentina and Stanislav. For Valentina, I wrap a particularly cheap and nasty bottle of perfume which I got free in a supermarket promotion. For Stanislav I choose a mauve polyester jumper my daughter once brought home from a school jumble sale. I wrap them elaborately, with little bows. We get my father some chocolates and a book about aeroplanes. He always really likes presents, even though he says he doesn’t.

We drive over on Christmas afternoon. It’s one of those grey, penetratingly cold days that seem to have taken over from white Christmases. The house is gloomy, cheerless and dirty, but my father has hung a few Christmas cards (including some saved from last year) on a string across the ceiling to brighten things up. There is no food in the house. For Christmas dinner they ate reheated microwave packs of sliced turkey breasts with potatoes, peas and gravy. There are not even any leftovers. In a pot on the stove are some greying cold boiled potatoes and the remnants of a fried egg.

I remember when Christmas dinner was a big fat bird with salt-crisped skin and oily juices oozing out of it, fragrant with garlic and marjoram and kasha stuffed in its plump tummy and roasted shallots and chestnuts round the side, and home-made wine that made us all tipsy, and a white cloth and flowers on the table, even in winter, and silly presents, and laughter and kisses. This woman who has taken the place of my mother has stolen Christmas and replaced it with boil-in-the-bag food and plastic flowers.

“Why don’t we all go out for a meal,” says Mike.

“Good idea,” says my father. “We can go to Indian restaurant.”

My father likes Indian food. There is a restaurant called the Himalaya in the desolate concrete shopping parade that was added on to the village in the 19605. For a while, after our mother died, he lived on take-outs which they delivered, and he got to know the proprietor.

“Better than Meals on Wheels,” he would say, “better taste.” Until one day he overdosed on vindaloo, with unpleasant consequences that he took great pleasure in describing to anyone who would listen. (“Hot on way in. Hot hot on way out.”)

We are the only people in the restaurant, Mike, Anna and I, and Pappa, Valentina and Stanislav. The heating has been turned down and the room is chilly. There is a smell of rising damp and stale spices. We choose a table nearest to the window, but there is nothing to see outside except the glint of frost on car roofs and the glare of a street-light across the road. The restaurant has maroon flock wallpaper and parchment light-shades with Indian motifs. Jazzed-up Christmas carols from a local pop radio station play in the background.

The proprietor greets my father like a long-lost friend. My father introduces me and Mike and Anna. “My daughter, husband, granddaughter.”

“And these?” The proprietor indicates Valentina and Stanislav. “Who are they?”

“This lady and her son are coming from Ukraine,” says Pappa.

“And who is she? Wife?” It’s obvious that word has gone around the village, and now he wants confirmation of the scandal. He wants his own bit of hot gossip.

“They are from Ukraine,” I say. I cannot bring myself to say, Yes, wife. “Can we see the menu?”

Thwarted, he fetches the menu and plonks it on the table.

“Could we have a bottle of wine?” asks Mike, but the restaurant is unlicensed.

We will have to make our own cheer.

We order. My father loves lamb bhuna. My daughter is a vegetarian. My husband likes dishes that are very hot. I like oven-baked dishes. Valentina and Stanislav have never eaten Indian food before. They are wary, condescending.

“I want only meat. Plenty meat,” says Valentina. She chooses a steak from the English selection. Stanislav chooses roast chicken. We wait. We listen to the pop music and the babble of the DJ. We watch the frost glint on the car roofs. The proprietor stands behind the bar and watches us discreetly. What is he waiting for?

Anna squeezes up beside Mike and starts to fold his napkin into an elaborate origami flower. She is a Daddy’s girl, as I once was. Watching them together makes me feel sad and happy at the same time.

“Well,” says Mike. “Christmas again. Isn’t it good to go out for a meal together? We should do it more often.”

“Great,” I say. He doesn’t know about the letter to the Home Office.

“Did you get any nice presents, Stanislav?” asks Anna, her voice bubbling with Christmas excitement. She doesn’t know, either.

Stanislav got socks, soap, a book about aeroplanes and some tapes. Last year he got a black jacket with a fur collar. Real fur. The year before he got skates from his father.

“Is better in Ukraina, Christmas,” says Valentina.

“Well why don’t you…” I try to stop myself, but Valentina knows what I am saying.

“Why for? For Stanislav. All is for Stanislav. Stanislav must have good opportunity. Is no opportunity in Ukraina,” she turns on me loudly. “Is only opportunity for gangster prostitute in Ukraina.”

Mike nods sympathetically. Anna goes quiet. Stanislav smiles his cute chip-toothed smile. Behind the bar the proprietor has gone very still. My father looks as if he is miles away, on a tractor somewhere.

“Was it better under communism?” I ask.

“Of course better. Was good life. You no understand what type of people is rule country now.”

Her syrup-coloured eyes have a heavy, glazed look. Today is her first day off work in two weeks. The black eyeliner has smudged and run into the wrinkles below her eyes. If I’m not careful, I will begin to feel sorry for her. Tart. Slut. Boil-in-the-bag cook. I think of Mother and harden my heart.

“My school was better,” says Stanislav. “More discipline. More homework. But now in Ukraina you have to pay the teachers if you want to pass the exams.”

“No different to your new school then,” I say drily. Mike kicks me under the table.

“No different to my school,” chirps Anna. “We’re always having to bribe our teachers with apples.”

Stanislav looks astonished.

“Apples?”

“Just a joke,” says Anna. “Don’t children in your country give their teachers apples?”

“Apples never,” says Stanislav. “Vodka, yes.”

“You in university teacher?” Valentina asks me.

“Yes.”

“I want for help Stanislav in OxfordCambridgeUniversity. You working CambridgeUniversity. So you help?”

“Yes, I work in Cambridge, but not at Cambridge University. I am at the Anglia Polytechnic University.”

“ Angella University? What is this?”

My father leans across and whispers, “Polytechnic.”

Valentina raises both eyebrows and mutters something that I cannot understand.

Our meals arrive. The proprietor seems to hover for a long time around Valentina as he sets out the dishes before her. She manages to flash her syrupy eyes his way, but it is a half-hearted flirtation. It is late and we are all too hungry for courtesies. The lamb bhuna is stringy, and we have to cut it up into tiny pieces for my father. The vegetable curry has no vegetables in it apart from cabbage. Mike’s hot curry is too hot. Stanislav’s oven-cooked chicken is dry and tough. Valentina’s steak is like a slab of wood.

“Everything all right?” asks the proprietor.

“Lovely,” says Mike.

Afterwards, Mike drives my father and Anna and Stanislav home in the car and I walk home with Valentina. The pavements are icy, and we cling on to each other, first for balance, but after a while the clinging becomes companionable. Despite the dismal meal, some seasonal cheer has rubbed off on us. Peace on earth, goodwill to all men, sing the Christmas angels in the crispy sky. I realise there will not be another opportunity like this.