‘We sung for one at college to celebrate a professor’s life.’

‘Memorials aren’t for the likes of us, William.’

‘Pity.’

‘Why?’

‘You might have let me go to that.’

Evelyn turns, and her iron look confirms that there is no softness in his mother, nor will there be until Boxing Day is over and done with.

‘When someone can tell me what there is to celebrate about losing your husband and having to raise a child single-handed, then we’ll hold a memorial.’ She turns back to the sink and swills out a cream carton. ‘But don’t hold your breath.’

‘Well, don’t take it out on Uncle Robert and Howard.’

‘Well, don’t you do that thing you do with the two of them.’

‘What thing?’

‘All of you. Together. I might just as well disappear.’

‘We don’t want you to.’

Evelyn is still for a moment, then starts back at the baking tray. William decides to leave her alone until they come.

In the lounge he looks at the old photograph on the bureau. Evelyn’s holding baby him; his dad’s arm hangs loosely around her shoulder. Howard and Robert stand a little to the left. Everyone’s laughing, looking at Howard who has probably just said something funny, his hands splayed, eyebrows raised. From time to time, Evelyn puts the photo in a drawer, but he always finds it and puts it back out.

By the time his parents met, Robert, Howard and his father had been a tight unit for over ten years. Robert and Paul were sent to different secondary schools, a chance for each of them to be their own person. Neither had felt the need for that but they respected their parents. Paul met Howard on the first day and said he’d never needed to look any further for friendship. He invited Howard home one afternoon that week, introduced him to Robert, and from then on, outside school, the three of them were inseparable. The Three Musketeers, William’s grandparents called them. William likes to imagine them as boys his age, swashbuckling around his grandfather’s funeral parlour. He isn’t clear exactly how Howard became part of the family business, or when he moved into the house. It had something to do with his parents getting married and buying the flat down the road.

They arrive with a cold waft of outside, woollen scarves folded over ties, V-neck jumpers and white shirts. Both men have big presents wrapped with ribbons, two for Evelyn and two for him. Under their little tree lies a solitary package for both of them, small, shallow, rectangular. William will not present them with the box of handkerchiefs this year. His mother can. Instead, he wraps his arms round Robert’s waist, rests his face against the soft blue wool. Robert chuckles and taps out a rhythm with the palms of his hands on William’s back.

‘Happy Christmas, boy wonder.’