My body drooped along with my spirits as I turned to Giles who, with an expression of what looked like utter despair, was now staring at his feet, his hands in his pockets.

I knew, without a doubt, that I had not only ruined his evening, but also done considerable damage to his friendship with Kerry. Why hadn’t I just left? OK, so the evening was never going to end on a high, but maybe if I’d shut up, kept my cool and gone home, Giles and Kerry could have decided that my relationship with Cameron need have nothing to do with their relationship with each other. But there was no hope of that now. They had each taken sides, the battle lines were drawn, and two wholly innocent parties were caught up in the war.

Meanwhile, Bill was busy promoting his upcoming Clifton gig at one hundred decibels from the other end of the room, prompting some sporadic, drunken whooping and lots of ear-poking. Under cover of the deafening promo, I reached out and took hold of Giles’s arm, forcing him to remove his hand from his pocket so that I could hold it.

‘I’m so, so sorry, Giles,’ I said as loudly as I dared, whilst standing on tip-toe, resting my chin on his shoulder and speaking directly into his right ear.

‘It’s just a series of extremely unfortunate events,’ he sighed.

I shook my head, feeling boozy tears begin to well. ‘I know I handled it really badly.’

‘You were taken by surprise,’ he replied. ‘I would have been exactly the same.’ He let go of my hand and placed his arm around my shoulders. ‘Come on,’ he said, as I leaned into him, ‘let’s sneak off while everyone’s looking at Bill.’

‘Yes, there they are, the two love-birds!’ boomed Bill. ‘Canoodling at the back!’

I raised my head from Giles’s shoulder to find that all eyes were upon us.

‘Don’t worry, folks. They’re not full cousins!’ said Bill, an announcement which, after a moment’s complete silence, prompted a single ‘Hurrah!’ and some scattered applause. ‘So come on, Edith, come up here and get your flowers.’

A sorry combination of alcohol and distress meant that I didn’t remember walking to the other end of the room. But nevertheless, a moment later, there I was, being presented with a huge bouquet by Stan, whilst Bill tapped his foot and played the opening bars of Electric Avenue on a penny whistle extracted from his back pocket.

There was more clapping and then Stan handed me the microphone, saying, ‘Your turn, Edith.’

I looked around the room and saw that Giles had followed me and was now standing just a few feet away, smiling encouragingly. I bit my lip.

‘You’re just so lovely, Giles,’ I said quietly, except not quietly at all, thanks to Bill’s mega sound system. Cue yet more applause and a wolf-whistle.