Howard ruffles his hair. ‘Good to see you, William. You’ve got tall!’

‘We shouldn’t be surprised, but hasn’t he just?’ Robert holds William’s face in his hands a brief moment, then turns to his mother.

‘Happy Christmas, Evelyn. Good to have him back?’

‘What do you think?’ she replies snippily. ‘Sit down and I’ll finish in the kitchen. Sherry? Tea?’

‘Sherry,’ they reply together.

Howard sits on the settee, Uncle Robert in the armchair opposite. William places himself on the floor between them by the coffee table.

‘Here you are, William.’ Robert puts the two parcels before him.

‘Thanks, Uncle Robert. Thanks, Howard.’

As William unwraps the 250-piece puzzle and an LP – the soundtrack to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story – he chatters about his first term. He keeps a close eye on Uncle Robert; his thick brown hair, straight nose, the dimple in his chin, and – his favourite bit – the three sharp creases that fan out from the corner of each of his eyes when he smiles. Which is nearly all the time, as William relaxes quickly back into entertaining them. He’s more outgoing and extrovert with Howard and Robert than with anyone else. It’s a hangover from all the time he spent with them and his father, when he was always the centre of attention.

When Evelyn comes back in with glasses of sherry and nuts in a wooden bowl, the three of them are rocking, silent with laughter.

‘What’s funny?’ she says with a bright smile, putting the tray on the table.

In a perfect Donald Duck voice, William says, ‘I’ve been singing the “Te Deum”.’

They collapse into laughter again.

Evelyn straightens the cloth and sits at the table. ‘It always worries me you’ll damage your voice doing that,’ she says, and bites into a crab paste sandwich.

Later, Howard sits cross-legged with William at the coffee table and they start the jigsaw of the Cunard liner. Howard smells woody and crisp. They wonder if the piece in William’s hand is the grey sky, or the metal of the boat. They give up and concentrate on the red funnels. Uncle Robert and Evelyn are talking at the table about nothing. He asks if she needs the window frames painting, because he wouldn’t mind doing that. She says no, but thank you. After a while, he asks if they can play the LP they gave William.

William says, ‘Yes please,’ before Evelyn can say something unkind.

He and Howard carry on with the puzzle; Uncle Robert and Evelyn listen to the music with their eyes shut. Eventually they go into the kitchen and wash up.

Howard relaxes, swings puzzle pieces in the air in time to the music. Soon, every rummage in the box for a piece, every attempt to fit one into place, has become a giggled piece of choreography.