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‘Will there still be pins when we wear them to the wedding?’ Frederick asks, a look of concern on his face. ‘I don’t want them to prick me.’

‘No. I’ll have sewn the hems up and taken the pins away,’ Elizabeth tells him as Henrietta helps him gingerly out of his suit. ‘They’re just to guide me for now.’

‘Right,’ Henrietta announces once both boys are dressed in their normal clothes and she’s wrestled them into their coats. ‘There’s only so much goodwill even the promise of McDonald’s can buy, so I’m going to take these two away before it runs out. See you at the wedding.’

‘Who’s next?’ Elizabeth asks once Henrietta has ushered the twins through the door.

* * *

It’s nearly lunchtime by the time Andrea, Mum, Hebe and I are done. Although both Andrea and I were very happy with our bridesmaids’ dresses and, as Lucy predicted, my new hair did go very well with mine, the star of the show was undoubtedly Hebe’s wedding dress. Even though she’s seen it several times before, Mum burst into tears the moment Hebe stepped out of the dressing room. On the surface, it’s a fairly simple off-the-shoulder satin A-line dress with a sweetheart neckline that flatters her ample chest. When you examine it closely, however, you can see that it’s full of clever details, including some gentle body sculpting in the midsection that nips in her waist just a little before sweeping over her hips. There are also tiny silk roses embroidered into the silk of the skirt, which can be detached to reveal a shorter skirt underneath that will be perfect for the dancefloor.

‘You’ll have to lay off the hobnobs this week, Hebe,’ Mum warns her as we head towards their favourite Italian restaurant for lunch. ‘You can’t afford to put any weight on now the final fitting is done.’

Hebe looks at me and raises her eyebrows in amusement. ‘It’ll be fine, Mum. There’s still plenty of give in the dress and I’m going to be sensible, I promise.’

‘I still can’t believe my little sister is actually getting married,’ I tell her with a smile.

‘Yes, well, I for one intend to make the most of it,’ Mum says, looking pointedly at me. ‘It’s probably the only opportunity I’ll get to be mother of the bride.’

I open my mouth to come back at her, before realising that she’s probably right. I don’t have a problem with the concept of marriage, as such. I just can’t ever see it happening to me.

4

It is done. Hebe is married, and everything went as smoothly as could have been hoped. It was a beautiful ceremony, to be fair. You could feel the love between Hebe and Mark as they said their vows to one another, and even a bit of fidgeting from the twins wasn’t enough to distract from the moment. Most importantly, we managed to get through all the photos before the boys’ patience completely expired, although we had to let them off the leash as soon as we were done. Needless to say, their suits are now far from pristine, and Frederick has a large fruit-juice stain on his shirt.

Hebe and Mark, unsurprisingly, have gone for a traditional seating plan for the top table, so I found myself sitting on the end next to Mark’s dad. Even though Hebe and Mark have been together forever, this was the first time I’d met him in the flesh, although I’d heard quite a lot about him and his entrenched opinions from various other family members. I was therefore bracing myself as we took our seats.

‘You’re the mystery sister,’ he’d begun, after sloshing a generous amount of wine into his glass. From the flush on his cheeks and the slightly glazed look in his eyes, I guessed he’d already had a few. ‘Never around. Globetrotter kind of thing. What is it you do, exactly?’

‘I’m an IT consultant,’ I’d told him warily.

‘A consultant,’ he’d repeated dismissively. ‘That covers a multitude of sins. It seems to me that everyone is a consultant these days. What are you consulting about, exactly? It all sounds like woo-woo navel gazing rather than proper work. In my day, we didn’t need consultants. We just got on with it. Nowadays, nobody seems able to cross the road without whole teams of overpaid people advising them on how to do it.’

For a moment, I’d just stared at him, speechless. I knew he was opinionated, but nobody had warned me he was this rude, drunk or not.

‘It’s kind of a catch-all title,’ I’d told him eventually. ‘My actual job title is Senior Solution Architect in the retail sector, but I find most people don’t know what that means.’

‘So you design and build shops. Is that it? You’re an architect. Why not just say that? I’d have loved to be an architect, but sadly, my draughtsman’s skills weren’t up to it. I’ve always been good with numbers though, which is why accountancy called. Good, proper job, accountancy. At least, it was until the computers took over.’ His expression had turned bitter. ‘Then it’s all “we need to rationalise, the computer can do the work of ten men, sorry, Raymond, but there’s no longer a place for you”.’

He’d taken a large mouthful of wine before grabbing the bottle possessively and refilling his glass. I genuinely had no idea what to say to him. He may be unbelievably rude, and I did briefly wonder whether that might have been a factor in his company’s decision to let him go, but I could also see that at least some of it was coming from a place of pain. He’d fallen victim to Athena’s second rule of corporate life – that nobody is indispensable – and, behind the gruff exterior, I could see a scared little boy. Not that telling him that would have helped, of course. Any mention of emotion would have had him running for the hills.

‘I’m sorry,’ I’d said instead. ‘That’s terrible. Do you have any ideas about what you’d like to do?’

He’d laughed humourlessly. ‘Maybe I’ll become a consultant like you. Problem is, I’m too old, see? Time was I would have just pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got on with it, but nobody wants to employ a man in his sixties. Miriam, that’s Mark’s mother, thinks I should just accept it and let them put me out to grass, like an old horse. I’d rather they just shoot me between the eyes. A man needs a purpose in life, something to get him out of the house. It’s all very well for you ladies, with your coffee mornings and your Pilates and whatnot, but a chap needs more. She thinks—’ he’d paused to take a mouthful of wine ‘—I should consider voluntary work at the shelter. Can you imagine? Me, waiting hand and foot on a load of ne’er-do-wells who ought to be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and taking responsibility for their lives? I think not.’

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ I’d begun once I was sure he’d finished his diatribe. ‘The system is stacked against you if you don’t have a permanent address. For example⁠—’

‘Oh, spare me the sob story,’ he’d interrupted dismissively. ‘I’ve heard it before. The simple fact is that these people are taking you for a ride, Ariadne. They don’t want housing, they don’t want to work, they just want to sit on the pavement and fleece you. Some of them aren’t even homeless, you know. They just make such a fortune from begging that they choose to do it.’

There was so much wrong with what he’d said, including my name, that I didn’t have a clue where to start to unpick it. My initial sympathy for him losing his job evaporated and was replaced with a mixture of fury and wonder at his attitude. I truly didn’t think people as entitled as him existed any more, and the idea of spending the next however many hours trapped making conversation with him had made me want to wrestle the bottle out of his grasp and finish it myself.

Thankfully, having delivered his verdict on homelessness, Raymond had diverted his attention to my mother, sitting on the other side of him. Mum and I may have our differences, but I was in awe of her ability to listen to him droning on, even injecting the occasional encouraging word here and there.

At least the speeches weren’t too cringe-worthy. Dad’s was a little vague, drawing on some unusual Roman wedding traditions which I think we’re all pleased no longer apply – sacrifice, anyone? – but it was generally fairly well received. Mark was blushing furiously as he gave his, but nobody could be in doubt how deeply he loves Hebe and how happy he is to have married her. The cheers when he called her ‘my wife’ for the first time were deafening. Even the best man’s speech was pretty tasteful, although Mark is hardly the sort of guy who’s going to have an extensive back catalogue of questionable actions to tell stories about. I like him, and he’s a good match for Hebe, but I wouldn’t call him exciting.

We’re now in one of the lulls. The meal is finished, the cake is cut and we’re milling about while the venue staff reconfigure the room for the evening event. I’m tempted to slip up to my room for half an hour just to recharge a bit but, even though my main duties are done, I still feel a responsibility to be present as chief bridesmaid, just in case Hebe needs something. As if on cue, she appears next to me.

‘Are you all right?’ I ask her. Stupid question really, given the blissful expression on her face.