“There you go,” said Nate, falsely hearty.

“If she doesn’t show, I bet he’ll tell us that happens all the time too and he had a wedding last Saturday where the bride ran away to Bolivia,” said Paul.

The bus was full, so Ava and Finn stood at the front, much to everyone’s approval. Several passengers began singing hymns. An old lady in a hat told Ava that her first child would be a boy “because you’ve got the hips for it, dear”. Finn gave his top-hat away to a small boy in a yellow coat, then offered round the hip-flask to anyone who wanted some. Since no-one did, he passed it to Ava. Ava took a deep swallow, then steadied herself against the pole to put her shoes back on. When they got off at the church, the passengers gave them three cheers.

In the churchyard, Finn stopped and put his hands on Ava’s shoulders.

“Absolutely sure?” he asked.

Ava’s cheeks were flushed and radiant with brandy.

“Is it true?” she asked. “About the old lady who lives downstairs? And all the men who bought her flowers and danced with her?”

“Course it’s not. Well, I say that. I never asked. She only ever speaks to me to shout about the bins.”

“But it sounds true,” said Ava. “Yes, I’m absolutely sure.”

“Where is she?” Paul looked past his mother, thin and beige under a disapproving hat, towards the door.

“It’s only half an hour,” said Nate.

The vicar’s twinkly gaze was flagging. His face was subtly rearranging itself into a bracing configuration of these things happen, it isn’t the end of the world. Paul’s palms were damp. He resisted the urge to wipe them on the silvery trousers. The hat felt ridiculous, heavy and oppressive. Why had he let his mother talk them into morning-suits? The congregation were beginning to rustle and mutter.

Then, blessedly, there was a stir of expectation in the back pews. The door opened a crack to admit Finn’s head, tousled and curly. When Nate caught his eye, Finn gave him a highly visible thumbs-up. The congregation’s shoulders dropped by a relieved/disappointed half-inch. The organist struck up the wedding-march, the doors opened and there was Ava, in a simple white frock, three white roses in her hand and a strand of ivy tucked into her hair. (What had happened to the bouquet? If the florist had lost the order, he’d burn their shop down.) Finn’s morning-suit fitted, although his hair was the same mop-like mess it always was and he appeared to have forgotten his hat. The vicar’s cassocked body expressed nothing but broad satisfaction. His mother looked at Ava’s dress, at her flowers, her hair, judging, assessing, sighing, whispering, wishing. His aunt patted his mother’s hand consolingly. His father caught Paul’s eye and winked.

Ava looked beautiful.

Afterwards, Paul remembered just two things about the moment when he finally bagged the prize he’d been pursuing since the night he’d looked up, half-cut with his tie in his pocket, and seen the girl from the office, subtly isolated and subtly out of place, watching the party with a cool, amused gaze.