“Can you even call it a reunion if it happens every year?” Mr Z asked, saltily. This might have indicated that he didn’t want to come to the Williams family reunion, but he had Covid so he couldn’t attend anyway. I have to assume, therefore, that it was a genuine question. Here is my genuine answer: yes, you can.
The first time it didn’t happen was 2020. The first time it happened in my house was 2021 (almost no one came). The first time it was catered, in a pub, was 2022.
It is impossible to overstate what a departure from the norm this was. Usually, five branches of the family, only one of which is called Williams, turn up with exactly the same couscous, as if a penchant for too-large chunks of red pepper has been passed down genetically. Once, one of my stepmothers arrived with her couscous in an ice-cream tub with holes poked in the top. After sustained interrogation, it transpired that this was because the container had, until very recently, contained frogspawn. This was the only occasion on which the couscouses were distinguishable.
This year, however, wave after wave of delicious snacks arrived, on huge plates, and everyone went: “Wow, this isn’t like a reunion at all, this is more like a funeral,” and we all cheered.
These novel circumstances came with the reasonable expectation that the event, having started at 2pm, would, at some point, end. A single table had been booked in the middle of the pub garden we were occupying for Jim, at 6pm. That is not how we roll. If we had a motto, it would be: “It’s not over till it’s over.”
So, at 6pm, Jim arrived, with Mrs Jim, for what they thought would be a nice, quiet night in a south London pub. Instead, it was like walking into a 50s sci-fi dystopia, with scores of people who looked vaguely similar all making no sense.
“Jim!” everyone yelled, with that drunk overcorrection, where you don’t want someone to feel unwelcome, so you make them way too welcome. He had to sit through the speeches, in which he was thanked explicitly for his patience. He is in all the photos. By 2023, we won’t be able to remember whether he is from the Sheffield branch or the Isle of Wight one.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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