I took up my position next to the groom beneath a canvas canopy that had been erected in the yard for the ceremony and looked around for Precious. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I looked at every face, craned my neck to see if she was hidden somewhere behind another person, or one of the trees. I squinted at the four small dark windows at the rear of the house to see if she was inside somewhere, and my eyes were still searching for her when the bride, dressed in a simple white frock and carrying a bouquet of lavender, appeared with her father at the back door of the house.

For one horrible moment, I thought it was Precious. My stomach lurched. I felt sick.

I blinked and looked again.

No. It wasn’t her. Her cousin was rather like her, that was all – small and dark, with the same neat hands and feet; the same shy expression in her downcast eyes. Slowly she began, this cousin, to approach me on her father’s arm, and the relief I’d felt on realising that she wasn’t Precious turned quickly to impatience and irritation as she placed her small palms on top of my scalp and I watched the inevitable broad smile spread across her face. My head felt waxy and unpleasantly warm. I braced myself for the bridegroom’s hand as it too came down, big and sweaty, like a hot heavy flannel, a half-cooked pancake. I told myself to be patient as he also began to smile; I told myself it didn’t matter if my skin had begun to crawl the way it had earlier that day when Precious had left and all the townspeople had come. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I felt as if I couldn’t bear for another second to stand between the two of them with their hands on my head, that it didn’t matter if I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I didn’t want to do this any more, because very soon, it would all be over. I would find Precious and we would leave. I gritted my teeth and looked at the ground, repeating to myself that it would all be finished very soon. I took several deep breaths. One, two, three, and at last managed to achieve a kind of calm, a feeling of patient expectation – a sort of quiet, thrilled excitement at the thought of everything I had to look forward to – and then, quite suddenly and quite without warning, the shouting began.

I felt the sticky palms of the bride and groom stiffen with surprise, and when I raised my eyes there, in the crowded courtyard, was Precious, and she was shouting.