I nod. “I met them a few times when I was with Patrick because his dad was friends with Frances’s father. We didn’t particularly hide what we were to each other.”

“So, how will they take to you being there?”

I smile. “They’ll be very charming and welcoming, but if I cross them or look like I might throw a spanner in the works they’ll unleash hell. Charles is utterly ruthless.”

“How lucky it is then that you’re bringing your younger and much more socially adept new partner with you. Someone who will put Patrick to shame and charm the entire party.”

“Have I arranged for someone else to come with me?” He laughs, but I sober. “Patrick’s parents will be there as well. They hate the gays because they think we’re all prowling around waiting to find our next victim. Like some sort of glittery zoo animals. They also think I’m a sexual predator, and that I somehow tricked their son into being gay.”

“How do you trick someone into being gay?” he says, and there’s a great deal of interest in his voice. “Is it through card tricks or something to do with the rabbit in the hat?”

I laugh, something I never thought I’d ever do when talking about Penny and Victor. “They’d like me to disappear. Or worse.”

“Lovely,” he says faintly. “So a few days in the Cotswolds with a wanker. Sorry, I mean a banker. And old-aged murderous homophobes. Anyone else?”

“Quite a few of Patrick and Frances’s friends, obviously, and the bridesmaids.”

There’s a long silence, and I’m sure he’s thinking of opening the door and just walking back to London, and then he laughs.

“Well, I’ve always liked a challenge.”

“This isn’t a challenge, so much as a suicide mission,” I say glumly.

* * *

The next hour passes surprisingly well. He takes control of the stereo and synchs it to his phone. I make a token protest but find that we have a startlingly similar taste in music. He loves the eighties, declaring that it’s retro, which makes me wince slightly because I fucking grew up then.

With “Long Hot Summer” by the Style Council playing, we turn off the motorway and start to travel down winding roads, the trees spreading their branches over us like the world’s oldest and greenest gazebo. We pass through little villages that look chocolate-box pretty with their village greens surrounded by houses made from the ubiquitous honey-coloured stone.