‘Ellie, what are you talking about? Have you taken something?’

Ellie raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you even want to know who it was?’

Weirdly, though, I already did, even before she said it. It was my mum.

And then she gave me the message – Don’t worry, just do the right thing now – and I knew exactly what I had to do, whether the man I loved survived or not.

Before I could ask her anything Ava came back into the waiting room empty-handed and sat down next to me again.

Ellie said, ‘Nice cup of coffee?’

Ava frowned. ‘What?’

‘You didn’t have any. Did you?’ Ellie was calm as a detective pointing out an elementary mistake.

‘Oh. Oh yeah. Mm. I couldn’t find the machine.’

Ellie raised her eyebrows. ‘Helps if you look. Did you speak to him, then? Or did you just send him a message?’

Ava scowled. ‘What are you talking about?’

Ellie sighed. ‘The man you were thinking about. Whoever he was. It’s OK, I won’t judge. Not given my track record. Though at least I’ve cleaned up my act. I’m guessing you have too, now, Ava.’ She looked Ava up and down, from her seed-pearl tiara to her white silk, silver-buckled shoes. ‘Now that you’re a respectable married woman,’ she concluded.

Ava blushed. A vivid, dead-giveaway, tomato red. A guilty red. Not at all the sort of blush you would expect to see on the face of a bride.

‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

‘Toby’s a good guy,’ Ellie said. ‘He deserves to have all your love. Not the bits that are left over because you’re still stuck in a holding pattern with somebody else.’

‘Ellie,’ I said, ‘I don’t know where this is coming from, but Ava clearly doesn’t want to hear it right now.’

Ellie shrugged. ‘OK. Fine. Whatever.’

‘It’s all right, Mum,’ Ava said. ‘She hasn’t upset me. It’s just… it’s a long story.’ She stared at Ellie. ‘How did you know?’

I said, ‘What did she know?’

‘Oh… there’s this old boyfriend, someone I never told either of you about,’ Ava said. ‘Someone I met on holiday years ago. We… stayed in touch. I just told him not to contact me again.’

‘Good,’ Ellie said. ‘I take it you’re not going to tell Toby.’

‘None of your business,’ Ava said fiercely.

‘Fair enough. I don’t want to pry. Anyway, I think you’ve done the right thing. Just try and be good from here on in, OK?’

Without waiting for an answer, Ellie put her earphones back in.

Ava glanced at me and shook her head. ‘I hope we’re not going to have to get used to this,’ she said, and reached for the bridal magazine again.

About half an hour later Toby turned up with slices of wedding cake in a box, and while we were eating it the doctor came in to say that Mark’s operation had been a success, he had come round from the anaesthetic and was in a stable condition in intensive care.