It was me she rolled her eyes at over the truly awful poem the maid of honour read out. It was me she showed her service sheet to, with the word ‘cock’ circled in the name of some poor composer called ‘Peacock’. I was the one who started laughing, to the point where everyone around us turned to look, which made us partners in crime. And to my surprise, I found that I didn’t mind being looked at just then. Not when April was on my team.

‘Thank Christ that’s over,’ she said, once the service was done, and if I hadn’t already been in love with her, that strident Tennessee drawl would have clinched it. I didn’t quite keep up with everything she said to me for the rest of the night, which I’m sure you can imagine. The high tempo and volume of her speech. The sudden low-voiced asides. But it didn’t really matter.

She walked with me to the reception, telling me about her baby sister back home, and how I looked just like her. Dee, she said. Dolores, but always called Dee. It seemed to mean something to her, that resemblance.

I asked her, keenly curious, how she’d ended up in Southampton. She seemed just so exotic to me, and so out of place.

‘You wouldn’t believe it, but I used to work for big pharma, like the groom,’ she said, and grinned at me. ‘My first husband and I got jobs over here, and then got sick of the sight of each other. He went back home; I stayed. Though I got the hell out of that job.’

‘What do you do now?’

She gave me a sidelong look. ‘I do a little consulting for some of the pharma firms still. Freelance, you know. So I can tell them where to shove it when I want. But mostly I spend my second husband’s money. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.’

I couldn’t help laughing. And then, two seconds later, I half tripped on my heels and had to grab hold of someone’s garden fence to steady myself, which for some reason made me laugh even harder.

‘You OK?’ she asked, and looped her arm through mine. ‘It’s the weirdest thing. You’re so like Dee! Almost, if you just had the accent … you could be twins.’

‘I’ll work on it,’ I said.

As far as I can tell, she decided right then and there that we were going to be best friends forever.

She put her arm round me the moment we arrived at the reception, and glanced around until she saw someone with a tray of champagne. ‘Thank God,’ she said, and plucked two glasses from it.