I listened to this with some surprise. Then Lucy got up and stood behind the lectern. She tossed her head like a filly, but her veil floated down again and she irritably pulled off her hat and became more recognisable. As she spoke about her dad’s kindness and generosity I felt the Greg I knew evaporating. By the time she finished he’d disappeared completely. Of course my heart bled for my children, and I admired their courage in speaking to us all, but I felt curiously betrayed. Couldn’t they find the right words? These clichés weren’t Greg at all—certainly not the Greg they’d slagged off so enthusiastically the previous night. Or maybe I was the one with the warped memory.

Music played: Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. I looked at Azra but her face was buried in her sister’s shoulder. Would this anthem to female resilience really have been Greg’s choice? Then I wondered: did Greg and Azra dance to it around her kitchen, as he and I had once, grabbing each other when it came on the radio and we were doing the washing up? That lightning bolt of joy. Had Greg done the same thing with her? Had they done it often?

‘Here, Mum,’ Lucy whispered, and passed me a Kleenex.

Lionel, Greg’s brother, took the stand. He was a quantity surveyor from Godalming and always finished his sentences.

‘It’s been a shock to us all that Gregory was taken from us so suddenly,’ he said. ‘And so soon after his diagnosis. As you probably are aware, those suffering from Parkinson’s can carry on relatively normal, active lives for many years but in my brother’s case it was not to be.’ He cleared his throat. ‘However, Gregory lived each day as if it were his last. He never lost that childhood joy, as we can all attest. He was a life-enhancer, with a bottomless fund of rude jokes.’

Good Lord, in forty years had I missed something? However, it got worse.

‘What is a particular tragedy is the cruel timing of his passing,’ said Lionel. ‘For, as you all know—you, his friends, as well as ourselves, his family—Gregory was just embarking on a new chapter in his life, a new beginning, and as his brother I have to say I’d never seen him so happy.’

I must have passed out. When I opened my eyes my head was bowed, as if in prayer. Maybe it was just a blip—nobody seemed to have noticed. But, just for a moment, I knew I’d lost consciousness because, horror of horrors, my knickers were wet.