‘I’ll give them a call but I wouldn’t bet on it,’ she said, immediately grabbing her phone. ‘There’s last minute and there’s last minute.’

‘I know someone who could help.’ Adrian closed the fridge, a pint of milk in his hand. ‘What about John?’

‘What about John?’ I replied, skimming through the (cursed) contact list in my phone. Dry cleaners, no. Hairdressers, no. Wong’s Chinese, maybe.

‘Adrian, you’re so clever!’ Lucy brightened immediately. ‘We could use the upstairs room at Good Luck! It’s so beautiful, with the big windows and the chandeliers, oh and there’s the little stage at the front. It’d be perfect. Call him, Ros, I’m sure he’ll let us use it.’

Tightening my grip on the back of my mum’s chair, I smiled brightly at my friend. ‘Why don’t one of you call him?’ I suggested. ‘You all know him better than I do.’

‘Technically, not true,’ Sumi said with a wink as she fished four teabags out of four mugs.

‘I wouldn’t be comfortable asking him,’ I said, enunciating each word with a knife-like degree of sharpness. ‘And I would appreciate it if you would call him for me.’

‘Fine, I’ll call him,’ Sumi said, cackling into her mug. ‘It’s a beautiful space, Mrs Reynolds, you’ll love it.’

‘You can’t just reorganize something like this on the day, all the food was at the club and now it’s all ruined,’ Mum said with a sniff. ‘Everything is ruined.’

‘Mum, we’ve got all morning, we can do this,’ I insisted. ‘Adrian can call the florist, Sumi and Jo can sort out the food and me and Lucy can call the guests and let them know the change of plan. The bar isn’t that far away, just in Borough Market. We can be there in half an hour. It’s probably just as close as the tennis club.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said tearfully. ‘Maybe we should just cancel it.’

Everyone jumped as Dad slammed his coffee cup down on the kitchen counter.

‘We’ll do no such thing,’ he declared. ‘Sumi, call this John chap and tell him we need his help, money is no object. We’re getting this done.’

We all stared at my father, shocked into silence by an unprecedented display of emotion.

‘I promised you the most special day of your life, Gwen Reynolds,’ Dad bellowed as he dropped to one knee before his wife, a triumphant finger in the air. ‘We are renewing our vows today, come hell or high water!’

‘Poor choice of words,’ Sumi whispered to me, phone pressed against her ear. ‘It’s fucking biblical out there.’