There was another pause. And then, to everyone’s surprise, Dr. Fairclough made a second contribution. “I’m not sure how mole rats could fight their own gut flora, and if they were fighting human gut flora, they would need to get inside humans to do it.”

We all contemplated that.

Ana with one n was getting the what-have-I-got-myself-into look that I sometimes saw on Rhys’s girlfriends shortly after they met the rest of us. “Fuck me. That is genuinely horrific.”

“Do you think,” asked Rhys, with the air of a man about to combust his relationship, “that they’d gnaw through the belly or crawl up through the arse?”

Chapter 25

THE PART OF MY BRAIN that was rapidly falling asleep and therefore making random connections it might not otherwise have made strayed to the all-important question of why they called it a reception when it always came after the wedding.

There was, at least, the small mercy of the CRAPP crew getting our own table so we were able to ignore everyone else for most of the meal. It also allowed them to ignore us which, given we were still deep in the great mole-rat/belly-arse debate, was for the best.

The food, at least, was excellent and because these were the traditional kind of rich wankers as opposed to the trendy kind of rich wankers, there was at least a decent amount of it. But there weren’t a great deal of vegan options, so Oliver had to content himself with stealing bits of people’s side salads, which at least suited those of us—like me and Rhys—who thought vegetables at an event like this were just a scam to keep you away from the good stuff.

Also to my taste was the father-of-the-bride speech. Because it was short and to the point: doing the family proud, pleasant childhood anecdote, happy to incorporate the vast wealth of the Twaddles into the Fortescue-Lettice estate—the last part admittedly more implied than stated outright. Alex’s speech, by contrast, was…not short or to much of a point at all.

“Well,” he said, rising slightly unsteadily to his feet, “if it isn’t dashed nice to see such a dashed lot of dashed fine people and… Gosh, I’m saying ‘dashed’ rather a dashed lot, aren’t I? Anyway, thank you, Daddy-in-law, for your marvellous, marvellous speech, and thank you, Daddy-and-Mummy-in-law, for raising such a smashing, smashing gal as Miffy—I mean, Clara. We call her Miffy you see, for short. Where was I…”