I thought he had already gone out. ‘Yes. I was just thinking about Grandad.’

‘Oh. Right.’

Bravo, I was saying in my mind to Ted although he couldn’t and wouldn’t ever hear me. You did what you wanted, just as far as you could. Bravo for that.

TWENTY

A whole year has gone by and it’s October again.

Mel chose autumn colours and they work well. There are big urns all around the room, filled with thick-petalled bronze chrysanthemums, coppery leaves and sprays of golden ivy. The effect is gorgeously theatrical rather than bridal. Mel herself is wearing a plain pale-gold sheath dress, with her hair wound up in a loose knot and threaded with flowers. She has never regained the weight she lost after she was stabbed and the dress fits tightly round her reduced curves. But she did dye her hair to blot out the grey and the red lipstick is triumphantly back. Altogether she looks as beautiful as any woman could look on her wedding day.

As her (very) senior bridesmaid, I am sitting at the top table. My partner is one of the Archer brothers who is currently between wives, but he is busy talking to Clare who is seated on his other side. Paul is at another table and I can’t even see him from here. There are well over a hundred of us and the circular tables stretch right down the room. I am glad to have this interval of quiet to look around me. It has been a long, lovely day and there is still the dancing to come.

It started nearly twelve hours ago with Mel and me drinking champagne for breakfast, and then giggling so much at the absurdity of dressing up in wedding finery and going through wedding rituals at this late stage in our lives that we finally had to be bullied into line by the make-up woman who came to paint our faces.