For a moment Alex said nothing, then he laughed more authentically than I’d ever heard him respond to any joke I’d ever told him. “Ah, because the chap was English, you mean. Good one.”

“No, I mean because I didn’t learn… Tell you what, I’ve got a joke for you too.”

Alex sat upright. “Good-oh. Let’s hear it.”

“What’s a pirate’s favourite cheese?”

“I don’t know,” replied Alex dutifully. “What is a pirate’s favourite cheese?”

“Yarrrlsberg.”

Aaaand there it was. Dead silence.

“Yaaaarrrrrrrrlsberg,” I repeated.

“Why do pirates like Jarlsberg?” asked Alex with near-biblical innocence.

I buried my head in my hands. “Alex, you have just told me a joke in which the implicit association between pirates and the syllable arr is the basis of the whole punch line.”

“Yes, but Jarlsberg doesn’t begin with arr, it begins with yar.”

“Yar is a valid substitute,” I insisted.

“He’s right,” agreed Rhys. “I often say yar when I’m doing a pirate.”

For a moment, Alex seemed to be processing, but then he nodded. “Ah, well in that case I consider the joke excellent, and you may attribute my lack of laughter to my failure to understand it instinctively.”

Ana with one n turned back around in her seat. “What type of cheese do you use to lure a bear out of a cave?” she asked.

Barbara Clench poked her head around the seat in front. “I don’t know,” she said, “what kind of cheese do you use to lure a bear out of a cave?”

“Come-on-bear,” replied Ana with one n, doing a surprisingly effective impression of somebody waving a piece of camembert enticingly in front of a large predator.

I laughed at that. I thought it deserved it. And so did everybody else. Well, everybody else except Alex.

“Do bears eat cheese, then?” he asked. “I would have thought they preferred honey. Or maybe…wildebeest?”

“Terribly sorry,” said Alex, as he led us down a plush-carpeted corridor lined with portraits of rich, dead wankers. “It’s just as Miffy and I need separate rooms—can’t see the bride before the wedding and all that—we’ve taken the two best suites already and obviously there’s a bunch of family up for the weekend so we’re going to have to stick you somewhere a bit substandard.”

Until I met Oliver, being stuck somewhere a bit substandard was very much how I’d lived my life. “Don’t worry about it. And thanks for, um, you know. The rescue and everything.”

Pushing open a door, Alex waved us through. “Oh, think nothing of it. Always happy to help out a chum. Besides, it gave me something to do. Fearfully excited about tomorrow and all that, but it does weigh on a chap.”