The ceremony made me cry. In front of their families and friends Jasper lifted Mel’s hand and kissed the wedding ring before he kissed her on the lips. My tears washed pale runnels in the unaccustomed layers of foundation, even though they failed to dissolve the sob-proof mascara that even now makes my eyelashes feel as if I am peering at the world through spiders’ legs. At the signing of the register I leaned down to take Lois’s hand and the vast feather plumes in her hat tickled my nose and set off a sneezing fit, so the tears flowed even harder. Clare looked embarrassed for me but the other two bridesmaids, tiny nieces from a brother’s second marriage, roared with unashamed laughter. I stooped down to their level and gave them the handkerchief that I was supposed to hold in readiness for discreet clean-up operations on their round, penny-bright faces. They were enchanted with this role reversal, and their stiff gold paper-taffeta skirts crackled as they rubbed at my cheeks and nose.

‘Hold still,’ the younger ordered me with bossy delight.

‘I am holding.’

‘Sadie never worries about a thing, does she?’ Lois said and, just as I was silently mentally contradicting her, I realised that today it is the truth.

Today there is nothing to worry about. These marriage rituals represent enough happiness and good luck to face down every possible threat from any corner.

Today is inviolate.

Not all days are like today and history’s cruelly shifting perspectives may even come to alter this one in time, but I am certain that the here and now couldn’t be bettered. I won’t forget it. I will keep it safe in my memory and refer to it like a text.

Jasper and Mel linked hands. The two tiny girls fell in behind them, and Clare and I paired up in their wake. Lois and Jasper’s best man, and a couple of brothers made up the procession. The organ music swelled and broke like waves around us as we made our way back down the aisle through the avenue of beaming faces, and the drifts of simple scent from the towers of autumn blooms and the complicated symphony of women’s perfumes. All those bottled dreams.

I felt, and feel, a lightness that is beginning to be familiar, as if a weight I have been carrying for a long time slips into a new position and then drops away altogether. It makes me want to smile and look up at the sky.