He reached both hands into the sack, each of them taking a corner that was stretching the red fabric. Capability opened the sack as wide as possible and George lifted out something large and rectangular. It was the shape and almost the size of the Romney paintings, and I wondered for a moment if it might be one. Anything seemed possible. I checked the walls. The paintings were still there, the breast still perfect. The woman was now giving me a look that said she’d seen me topping up my champagne and knew I was drunk. It was pulsing in my head – the champagne or the coffee or both. My face felt hot.

‘Now, I know you’re quite the yachtsman,’ George was saying, handing the present to my father. ‘And I’m sure you miss having your Olympic yachting photographs on your walls.’

My father looked perplexed, as though he’d let something out that he hadn’t meant to. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and seemed about to explain himself.

‘Well,’ George went on, ‘this is a little something for a seafarer.’

He held one edge of it while my father pulled the paper away. It was an old map, framed. It had sections of coastline marked in detail, some coloured a pinkish red, but there were lots of gaps and spaces and I had no idea where it was.

‘A little something for a seafarer with an Australian connection,’ George said, as my father lifted it free of the paper. ‘This is from Captain Cook’s final voyage in 1778 and ’79. It was drawn by Lieutenant Henry Roberts on his return to England, and printed in 1784.’

‘This is the actual . . .’ my father began.

‘Well, yes, the printed map from 1784. I’m sure they printed a few of them. And then hand-coloured them.’ George touched the glass, near a pink peninsula.

Before anything more could be said, he dipped into the sack and brought out a present the size of a shoebox. ‘Two this size,’ he said to himself, searching for the tag. ‘Simon.’

I tore the paper off, and it was actually a shoebox. Inside, wrapped in cloth, was the soldier from the Napoleonic Wars, along with a fat envelope.

‘Simon had a fascinating idea about this little man,’ he explained to my parents. ‘He’s apparently an ancestor of mine. Fought Napoleon, but the uniform’s not British. One of you has a Dutch ancestor . . .’ My father nodded. ‘Simon wondered if this chap might be Dutch too.’

The vultures. George had said it would come to me when the vultures came for him.

‘And there’s something in there for you to open later,’ he said. ‘I want you to buy yourself the sort of thing almost-fifteen-year-olds like.’

I could feel it was money. The envelope was stuffed with notes. Even if it was all one-pound notes, it was at least fifty of them.