It took a few seconds for Patricia to process what was going on.

‘Jesus!’ screamed Tina the maid of honour, who up until now had been quite bored. ‘It’s Cher! Are you Cher?’

‘I’m a big fan of your work,’ said Alison meekly.

‘Fuckin’ hell, and me!’ Tina reached for her phone to start videoing it all – this would be mega on Instagram.

‘No, I’m not Cher! I’m a Cher impersonator,’ screeched the woman. ‘I’ve come straight from a gig and I didn’t have time to change, and I said I’d meet the others here, and they should’ve arrived by now but … Anyway, that’s not important.’ She was clearly frustrated and embarrassed.

‘Sorry, but you do look exactly like her,’ said Alison, blushing to her roots.

‘That,’ announced Patricia, who had managed finally to turn herself round, ‘is Lana Lloyd, an acquaintance of my useless lummox of a daughter, who has done nothing but cause me heartache and misery since the day she was born and with whom I no longer wish to be associated.’

‘Patricia, listen …’ Lana said, looking over her shoulder for back-up. ‘I’m not exactly sure what’s been going on and I—’

‘Get away from me!’ screeched Patricia.

‘But no, seriously now, are you Cher?’ Tina persisted. She wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the pack. ‘Can I get a selfie? What you doin’ in Coed Celyn?’

‘Shut up, Tina,’ hissed Steven.

‘Pat, I’m sorry,’ spluttered Lana, red in the face from running, ‘but you can’t go ahead with this! Please – just wait till Judith gets here, is it?’

‘GET OUT!’ screeched Patricia, only it sounded more like GED than GET. Patricia often Americanized when she wanted to make a point.

‘OK, let’s all just calm down, shall we?’ said Alison, resuming her professional mantle. They had a marriage objector in their midst and she flushed with excitement. In all her twenty years of officiating, Alison had never encountered an objection to marriage. Thankfully she had been trained in how to deal with one. She cleared her throat. ‘My name is Alison Booth, I’m the senior registrar here today and I am fully aware of the complications regarding Mrs Harris’s wish to marry, of her daughter’s objection, and now yours.’

‘Then you’ll know,’ said Lana calmly, ‘that this seventy-nine-year-old woman is being taken advantage of.’

‘Oh my God, Pat!’ chirped Tina, who was viewing everyone through the video camera on her phone. ‘I never knew you was seventy-nine – I thought you was, like, fifty or somethin’, which is still well old, but seventy-nine is, like, mental!’

‘Tina! I said, shut up!’ snapped Steven Dean. ‘And turn that bloody thing off!’

Tina ignored him and carried on filming. This was pure gold.

‘Mrs Harris has undertaken psychological testing and interviews with Social Services—’

But Lana was no longer looking at the registrar. She was staring instead at Steven Dean.

‘I know you, don’t I?’

Steven looked irritated. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Yes, I do. I’ve seen you a few times down Molinski’s. You’ve had loads of selfies done with me …’