“If you’re happy with your life the way it is,” Oliver continued doing his best to ignore Jim’s scathing opinion of himself, “you don’t have to change it. But if you want to…to explore alternatives, then there are alternatives.”

Uncle Jim looked down at Oliver. “There aren’t, Oliver. Not at my age.”

“There are apps,” I suggested.

Oliver nodded reassuringly. “And social clubs, if they’re more your speed. The world’s changing a lot for older men, and often for the better.”

“Perhaps.” The look in Uncle Jim’s eyes was the closest to thoughtful I’d ever seen him. “Still, change isn’t something I’m used to.”

“Of course.” Oliver’s tone was achingly careful. “As long as you realise that it doesn’t have to happen overnight and that you don’t have to be in a relationship to be—”

“Don’t,” said Uncle Jim. “Not out loud. I…” He hauled himself to his feet. “Good speech today,” he said. “Really gave the old man what for. Had it coming.”

Then he turned and walked back to the house.

Part Five

Chapter 35

"FOR GOD’S SAKE, LUCIEN." OLIVER’S beautifully tidy living room was now—and had been since Christmas—a chaos of increasingly complex index cards, charts, binders, and calendars. At one point I’d tried to tease him about their impact on our carbon footprint, but it hadn’t ended well. “I’m not asking you to do much, but you should have booked the band by now.”

I wince-cringed. “I know. I meant to do it last week. It’s just… Are we totally sure we don’t want to go with a DJ? It’d be a lot cheaper, and I don’t think anybody especially cares if there’s live music.”

“We had this conversation.” An exasperated tone was creeping into Oliver’s voice. He’d been exasperated for a while. “And we agreed—”

For once, I didn’t let that slide. “I’m not sure we actually agreed. I think we disagreed and eventually stopped talking about it, and you took that as meaning I’d backed down.”

Oliver threw his hands in the air, which was about twelve times more extravagant than any gesture I’d seen him make prewedding and was now the kind of thing he did all the time. “Fine, we’ll get a DJ. We can have a fiftysomething failed musician pumping dad-rock over tinny speakers the whole evening.”

“Good DJs do exist,” I pointed out. “I can get Priya to recommend somebody if you want.”

Invoking people who weren’t us, I’d learned, was a reasonable way to get Oliver to calm down. It was sort of Pavlovian, the spectre of an audience making his what-will-the-neighbours-think instincts kick in. “I’m very fond of Priya,” he said, “but don’t her tastes run a little alternative?”