My eyes filled and a tear fell to my hand. Just one. Not a steady of stream of them, no big wailing or crying or sobbing. I didn’t even throw my flowers against the wall, which on reflection, now, seems too subdued, not dramatic enough. If you’re going to get jilted at the altar the least a girl should get is advance warning so she can plan her movie-moment, a scene of high drama in front of the West London church where she hurls things across the room and pulls off her false eyelashes as she runs barefoot down the street alone. But, no. I didn’t throw them. I just absent-mindedly handed them to Freddie. I swallowed hard and handed back the phone to Chantelle. With both trembling hands free I could press my fingertips to just under my eyes, forcing myself to think. How do I fix this? How do I fix this? How do I fix this? I didn’t have my own phone with me, what with planning to spend the day with every single person I knew, who could possibly call me anyway? I couldn’t phone him or see if he’d phoned me.

He’d better have bloody phoned me.

I needed to hear his voice. He could fix this. He could explain, and then laugh at this terrible misunderstanding, and then we could pull Asma back out of the church and she’d touch up my face and we’d laugh that I ever got my knickers in such a twist.

Right?

RIGHT?

‘Dad, can you ring him? This can’t be happening.’

‘It can’t be, love,’ Dad said, setting his mouth into a thin straight line. ‘Let’s talk to him.’ He fished about his jacket pocket, scrolled to Alexander’s name, and hit the call button. I could hear the voicemail prompt playing immediately – there wasn’t even a dialing tone. His phone must have been switched off.

Hi there, you’ve reached Alexander Francis. If I’ve not picked up, I’m either in the lab or training for rugby. Either way, leave a message and I’ll get back you. Cheers.

He sounded so normal. So ordinary. How could a man who had left his bride waiting be somebody who could also sound normal and ordinary? Where the hell was he?

‘I’ll kill him,’ Dad said, finally. ‘This is unbelievable. I’m going to absolutely throttle him.’

Freddie looked up at me, all big brown eyes. In a wobbly voice she said, ‘Annie?’

And then that was it. I could be strong if everyone else was being stoic. I could hold it together to think or reason for as long as everyone was looking to me to decide what to do, how to be, how to act. But the anger in Dad’s voice and the fear in Freddie’s made it real: Alexander wasn’t coming, and everyone knew it.