I nodded, which was unhelpful in a voice-only medium. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. It’s just, y’know, maids of honour gotta maid of honour.”

“I understand,” she said again, and this time she sounded more like she meant it. She gave me the number that Dad reserved only for people whose calls he would actually take, and after rehashing the great Lawrence/Bimini debate one last time, I rang off.

Then, hands shaking slightly, I called my dad.

At first I was relieved when he didn’t pick up, but then I felt bad for being relieved because I was doing this to fix Bridge’s wedding and I loved Bridge and wanted her to be happy. So I tried again. And again. And again.

Eventually Bridge and Liz came home, several relaxes to the wind.

“Have you and Tom had a fight?” Bridge asked with mock gravity.

I looked up with what I hoped was a not-traumatised expression. “No, I just didn’t want him to see me before the wedding.”

“Seriously, though, what’re you doing on my doorstep?”

“Calling my dad. I thought he might be able to strong-arm a venue into taking us.”

Bridge looked at me with the biggest big eyes I’d ever seen. “Oh, Luc, you don’t have to.”

“I know. But I want to. Think of it as an early wedding present.”

She stooped and hugged me. “It’s the best present.” Then after a moment she added, “But just to be clear, I do want a real present too.”

“Of course.”

Bridge opened the door, and she and Liz squeezed past me into the house. And I gave my dad one more go. Which was kind of the story of my life.

Once again it rang and once again there was n—

“Hello?” There was no mistaking that voice. As if top-shelf whiskey could speak. If you liked whiskey. And if whiskey was a prick.

Part of me, the part of me that had thought this was a bad idea from the start, wanted to hang up straight away. But I’d come this far, so bottling it at the last second would have been the worst of all possible worlds. “Dad, it’s Luc.” I felt small and was worried I sounded smaller. “I was wondering if you could help me out.”

He gave me that low, narcissistic chuckle that I’d once mistaken for affection. “So you need the old man for something, do you? What can I help you with?”

“I was…I was wondering if you had any contacts who could get us…get us a nice place for a wedding at literally no notice? We were thinking maybe a park or a house with a garden? If you can’t, that’s fine.”

“No, no, that seems like it should be pretty straightforward. After all, what’s the point of being famous if you can’t help out your own family?”