“My uncle James’ wife. She’s not very strong. She doesn’t get out much.”

“That’s sad. It would have been nice to have everyone here.”

“Yes. It would have been nice.”

“We’ll save her some cake.”

But he had begun to talk to Agnes who was sitting on the other side of him. He was teasing his mother, and his voice had slipped into the accent which Sarah could not understand. Throughout the meal and the speeches she felt isolated because of her imprecise understanding of the dialect. Usually she could guess at the meaning but then a word was used which was unclear and she was left feeling that she had gained the wrong impression of the whole thing, and so had reacted inappropriately. Will I speak like that one day? she thought, and she found the idea frightening. When I speak like that I won’t be me any more. I’ll be one of them, just another of the Kinness folk. Then she thought: my children will definitely speak like that, and unaccountably she found that idea reassuring.

After the meal, and the cups of tea, they drank toasts in whisky to the bride and the groom. She cut her second wedding cake. The plates were cleared and taken to the kitchen and they prepared for the speeches.

Sandy spoke first, simply and briefly.

“I have one beautiful daughter,” he said, patting Mary’s head. “Now I have two.”

Alec had been Jim’s best man. At the first reception his speech had been short and restrained. He had been ill at ease. Now be enjoyed himself with a raucous, bawdy performance which had his audience yelling and laughing at him. At first Sarah thought that she was not understanding properly, but there was no mistaking the suggestive gestures, the obvious crudeness of the jokes. Then she was angry as she watched him leaning against the table, his black hair greased away from his face in a conceited imitation of an ageing rock star. Why should I laugh? she thought. I wouldn’t laugh at jokes like this at home. Why is he spoiling the evening for me?

Then he began to do an impersonation of Jim which was so real and so funny that she laughed too, despite herself, and found that she was clapping and cheering with the rest.

When Alec finished speaking they moved the tables and chairs to one side of the room. James played the fiddle, Kenneth Dance the accordion and Will the guitar.

“We’ll have to dance first,” Jim said.

“But I can’t. Not this sort of dancing.” She liked the idea of it but she did not want to make a fool of herself.

“It doesn’t matter. They won’t expect you to be able to.”