‘Well, I thought that might be the case,’ my mother would say. ‘I’ve seen some very good things from there, and some not so good, and I thought it might be worth trying, at least, but I thought probably, probably it wouldn’t be exactly what you were after.’

‘No, it wasn’t what we were after,’ Auntie Manda would affirm. ‘But then we tried the place that Susan suggested, and you liked that one a lot, didn’t you, love?’

‘I really liked that one,’ Candice said, drawing out the vowels.

‘They did the most beautiful icing,’ Auntie Manda said. ‘Really beautiful. And the sponge was very moist.’

‘Well, that’s what you want, isn’t it,’ my mother said. ‘There’s nothing worse than dry cake that’s too sweet. I’m not a fan of cake, but I know you don’t want that.’

‘How can you not like cake?’ Candice exclaimed. ‘These cakes were beautiful. You’ve got to have a piece at the wedding.’

So it went, the horse-trading of preference and information, with my mother rubbed sore between her sister and her niece until it was time for them to hurry away for another appointment, another opportunity to exhibit their harassment and good fortune, at which point my mother would be able to wash her hands of the whole thing; and although she was reluctant to do this – she wanted, more than anything, I think, to be right at the centre of the wedding – she could at least draw strength from her freedom.

‘Lovely to see you,’ she would say, trailing them down the hall. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow. Gosh, you’ve got so much to do. I don’t envy you all that, I really don’t. It’s a bit like someone else’s baby for me. I get to play with her for a while, but then I can give her back!’

They laughed at this – they always laughed – knowing full well that my mother would never have given the baby back if she did not have to. Then their laughter mutated into cries of farewell before the closing door cut them off; and although my mother stood on the near side of this door, her own cries always cut off at exactly the same moment. Then, before she could turn and climb the stairs, I would shut my own door as well. If this seems cruel, I can only say that my mother’s weakness in the presence of her sister and her niece filled me not with pity but annoyance – I could not understand why she endured it. What did she think was going to change?