William wonders, suddenly, if Martin has sung ‘Myfanwy’ to his family yet. ‘I’ve got a song to sing you all.’

Howard puts down a puzzle piece, smiling. ‘That would be marvellous! What is it?’

‘“Myfanwy” – I can do it in Welsh if you like.’

‘I can’t help it, William!’ Evelyn sighs and flops onto the sofa two hours later. ‘I miss your dad. Especially at Christmas. You can understand that, can’t you?’ She picks up the tea towel that lies next to her.

He shrugs, sitting back down at the jigsaw, running his fingers over the completed funnels. He steals a glance at her. She’s twisting the tea towel round one hand. He looks back at the remaining pieces in the box and spots the fluffy bit of steam that connects the funnels. He and Howard were hunting for that for ages. He slots it into place.

‘But I like being with him.’ His eyes stay fixed on the box. ‘It’s the next best thing to being with Dad.’ He forces himself to look at her.

‘Not for me. It just makes me sad.’

‘Well, I wish being sad didn’t make you nasty! I wanted to sing a song for you all, but you looked so mean when you came back from washing up, I couldn’t.’

She stares at him, the tea towel now draped over her red flecked skirt, then sits upright on the edge of the settee. ‘Well, maybe next year I’ll just stay in the kitchen and you can have a far better time without me.’ She leans back, then sits up straight again. ‘And I’ll ask you not to call me nasty, William.’

‘They miss him too, you know.’

She walks to the table and slaps the towel down. ‘I wouldn’t mind, if just once, Robert came on his own! Why do they always have to be together, when I haven’t got anyone to be together with!’ She marches out of the room and slams the door.

William moves his fingers again through the puzzle pieces, trying not to think about anything except the brown piece of luggage he needs.