Daily, they sing in Latin, or Italian, or German, but with Welsh, the boys feel an added pressure to get it right.

‘Paham mae dicter, O Myfanwy,’ Phillip says with great precision. ‘Everybody?’

They say it back to him.

‘Right,’ Phillip continues, business-like, ‘it’s important to get the poor girl’s name right, don’t you think? It’s Muvanwuay, Got it? Muvanwuay. Everybody say it. Go.’

‘Muvanwuay.’

‘Better. Good. Next line, a bit tricky …’

19

‘That was juicy.’ Martin has been humming the melody across the playing fields.

‘What colour?’ William’s foot slides on mud and he grabs Martin’s arm to right himself.

‘Plum, of course, D flat.’

William always understands Martin’s choice – violet for ‘Faire is the Heaven’, egg-yolk yellow for ‘God is Gone Up’ – but he could never come up with them himself.

Martin hangs up his coat next to William’s before they make their way with four others to maths on the far side of the school. ‘Pity there aren’t any solos.’ Martin bends down to pick up a conker in the middle of the corridor and slides it in his pocket. ‘Will singing at the memorial be tough?’ Martin keeps his eyes on the ground. ‘Because of your dad?’

‘Not sure.’

Martin puts his heavy arm round William’s shoulders briefly before he opens the classroom door.

It took a few weeks for William to get used to arriving late for the first lesson of the day, but now he quite enjoys walking in once everyone has started and having a quiet few moments with the teacher to catch them up. As they weave through the desks in the room of bent heads, Martin mutters, ‘I’m going to learn it in English, and I’ll sing it for my party piece at Christmas.’

Mr Shrubs comes to their desks and drops a worksheet before each of them. He crouches down, resting his big index finger on William’s purple bander copy. ‘Long division. More practice, carrying on from yesterday.’

William can do long division. Fractions and percentages, not so good. As he scans the worksheet, he wonders if he could sing at home this Christmas. Martin’s huge sprawl of a family are always performing to each other. He’s told William about school holidays when he, his four siblings and nine (nine!) cousins spend all day writing and rehearsing a play; making a stage set, ransacking wardrobes for costumes, and then performing to the adults in the evening after supper. Imagine that! William thinks of himself, with just his mum, Uncle Robert and Howard sitting in the lounge together, quiet and tense. Still, they would love to hear him sing.

‘Martin?’ William mutters after completing three of the sums. ‘Can we practise “Myfanwy” together? Then I can sing it at Christmas too.’