‘Actually,’ said Nell, ‘I don’t think I am.’ She put the plate down; she shouldn’t have come. ‘I don’t have a phone at the moment,’ she went on, ‘but Kym knows to ring you if – if she gets worried or anything. I hope that’s all right.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Sorry. I’m not usually so – anxious.’ She looked at the table, and suddenly she didn’t know why she’d come out, what she’d been thinking of. She shouldn’t have left them alone in the house.

‘This is so strange,’ she said, looking around the room, ‘everyone looks so familiar, but then – not. I’m not really sure who’s who. I’m not really sure why I’m here.’

‘Did you see the photos in the foyer?’ Gina asked.

‘I don’t think I did.’

Gina smiled. ‘Come on, then,’ she said.

*

There were two large easels set up at the far end of the corridor, between the stairs and the ladies’ loos; they were covered in family photographs.

There was the wedding that Nell half-remembered, a formal portrait of David and Jenny, she looking remarkably glamorous, he young, handsome and happy, surrounded by all their guests. It only took a few seconds for her to find herself, and Gran and her dad.

‘Jenny asked people to dig out their own pictures for them.’

‘Really? I didn’t . . .’ The truth, when it occurred to her, left her a little deflated. ‘They didn’t think I’d come, did they? They just sent the invitation to be polite.’

‘I expect they thought you’d be too busy.’

‘I expect so.’ It was foolish, she thought, to feel so left out, when it was entirely her own fault for staying away for so long.

Nell leant forward, looking more closely at the group photograph. She’d kept her gran and her father waiting while she was trying to get her hair right, her dad by the front door, yelling at her to get a move on. The expression on his face when she’d finally gone downstairs, though, in the new Top Shop dress her gran had insisted on buying her, and her strappy sandals. ‘Look at you,’ he’d said, smiling, extending an arm in an exaggerated gesture of chivalry.

He’d not lived to see her marry Chris.

There were other photos too, some of the faces were familiar, many more were not. Her gran would have been able to name everyone, of course.

‘Are you here?’ Nell asked.

‘There.’ Gina was standing next to a tall bespectacled man, he in a dark blue suit, she in a pale green floral dress, a large hat half obscuring her face. ‘We’d only been married a few months ourselves.’

‘I don’t remember meeting you,’ said Nell.

‘I’m not surprised, pet. We must have seemed very old and settled to a teenage girl.’

‘Is Carolyn here?’

‘I’m not sure.’