‘Not us,’ said Angus. He paused. ‘Edinburgh seem so far away, doesn’t it. You know that I phoned Matthew earlier today? I told him the news. He said that he’d tell Big Lou. I’m sure that she’ll be happy, although I do wish …’ He left the sentence unfinished. He wished so much for Big Lou, and he was not sure that life would ever bring her what he wanted for her and what she deserved. There were people like that, he thought; people for whom one wanted only happiness because that is what they deserved, but who were destined to be denied it because the gods, and the world, were unfair. The queue for happiness was not well ordered, he thought; it stretched out and wound round corners, and sometimes, it seemed, the end was so hard to see.

Cyril was excited by the arrival of all the guests, whom he welcomed individually, licking their ankles, if exposed, nuzzling at hands lowered to pat him on the head. His own friends had arrived too – the three Italian dogs, Ernesto, Claudio and Cosimo – and they joined Cyril in a search for scraps from the human repast – an abandoned piece of bread, a fragment of chicken, a twirl of tagliatelle.

As the evening wore on there were toasts. James made a short speech in which he referred to the positive omens that had accompanied this celebration of the engagement: an evening sky that was cloudless; a flight of birds that dipped and swung overhead, as if in aerial salute. All agreed with this view of things, and had the Italian Air Force aerobatic team swooped overhead, trailing smoke in the three colours of the flag, nobody would have been unduly surprised.

‘You must say something,’ James whispered to Angus. ‘What about one of your poems?’

Angus stepped forward. He looked at his friends. He cleared his throat.