As Dad came back and unlocked the door he said, ‘Honey, let me get a bin liner for the dress.’ I looked at him, confused and hurt, until he explained, ‘The vomit, you see – you don’t want that in the house, do you? Fred-Fred, can you go and get a T-shirt and some bottoms for your sister from her bedroom?’

Freddie paused on the stairs to look back at me as I waited in the doorway. Once I took the dress off that really would be it.

‘You still have me,’ she said tenderly, her face innocent and hopeful. I blinked. It was all impossible to compute. She ran up the stairs and Dad returned with the bin bag. He looked a hundred years old with concern.

‘Put your dress in here.’ He handed it to me. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

Freddie re-emerged, a pair of pyjama bottoms and an oversized rugby shirt of Alexander’s over her arm. I looked at it and she realized, only now I’d wordlessly pointed it out, that giving me a piece of his clothing to wear wasn’t exactly a mastermind idea.

‘It was in your drawer,’ she apologized, sounding trite. ‘Sorry. I thought it was yours.’

‘I’ll wait in the kitchen,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll make tea.’

Freddie patiently undid the fifty-three buttons laced down my back, and then I arched myself forwards so she could stand in front of me and inch the sleeves off my arms. Black globs of mascara fell on the silk that was already speckled with sick. I could smell vodka from the shot we’d had less than an hour ago, but the hotel bar was another life. I was half-naked and weeping as my mother banged on the door, her silhouette a murky outline of bright cerise contrasted with even brighter turquoise.

‘What in the name of Des O’Connor is going on?’ she trilled, high-pitched. Only her family and certain dog breeds could hear her, I was sure. ‘Annie. Where’s Alexander? What’s happening? There’s a church full of people!’ She rattled on the glass with the palm of her hand. I knew she was doing it to avoid ruining the jewels in her rings. ‘Annie!’

I stepped out of the way so Freddie could let her in, holding an arm across my naked chest and letting the sunlight and Mum’s disapproval leak through into the hall. She considered me, jaw dropped. Two dog walkers ambled past, briefly glancing in at the scene: me in a flower crown and pyjama bottoms, Freddie holding a crumpled wedding dress, my mother cooking up a fury that added at least half a foot to her height, which was funny because she was still only barely as tall as Freddie. We’d both inherited Dad’s lanky Norwegian genes over her stumpy Yorkshire ones.

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she said. ‘What have you done?’