Evelyn turns, and her iron look confirms that there is no softness in his mother, nor will there be until Boxing Day is over and done with.
‘When someone can tell me what there is to celebrate about losing your husband and having to raise a child single-handed, then we’ll hold a memorial.’ She turns back to the sink and swills out a cream carton. ‘But don’t hold your breath.’
‘Well, don’t take it out on Uncle Robert and Howard.’
‘Well, don’t you do that thing you do with the two of them.’
‘What thing?’
‘All of you. Together. I might just as well disappear.’
‘We don’t want you to.’
Evelyn is still for a moment, then starts back at the baking tray. William decides to leave her alone until they come.
In the lounge he looks at the old photograph on the bureau. Evelyn’s holding baby him; his dad’s arm hangs loosely around her shoulder. Howard and Robert stand a little to the left. Everyone’s laughing, looking at Howard who has probably just said something funny, his hands splayed, eyebrows raised. From time to time, Evelyn puts the photo in a drawer, but he always finds it and puts it back out.
By the time his parents met, Robert, Howard and his father had been a tight unit for over ten years. Robert and Paul were sent to different secondary schools, a chance for each of them to be their own person. Neither had felt the need for that but they respected their parents. Paul met Howard on the first day and said he’d never needed to look any further for friendship. He invited Howard home one afternoon that week, introduced him to Robert, and from then on, outside school, the three of them were inseparable. The Three Musketeers, William’s grandparents called them. William likes to imagine them as boys his age, swashbuckling around his grandfather’s funeral parlour. He isn’t clear exactly how Howard became part of the family business, or when he moved into the house. It had something to do with his parents getting married and buying the flat down the road.
They arrive with a cold waft of outside, woollen scarves folded over ties, V-neck jumpers and white shirts. Both men have big presents wrapped with ribbons, two for Evelyn and two for him. Under their little tree lies a solitary package for both of them, small, shallow, rectangular. William will not present them with the box of handkerchiefs this year. His mother can. Instead, he wraps his arms round Robert’s waist, rests his face against the soft blue wool. Robert chuckles and taps out a rhythm with the palms of his hands on William’s back.
‘Happy Christmas, boy wonder.’
Howard ruffles his hair. ‘Good to see you, William. You’ve got tall!’
‘We shouldn’t be surprised, but hasn’t he just?’ Robert holds William’s face in his hands a brief moment, then turns to his mother.
‘Happy Christmas, Evelyn. Good to have him back?’
‘What do you think?’ she replies snippily. ‘Sit down and I’ll finish in the kitchen. Sherry? Tea?’
‘Sherry,’ they reply together.
Howard sits on the settee, Uncle Robert in the armchair opposite. William places himself on the floor between them by the coffee table.
‘Here you are, William.’ Robert puts the two parcels before him.
‘Thanks, Uncle Robert. Thanks, Howard.’
As William unwraps the 250-piece puzzle and an LP – the soundtrack to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story – he chatters about his first term. He keeps a close eye on Uncle Robert; his thick brown hair, straight nose, the dimple in his chin, and – his favourite bit – the three sharp creases that fan out from the corner of each of his eyes when he smiles. Which is nearly all the time, as William relaxes quickly back into entertaining them. He’s more outgoing and extrovert with Howard and Robert than with anyone else. It’s a hangover from all the time he spent with them and his father, when he was always the centre of attention.
When Evelyn comes back in with glasses of sherry and nuts in a wooden bowl, the three of them are rocking, silent with laughter.
‘What’s funny?’ she says with a bright smile, putting the tray on the table.
In a perfect Donald Duck voice, William says, ‘I’ve been singing the “Te Deum”.’
They collapse into laughter again.
Evelyn straightens the cloth and sits at the table. ‘It always worries me you’ll damage your voice doing that,’ she says, and bites into a crab paste sandwich.
Later, Howard sits cross-legged with William at the coffee table and they start the jigsaw of the Cunard liner. Howard smells woody and crisp. They wonder if the piece in William’s hand is the grey sky, or the metal of the boat. They give up and concentrate on the red funnels. Uncle Robert and Evelyn are talking at the table about nothing. He asks if she needs the window frames painting, because he wouldn’t mind doing that. She says no, but thank you. After a while, he asks if they can play the LP they gave William.
William says, ‘Yes please,’ before Evelyn can say something unkind.
He and Howard carry on with the puzzle; Uncle Robert and Evelyn listen to the music with their eyes shut. Eventually they go into the kitchen and wash up.
Howard relaxes, swings puzzle pieces in the air in time to the music. Soon, every rummage in the box for a piece, every attempt to fit one into place, has become a giggled piece of choreography.
William wonders, suddenly, if Martin has sung ‘Myfanwy’ to his family yet. ‘I’ve got a song to sing you all.’
Howard puts down a puzzle piece, smiling. ‘That would be marvellous! What is it?’
‘“Myfanwy” – I can do it in Welsh if you like.’
‘I can’t help it, William!’ Evelyn sighs and flops onto the sofa two hours later. ‘I miss your dad. Especially at Christmas. You can understand that, can’t you?’ She picks up the tea towel that lies next to her.