Katie focused on Marek’s face, the growing look of wonder mixed with disbelief, the tension as he read. He clutched the paper to him and said something in Polish. Then he became aware of Katie and Sybil, standing in helpless bewilderment at each end of the hall.

‘God be praised!’ he cried. ‘Look . . .’ He held out the paper, hardly able to speak, either. ‘It is from the Red Cross. It is our sister Ewa – she is in New Zealand!’

He and Agnieska hugged each other, both weeping, and Katie found tears running down her own cheeks and saw that Sybil was very moved as well. Agnieska sobbed, repeating some words over and over again, and it took some time before anyone was able to calm down. Katie went and put her arms round both of them and kissed them.

‘I’m so happy for you,’ she said. She understood now how easily this might not have happened, how equally likely it had been that Ewa was dead.

‘It says she is getting married,’ Marek said wiping his cheeks. He seemed stunned.

‘How marvellous,’ Sybil said gently. ‘You and she both.’

The morning of the wedding dawned as hazily bright and promising as any bride could hope for.

Katie arrived at the church in her pretty, lacy dress and veil to find her father waiting outside, looking very spruce and, she saw, rather dashing. She realized she was very nervous, and she could see that he was too.

‘Is everyone here?’ she asked.

‘I think so,’ he reassured her. ‘They’re waiting for you. Are you ready, my dear?’

She looked up at him. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed giving my little girl to her husband now, would I?’ He looked at her emotionally. ‘Bless you, Katie. Marek’s a fine man. Don’t take your mother and I as your married pattern – I mean, as if you would! But it can be so much better, believe me.’

‘I know,’ she said with a heartfelt smile. ‘Thanks.

‘Shall we go in?’

Katie gathered herself, then nodded. She walked into the shadowy, incense-perfumed church and began her walk along the aisle, under the gaze of those she loved best. Em was smiling at her, with Norm and Robbie at her side; Sybil, in a very wide-brimmed straw hat, Piotr and his Italian girlfriend Maria; Agnieska and the Arbuckles, who both beamed at her; and Maudie and John, who had Michael with them, in his little suit, gazing in wonder at his mother.

She walked towards the altar, ready to be wrapped in the words that would bind her and her husband together. Among those words would be her chosen psalm: ‘But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life . . . ’ Each step drew her nearer to the end of the aisle, towards her future, where, tall and elegant in his suit, his eyes fixed on her alone, Marek was waiting.