“Not very much, just organize the hen party, sign the register, and hold me down when I panic on the day. It’s not going to be a fancy wedding.”

Not fancy, thought Lulu, but beautifully orchestrated: Emma did everything beautifully. And the chances of Emma’s panicking, on that day or any other, were about on a par with those of Fee’s applying for Botox.

“I can do that,” she said. Then frowned. “It doesn’t mean being nice to people, does it?”

Emma laughed. “No, it doesn’t mean being nice to people, we’ll leave that to Mom and Dad.” She stopped herself: Emma had always had excellent self-control. “And I’m trying not to talk about it too much because I don’t want to turn into one of those brides who bangs on until everyone’s bored rigid. So.” She reached for the water jug and poured herself a glass. “What’s going on with you, apart from wanting to kill Sophie? How’s work? How’s Mr. Goncharoff? Is he really going to sell the shop?”

Lulu sighed irritably; it occurred to her that she knew precisely which question would follow this. “Probably,” she admitted after a moment.

And, sure enough, the question came.

“And what will you do when he does?” said Emma.

“I don’t know, Emma,” said Lulu. She laid down her fork and stared mock intensely into her sister’s eyes. “Now I want you to watch me very carefully, and listen to me very hard, and you can feel free to read my lips as I go if it helps you to understand. Okay, here goes. I. Don’t. Know. It’s the answer I’ve been giving you for ages now when you ask me that question. And any time you decide to ask me again, and any way you decide to ask it, the answer will still be the same. I don’t know. And I won’t know until I do know, and when I do, I’ll tell you, okay?”

“Sorry,” said Emma mildly. “I just care about you, that’s all. Sisters do tend to care about each other, if you’d noticed.”

“Hmm.” Lulu reached for the pepper mill and ground flakes over her pasta. “What do you know about Grandma Jo?” she asked suddenly.

“What?” Emma blinked at the abrupt change of subject.

“Grandma Jo,” said Lulu. “I’ve been thinking about her lately for some reason, wondering what she was really like. Mom goes on about her, but you know how she exaggerates. What do you really know about her?”

“Well, only what Mom’s told us, for what that’s worth.” Emma paused, searching her memory. “She ran the school. She wrote a couple of books. And Grandma Jojo once told me she broke her arm falling out of a tree when she was small.”

“You remember Grandma Jojo?” Lulu had been only five when Fee’s mother had died, suddenly, of a virus caught on a trip to Africa.

“Sort of. She came to visit us a couple of times. She was rather glamorous. She smelled of lily of the valley, and she was always on at Mom to comb her hair.”