A moment of silence followed, and Marianne saw Howard’s mother pale. Then Harry bellowed, as only he could, ‘I’m not having my grandchild brought up in Germany!’

‘Then perhaps you’d like to go with me to try to get Ben back,’ said Howard.

‘What do you mean try? Ben is your son as well as Christina’s!’

‘And she’s as entitled to have him as I am, isn’t she, Dad?’

Harry’s reply was, ‘Look what you’ve done to your mother!’

Ann had begun weeping hysterically. ‘Why did you let her take him?’ she sobbed to Howard.

‘As a matter of fact I didn’t,’ he revealed. ‘I believed it was just going to be her usual Christmas trip. That, like always, she’d be back in January—’

‘And I might as well tell you now,’ Harry interrupted, ‘which I refrained from doing before, that for people who were in the Hitler Youth Movement, for whom Mein Kampf was their bible and their Führer their god, to celebrate Christmas – well, it makes me want to throw up!’

‘Only my father-in-law was in the Hitler Youth Movement,’ said Howard. ‘My mother-in-law was too young. But leave it to you to exaggerate, Dad!’

‘What’s to exaggerate?’ Harry retorted. ‘And while we’re at it, why don’t we mention Christina’s great-uncles? The ones who were in the SS?’

‘One of them is dead now,’ Howard answered.

‘And that happening to the other one can’t come soon enough for me,’ Harry said. ‘But meanwhile he’s still alive and kicking, and before I know it I’ll have a half-Jewish grandson telling me there wasn’t a Holocaust, accusing me of exaggeration, like you just did. Like Henry was saying before, the neo-Nazis are spreading their poison in Europe. And who do you think is putting them up to it?’

‘They don’t need putting up to it,’ Henry cut him short.

‘But what’s left of the old lot must be rubbing their hands with glee,’ Harry declared.

Howard thumped his fist on the table, causing the cake dishes and crockery to reverberate. ‘Let’s not turn my personal problem into a political discussion! This is harder for me than for any of you. But fool that I am, I waited to discuss it with the family before making a move. I’ve had a letter from Christina telling me she wants a divorce—’

‘The sooner the better,’ said Harry.

Kate, who was trying to comfort her mother, interceded. ‘If Dad wouldn’t mind my saying so, his desire to get rid of his German daughter-in-law is irrelevant right now.’

‘I agree,’ Nathan asserted his seniority. ‘What matters is getting little Ben back.’ He turned to Leona and Frank. ‘What is the legal situation from Howard’s point of view?’