Alanna says that luckily, when you are really pretty, you don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want to do. She’s lucky. She’s beautiful. Anyway, she’s all done with that kind of thing. We pass around a photo of Paul, this new man of hers. In the picture he is holding a whippet by its lead. It’s supposed to be a cute shot, but the dog looks obscenely small next to his large body. It makes us uneasy. ‘It’s a miniature whippet, by the way,’ she says when she sees us looking. As if that made the photograph less upsetting, that the dog would never grow out of its bony frame, like the man had. Our girl Alanna. Making excuses for the man she loves. Ain’t she cute and don’t we all make excuses? Isn’t that what women do? Alanna and Paul, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

Of course, we’ve reassured the groom that nothing bad is going to happen. We’ve provided a list of our movements, for safety purposes. The men have put in the effort for Paul: they’ve identical t-shirts to prove it. Professional partiers, branded like bulls with a number on the back and a nickname: COCK KNOCKER, BUTT TICKLER, AL COOLIC and PENIS PARMESAN (the oddball). They’ll drink beer. They’ll eat barbecued meats. Dark sauce will drip down their wrists like blood. Chuck us a bone, boys, we’ll make it last. They’re always hungry. They’re a team. They write best men’s speeches drunk in hotel rooms. They are always watching: TV, video-games, hen-do, pay-per-view, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, reverse gangbang. The groom gave us a serious look. If the wife-to-be misbehaves, we promise, we’ll tell on her. We wait until we’re outside the building to start laughing.

History happened in the back rooms while we delayed our knitting: making and unmaking, the stuff of witches. We talked quietly. We trained our voices to speak so low that we could turn a thing into its opposite, making them still believe they’re in control. We’ve learnt to talk softer when we intend to be misunderstood, so that sometimes men swap our words around for the opposite meaning, which is exactly what we wanted. We’ll hold it against them in due time. We remember everything. We abide by the rules; we are clandestine. Tin phones threaded with wool: this hen-do. Perhaps the men suggested it but we planned it. They say a good soldier’s strength isn’t in winning all the battles, but in choosing the right ones. Although we didn’t choose it, we know we must win this. It’s Alanna’s big night, we’re going to have so much fun.