‘You’re not with us for Christmas lunch, are you, Mr Jepson?’ said Vee. He seemed to be lingering, a small parcel in his hand.

‘No. I’m walking to Finchley to see my old editor – he lives alone and is in rather poor health, so I thought …’ He held out the parcel to Noel and aimed a smile at a corner of the kitchen. ‘A little gift for you, not sure whether you’ve read it already, it’s light but tremendously gripping.’

It was a slim volume entitled Rogue Male, and Noel was padlocked to the pages for the entire morning, unfastening himself periodically to baste the turkey. Each time he looked up there was more light spilling in through the kitchen windows, and by the time Major Quive-Smith had come to a deserved and satisfying end in a Dorset lane, the sky was a cold, clear blue, and Corporal O’Mahoney was awake.

Mr Reddish raised his glass. ‘Here’s to the Greek government in their continuing fight against the rebels.’

‘The Greek government!’ said everyone, not quite in unison. The corporal’s final contribution to the meal, brought into the house in a kit bag, had been a box of chocolates (‘for the kid’), two bottles of Californian white wine, a bottle of Portuguese sherry and a hip-flask full of whisky. All the usual toasts – Peace, the King, Health and Happiness, Our Mothers – had already been made, and Mr Reddish was now working his way through the current news.

‘I believe that ELAS is regarded as a liberation force, rather than a rebel group,’ said Noel, who was drinking lemon squash.

‘ELAS poor Yorick,’ said Mr Reddish, holding up a drumstick. ‘Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?’

‘More turkey, anyone?’ asked Vee, reaching out to the plate and knocking her glass of sherry over the remains of the sausage stuffing. ‘Damn.’

‘Here’s to the Russians consolidating their hold on Budapest.’

‘Where is that?’ asked Vee. ‘I think my mother went to Bude once.’

‘Hungary,’ said Noel.

‘I have no great desire to travel,’ said Dr Parry-Jones, her diction unnaturally precise, ‘but I sometimes wish I could have visited the Antipodes. I have read that a male kangaroo can leap over a twelve-foot fence.’

‘I saw one in the zoo the same day that I saw Ming the Panda,’ said Miss Appleby. ‘It had a tiny little baby kangaroo in its pouch.’

‘London Zoo doesn’t have kangaroos,’ said Noel. ‘I imagine that what you saw was a wallaby.’

‘That’s what it was doing,’ said Miss Appleby, with a shriek, bouncing her fingers across the table. ‘It was going wallaby wallaby wallaby all over the place.’

Noel stood and started to clear the dishes.

‘Where’s our genial transatlantic visitor got to?’ asked Mr Reddish, twisting round to look at the kitchen door, his face still shining with the lingering joy of the corporal’s first remark to him – ‘Say, did anyone ever tell you that you look like President Roosevelt?’