I get out of my jeans and sweater and into the bridesmaid dress. Several sizes too large for me, my mother pads it out with a flannel sheet underneath and pins it together with a new seam down the back. I refuse to wear the fox stole. My mother, playing the role of Lady Emily Whitstable, great aunt of Satine Featherbag, is wearing it instead, teamed with a frayed, golden threaded 1920’s flapper-dress. I put on the jewellery.

‘Ooh, I almost forgot!’ Mother hands me a black feather boa and a matching clutch purse. ‘Satine Featherbag!’ she cries.

‘We won’t be staying late, will we Mummy,’ I ask.

After my father is served his treacle pudding, we take a taxi to Beryl’s, leaving him to the gas fire and his wing-chair.

Ten minutes out of town, Beryl’s house is a big old pile of Edwardian red brick, with double sash windows and grandiose front doors. It boasts no less than six bedrooms, if only one bathroom and a downstairs lavatory, formal reception rooms and a proper library. Her husband, Gerald, had been a top lawyer in the City, from a long lineage of top lawyers. They never had children. I don’t know whether because they couldn’t or because Beryl isn’t the sort to strike as particularly maternal. It’s not really the thing to ask. The dining room features an open fireplace, a chandelier, centuries-old family portraits on the walls and a table seating for twelve. Everything in Beryl’s home is opulent – all of it, past its prime. We settle in the dining room on cracked leather chairs at the table marked with the dents and watermarks from decades of good cheer. Outside, under garden lights, the pond is filled with leaves. My mother is forever worrying about the air quality inside Beryl’s mouldy old conservatory, positioned directly off the kitchen, with its toxic fumes.

Tonight, six places are set at the table for twelve and everyone here is female. I see why my father made his excuses to stay home. In my memories, the hearth in this room was always roaring with flames. Tonight, it isn’t lit. I suppose it was Gerald’s job, to chop the wood and prepare the kindling and stoke the fire. Instead, a small electric fan heater is plugged in at the wall. The room, spacious and draughty at the windows and between the floorboards, is cold. Leaving my parent’s house, I felt fat and absurd, swathed in a size 18 dress my mother padded out with a flannel sheet underneath. Now, I’m grateful for the layers of warmth.