‘Don’t be silly,’ said my mother.

I wished I did feel sick. I wished I could be sick on my mother’s wedding dress.

‘It’s beginning to fit much better,’ said my mother.

When I tried to take it off I found that Lili had pinned it to my petticoat and I was trapped in it.

‘Well, what a performance,’ remarked my mother rather breathlessly after a short urgent scene.

Lili watched me thoughtfully as I put on my skirt and blouse. I was shaking and my eyes were blurred.

The dress lay on the floor and my mother picked it up tenderly, as though it was a child. I think she may even have said a few words to it.

‘Robert will be getting lonely,’ said Lili. ‘Downstairs all on his own.’

‘You can join him now,’ said my mother. ‘I think it fits as well as it ever will. We’ll all go down and have a Martini.’

I could smell a sour smell of old cloth, of old weddings, old sorrows.

‘I could do with a whisky,’ I said.

‘I hope you’re not becoming an alcoholic,’ said my mother with the unfairness of the recently offended.

‘She’s got some way to go,’ said Lili. ‘Unlike me. I often fear I drink too much.’

‘Nonsense,’ said my mother tartly, as though she thought Lili was showing off.

‘You are not of that opinion?’ inquired Lili, her head tilted in a way that I was beginning to be familiar with. ‘You have no fears for mon foie?’

‘I’ve got better things to worry about,’ said my mother, not letting us forget for a moment her onerous wedding duties. ‘Margaret has to have tea with Syl’s mother tomorrow.’

She spoke as one implying, ‘And serve her damn well right.’

‘I do think she might have offered to do something to help, but then it’s always up to the bride’s mother to make the arrangements, even when she’s on her own.’

The implication here was that Syl’s mother was very much richer than mine and a mean old beast.

‘It’s the convention, my poor duck,’ said Lili. ‘You like convention.’

My mother looked as though she wasn’t too keen on this one. ‘Syl is very good,’ she said, consoling herself. ‘Where’s your ring?’

I said I thought it too valuable to wear constantly and had put it in my dressing-table drawer, My poor mother, I am sure, couldn’t determine whether to commend my prudence or berate me for my lack of romance. I hated the hoop of diamonds which, although I had washed it, looked somehow dirty. It reposed in a box of plum velvet on a bed of harsh white satin, reminding me, whenever I saw it, of the inherent vulgarity of marriage, that combination of contract and concupiscence.

‘What are you doing about your going-away clothes?’ demanded my mother.