It was an Anglo-Indian wedding in the bride’s parents’ home in Wimbledon, a large Edwardian house with a garden the size of two tennis courts. Robin was there because he lived in the modest bungalow next door – ‘The best my pension will pay for in this part of London. Not that you’ll have to worry about that sort of thing, I suppose’ – and Charles and Sarah because the groom, Daniel Adamson, was her godson. It was a colourful affair, the saris and costumes of the bride’s family outshining and outnumbering Daniel’s more soberly and uncertainly dressed relatives. Daniel, who had converted to Islam, wore a long green jacket edged with gold, his red beard trimmed and his hair cut. His bride, Akela, wore a flowing white dress, high-necked with long diaphanous sleeves and a see-through hood, the whole thing populated by what seemed to Charles to be sewn-in table-tennis balls. She smiled continuously but was generally quiet and looked nervous, unlike her parents, who were energetically gregarious and hospitable.

‘But ten minutes is a bit soon,’ continued Sarah. ‘Can’t it be longer? You must say goodbye to Deborah and everyone.’

‘Everyone?’

‘You know what I mean.’

Sarah was uncharacteristically brittle over anything to do with Daniel and his mother, Deborah, an old schoolfriend. She felt guilty over her self-perceived neglect of her godmotherly duties, though Daniel himself had never welcomed them.

‘I’m forever on edge with Deborah and I don’t really understand why,’ she had admitted on their drive from Westminster to Wimbledon. ‘We get on, we’ve never fallen out or fought over anything, there are no obvious issues. It’s just that she’s always so perfect in everything, always has been, which makes me feel I have to act up to her expectations – which I can’t because I’m anything but perfect and it makes me nervous and I overdo it and it probably comes across to her as if I’m competing . . .’ She paused. ‘. . . There was space for comment there.’

‘You are perfect. It goes without saying.’

‘I’m not and it doesn’t, which is why it needs saying.’

‘She’s not exactly perfect where Daniel’s concerned. She’s all over the place with him.’

‘That’s because she’s hyper-defensive, which makes it worse. She can’t admit she doesn’t like the way he’s turned out, so we all have to pretend we don’t notice, and I make extra efforts to be the godmother he plainly doesn’t want so that she doesn’t think I disapprove. And of course my efforts fail because he never has wanted them, so I stop trying for a while and then she says something and I renew my efforts, which are obviously insincere, and he goes on as before.’

‘But converting to Islam and marrying a Muslim seems to have introduced some discipline to his life, which must surely be a good thing.’