I scrutinised this analogy from every angle to try and find one that was flattering. “It’s not like that at all. It’s just Oliver’s got slightly more money than me and—” Okay, it was sounding a tiny bit like that. “And anyway,” I finished, trying to steer us in a different direction, “it’s going to be a small ceremony. Just friends and family, and I don’t have that many friends or like half my family.”

Thinking about it, we hadn’t actually discussed the size of the ceremony. Or the date of the ceremony. The location of the ceremony. Or anything about the ceremony at all.

“Then,” Mum went on relentlessly, “if it is going to be so very small, it does not matter if I pay for it.”

Putting aside the extra-special vegan special curry, which always managed to be worse than the regular special curry because Mum took it as licence to indulge her creative side, I tried to have an intense debate with Oliver about whether we should let this happen. Except, since I couldn’t talk, I was forced to rely entirely on my eyebrows and nose. Unsurprisingly, we failed to reach a firm conclusion.

“Can we,” I asked, “think about it?”

“Well, of course you can think about it,” said Mum. “I’m not a monster. To be honest, I only brought it up now so that I could tell Oliver before I told you so you would know how it feels.” She paused. “It does not feel good, does it, Luc?”

I sighed. “No, it doesn’t feel good. I’m really sorry.”

“You are forgiven.” She took her place on the sofa next to Oliver. “But the man next door, he was definitely called John.”

Part Three

Chapter 19

WHEN ALEX HAD INVITED ME to his wedding, I’d been…not pleased exactly, because weddings were a faff, but at least mildly cheered. It was, after all, nice in abstract to know that a coworker thought well enough of you to add you to the list of people he wanted around him on the happiest day of his life. Although given the circles Alex and Miffy moved in, I suspected that the list wasn’t exactly short.