Evelyn nudges me and lifts the baby from her shoulder. He is five weeks old, the final product of Jerry’s grudging communion with a jam jar. I circle his minute ribcage with my hands and his frowning, crunched-up tiny dark features twitch slightly. His head lolls on me and I know that he is hungry because his mouth moves like a tentative kiss against my neck. When I cup his velvety skull, the skin rides over the soft plates of bone.

Mel’s bouquet makes a full loop as it sails upwards and falls. A forest of arms stretches but Evelyn leaps like a basketball player. She catches it securely and then jumps up and down so that the Pre-Raphaelite hair streams out. ‘I got it, I got it.’

Penny grins. She doesn’t know what this means; no one does, with Evelyn.

The crowd separates just enough to let Mel and Jasper pass through. Outside, at the foot of some more steps, a car is waiting. There are ribbons and lipstick scrawls all over it and tin cans tied to the back.

‘Oh, no.’ Mel laughs. Her wide red mouth blows a kiss and they run down the steps together. The weather has changed and a thin drizzle sets haloes round the street lights. We close round the car, thumping on the roof and shouting good wishes. Slowly it moves forward and we fall back, watching it go. The red tail lights go into formation in the thin traffic, blurring in the distance, and we turn away with the rain in our faces. I can still see Mel’s smile vividly in my mind’s eye, Cheshire cat-like, as the surrounding features fade.

Inside again, we are all blinking in the lights. The band is still playing – there will be some slow numbers now, Mel promised.

I can see Paul standing in the doorway. I thread my way towards him and reach out my hand. He takes it in his familiar grasp.

‘Hello, Mr Rainbird.’

‘Hello, Mrs Rainbird. Shall we dance?’

I am Mrs Rainbird.

Paul and I were married in the summer, on the anniversary of the first day of the siege of Turnmill Street.

Neither of us wanted a big set-piece wedding like this one. Paul’s father was his witness and Audrey was mine, with Mel’s blessing. Jack and Lola were there too, and no one else at all.

But I was happy then as I am now and I long for everyone around me to feel the same joy. I recognised this yearning months ago in Mel and now I know the force of it.

Today comes close to satisfying the wish.

We start dancing together, turning in circles to the slow number.

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