She bit her lip, feeling the anxiety ratchet up again. ‘Okay look, full disclosure: perhaps I have been overcompensating for what happened with Jules. First time round, I robbed Mama of the opportunity to plan my wedding, it was something I just hadn’t thought about from her point of view and she was so devastated. I thought this time, doing it properly, handing the organization over to her would be a way to make up for that.’ She shrugged. ‘But perhaps I stepped too far back and that’s why I’ve struggled to feel . . . involved.’

‘You’re the bride.’

‘I know.’

‘Everyone told me to expect bridezilla, but instead . . .’ His voice trailed off.

‘Stephen, I’ve felt a lot of shame for running off with Jules the way I did. It hurt a lot of people and it . . .’ Nathan flickered in her mind again, as bright and alive as if he were in front of her, not Stephen. ‘Well, it was devastating in so many ways.’

It was the clatter of baked bean cans tied to the bumper and rattling on the road behind them, that woke everyone up. Lights began switching on, curtains were pulled back. A few voices called across the quad at the sight of the old gull-wing parked at an angle on the grass.

‘Fairfax! What the fuck?’

Jules opened the car door and fell out, his palms on the ground to push him back up as he staggered around to open hers. Always the gentleman. It was raining, the water pooling on the cream leather back seats, but they didn’t care. They hadn’t wanted the top up. They had liked the feeling of the wind on their faces as they drove back from the airport; she had liked her face being wet as she screamed and laughed and cried all at once, her hair whipping about, her arms above her head, the magnum of Moet wedged between her legs.

She felt distant, disembodied, the growing fuss around them increasingly perplexing as she too tried – several times – to get out of the car. She finally managed it, holding up the bottle like it was some sort of trophy. A cheer went up, some of the bystanders swigging it in their pyjamas, their underwear.

‘We got fucking married, man!’ Jules was laughing, staggering about and almost falling over as his friends high-fived him. The place erupted. No one was sleeping now. Students were hanging out of the window, listening in, joining in.

Jules came over and slung his arm around her shoulders, almost sending her legs out from beneath her and kissing her messily on the mouth. She’d never been this out of it before. She couldn’t even remember exactly what she’d taken, what she’d done. She just knew that she couldn’t feel much and that that had been precisely the point.

Some of her friends were squealing, clasping hands as they jumped up and down in the rain, excited by the night’s development, and they all began to move as one towards the college. A gang. A pack.