The red on the poster was broken up by a band of yellow light from a spotlight. Some silent-movie bathing beauties clustered together above Mabel’s name at the top, while three Keystone Kops ran across the top of Mack’s. Robert Preston, one of the stars, had signed the poster near his name and, across the yellow band of light, ‘To George, Love Bernadette Peters,’ was scrawled in vigorous black letters, with the ‘e’ at the end of ‘Bernadette’ curving up and back and finishing with a single slash across the double ‘t’.

‘I saw Bernadette Peters in Silent Movie,’ I told him. ‘The Mel Brooks film.’

I could imagine her, backstage at the Majestic in New York, the felt pen leaving the poster with a flourish as George stood there in his blazer and complimented her on the show, a drink in his hand.

‘I think she might sign “love” to most people.’ He pointed to the word where she’d written it on the poster. ‘Still, one appreciates the enthusiasm.’

‘Tea, gentlemen,’ Mrs Keene announced as she came in carrying the tray. ‘Tea and mince pies today. Baked this morning.’

‘Oh, yes,’ George said. ‘Christmas is coming and no-one makes mince pies like Mrs Keene.’

He lifted the Mack and Mabel poster and placed it carefully across two piles of books, so that there was room for the tray.

He was right about the mince pies. I had only had mince pies from a packet before. I ate two, and Mrs Keene told me she’d wrap up some more for me to take home.

I asked George what he kept in the glass case, which was behind him, and he turned around, to where my hand was pointing.

‘Oh, that,’ he said. ‘That’s my cabinet of curiosities. Everyone should have one of those. For those curious things that come along. Don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’ It might have been rhetorical, but I answered anyway. I wanted one. I wanted curious things to come along. ‘What have you got in there?’

He drained his teacup and said, ‘Well, let’s see, shall we? How exciting. Almost nobody asks, you know.’

He opened a glass door and took a metal object the size of an apricot from the top shelf. When he placed it in my hand, I could see that it was a model of a human skull. From the weight of it, it was hollow.

‘Can you guess what it is?’ He watched as I examined it. ‘It’s hinged at the jaw. You can open it.’

I held it carefully at the temples and drew the jaw down until it gaped wide. On the outside, the skull bones had a sheen to them, and I could make out my reflection, my pink fingers. On the inside the metal was a matt grey.

‘It’s a container of some kind. Something goes in there.’ I held the open mouth to my nose and sniffed it. It smelled of cold metal. It smelled of nothing, really. ‘I don’t know what though.’