I didn’t know the people sitting on either side of me, because they were both from the bride’s family. The one on my left remained with her back to me, busily chatting to someone else. The one on my right kept up a constant, cryptic murmuring, which may have been addressed to me, and to which I responded with the occasional “Hmm” and a few vague nods. I kept thinking I heard voices behind me—Stella Lyell . . . suicide . . . that’s her younger sister over there—but when I glanced round, the people at the next table appeared easy and unconstrained. I couldn’t see Dad at all.

Here we go again, I remember thinking. Elbows in, eyes down, do what everyone else is doing. Don’t think too hard or wish too hard. Don’t listen to their gossip.

“Lamb Provençal,” said one of the other bridesmaids with relish, reading off the menu card, as the main courses began to arrive. A plate was set in front of me, and the heat and noise seemed to swell up inside the tent, and the stench of close-packed bodies was indistinguishable from the smell of garlicky meat. I gripped the edge of the table and felt myself sway. There was still no sign of a replenished water jug, but at least the flaps of the canopy had been tied back on one side, and I could drink the green shadows of the garden with my eyes if I leaned forward and pressed against my neighbour’s arm. My gaze meandered upward, through a veil of trees, to Byrne Hall. The front door was still open, and a cold darkness seemed to seep out of it, like water from a stone jar.

“Beans?” said my neighbour shortly, shifting her chair as best she could so that our arms were no longer touching. I helped myself to French beans, before handing the dish on and feeling for my knife and fork. The lamb cutlet was covered in gritty pepper, and when I pressed it with the flat of my knife it bled like a grazed knee. On the other side of the table the two littlest bridesmaids were getting red-faced and wriggly. One of them threw her fork on the floor and the other one started to wail, and nobody tried to stop them when they slid under the table and crawled over our feet. I turned to my plate again, and the air around me staled and thickened. Outside, a breath of wind touched the lime trees, and their leaves flashed in the sun, like tumbling emeralds.

“Could you possibly cut up my lamb for me?” asked the woman on my right, with a wave of her bandaged wrist. “I’ve only got one hand here.” From the testy way she said it, I guessed this wasn’t the first time she’d asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry. Of course.”

I pulled her plate toward me and began to saw, yanking the chunk of meat from its bow-shaped bone. Blood pooled over the plate and my stomach seemed to rise and fall in time with my breathing. The woman said something, but I couldn’t hear her properly over the buzzing in my ears. I set the cutlery down carefully.