Before we left Brisbane, my mother had said being able to go to the theatre all the time would be one of the great things about living in London. The night at Evita was the one time she had done it.

The next day, when I shut my maths book and thought about making a cup of tea, I looked out my window and saw my mother in the garden. She was at the fence, talking to Capability, who had propped his spade against the nearest fence post. He had been cutting into the edge of George’s lawn with it, along a line he had marked out with pegs and string, extending a garden bed. My mother was smoking like a movie star, her elbow cocked on her hip and hand out to the side, cigarette in the V between her index and middle fingers. She tossed her head back as she laughed, and he grinned a bright white grin. I couldn’t tell what had been said, or who had said it.

She came back inside while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. Her cheeks were pink with the cold air and she was still laughing at something. She took a mug from the cupboard, set it down next to mine and dropped a teabag in it. She leaned her hip against the counter. In the back room, Michael was watching Bernard Cribbins read Roald Dahl on Jackanory.

‘You want them all to talk like Michael Holding,’ she said, ‘but I think he’s from Yorkshire.’

I didn’t know why she wanted a voice like a West Indian cricketer’s to read Roald Dahl, and then I worked out her mind was still on her conversation at the fence.

Steam gushed out of the kettle and it shuddered and turned off. I picked it up and poured water into her mug and then mine.

‘And his name’s Emerson,’ she told me. ‘Not Capability. Capability is Mr Lascelles’ joke, apparently. There was a famous English gardener called that.’ She sighed. ‘Capability. Really.’

George Lascelles was in an RAF entertainment unit in the war. I noticed the photo on the mantelpiece on my next swimming visit, as he was crouching down, choosing a record to play. I couldn’t remember if it had been there on my previous visit. This time I had my back to the Romneys. I wanted to look at them, but I knew it would be obvious if I did.

I recognised Eric Sykes in the picture. Younger, obviously, but him, no doubt. I’d seen him on TV, in his own show, with Hattie Jacques. He was in the centre of the photo, with George to his right, another man to his left and a covered truck behind them.

‘Eric Sykes,’ I said, without meaning to.

‘I beg your pardon,’ George said, his attention still on his records. ‘I didn’t quite . . .’ He stood up with a record in his hands. ‘Oh, Sykes, yes. Eric, Denis Norden – he’s the lanky chap on Eric’s left – and me looking just a little bit dashing. You might know Denis from My Word on Radio 4.’