Then he kneels down and unzips the suitcase and lets its lid fall back. It’s full of party stuff: pink, blue, yellow, silver, gold and a foam of tissuey streamers. He pulls out handfuls of glossy party bags and starts handing them round, and packets of balloons, and gold paper crowns. Across the circle, Mirosława catches my eye and then begins to blow up a red balloon – three long puffs – ties it efficiently, hands it to a child, and takes another, stretching it between her fingers. I take a balloon and start blowing.

Ayo’s father gives me a pink party bag, and a gold crown for Katie and one for me. We put them on. He takes out patterned paper plates and clear plastic cups.

Jessica brings back the cake and crouches down with it. A shame to cut it so soon, I think. Mirosława gets out her camera. Ayo’s father and mother hesitate, but they take the knife in their two hands and put Ayo’s hand over it too and smile for the photo as they push it down. Jessica tries to take the cake away but Ayo’s mother holds onto it.

Ayo’s father goes to the suitcase again and pulls out something else. I realize then that I’d heard them clink in the case and thought they were oxygen bottles.

He unscrews the caps, tearing the paper seals, pours drinks and passes them round. Pink lemonade, the fancy kind, in glass bottles like wine, with handwritten labels with raggedy edges, the kind made with real lemons.

Sipping it, I see the day they imagined for their child’s first birthday party. Hot, July. A day like we had for ours. All the relations turned out, neighbours popping in, cake in the garden, rugs spread out, something fizzy chilling in a bucket. Everyone saying how well she looked, how she’d lost the baby weight. Cottony seedpods and sycamore drifting down on the breeze, the baby beautiful in a party gown. I taste champagne.

Except his birthday should have been November. Cold, blustery. Maybe a day like today. And of course she never had any baby weight, never had time. Ayo’s mother sits with the cake on her knees, her arms linked round it.