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‘And the food was a disgrace.’ She'd reached us now and was trembling with rage, fat and shrill, shaking the bill in Caro's face, her cheeks pink under the powder. ‘An absolute disgrace!’

‘Because you insisted on booking your own caterers, who didn't turn up, so my husband and I did the very best we could under the circumstances.’

‘The canapés were still frozen!’ she shrieked. ‘Had ice on them! Aunt Nina broke her front teeth and Cousin Shylock choked and had to have the Heimlich manoeuvre from my brother Raymond!’

‘Yes, well, Phoebe didn't realize I'd only just taken the vol-au-vents out of the freezer. She passed them round before I could microwave them – since none of your waitresses turned up. I told you, Mrs Goldberg, we did our best.’

‘You roasted a pig!’ she squealed, fists clenched, looking rather like one herself. ‘Served it to my guests!’

‘Yes, I'm sorry. That was thoughtless. But we were only given two hours' notice and we were under pressure. We roasted a lamb too.’

‘A pig! At my daughter's wedding!’

‘Because you didn't provide any food! And it was one of my own pigs, actually, a precious Tamworth I'd raised myself, and had slaughtered that week, and was saving for the family, and which actually, the non-Jewish contingent wolfed down with alacrity. There was none left, you know.’

‘A pig…’ she muttered faintly, fluttering her lilac eyelashes, swooning and looking as if she might pass out. Suddenly she snapped to, realizing there was a lot of mud about. She shoved the bill in Caro's hand. ‘Well, I'm not paying it,’ she said savagely. ‘You can sing for it. Take me to court for all I care. I'm not paying a penny!’

And with that she turned on her lilac heel and stalked off.

‘Good God. What a nerve,’ I gaped.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Caro wearily, watching her go. ‘Unbelievable nerve. And unbelievably common too.’

‘Yes, she looked it.’

‘Well, that too, but no, I meant not unusual. That sort of behaviour. And you should see them before the wedding, when they come to look at the venue. All cooing and gushing over the setting and the ducks, couldn't be nicer. Then they go a bit steely when they're organizing the flowers and the food, trying to shave money off, and you think, aye aye, and then the moment something goes wrong they turn ugly. Really ugly. And it's always our fault. Two weeks ago we had a sit-down wedding lunch for a couple of midgets with supposedly a hundred guests, and a hundred and twenty-five showed up. I was expected to find twenty-five chairs from nowhere, and stretch the food like loaves and fishes. Luckily a lot of the guests were midgets too, so I bundled them two to a chair, and of course their appetites weren't enormous, but what do you do?’

‘Well, quite,’ I said faintly.

‘I think that was our worst one yet.’

‘No, the worst one was when someone died on your bed,’ Henry reminded her.

‘No!’ I gasped in horror.

‘An aged uncle,’ said Caro. ‘Another story.’

‘Dad didn't know he was there, right,’ Henry's eyes were huge, ‘and got into bed with him—’

‘Alright, Henry!’ She fixed him with a look.

‘Good heavens,’ I said somewhat inadequately. ‘Well, I certainly won't be adding to your workload, Caro. You've clearly got a lot on your plate. Rest assured I will be up here at eight o'clock tonight to put Hector out, and back at seven in the morning to get him in again.’

She sighed and picked up the barrow handles. ‘Oh, don't worry. I'm here. I can do it this evening.’

‘And I always muck Pepper out and feed her, so I could feed Hector, too,’ said Phoebe eagerly, knowing her cousin would be pleased.

My heart warmed to both of them. ‘You're sweet, both of you. But I'll definitely be here in the morning. If I have a crisis I might call on you, but I'm going to jolly well do my best. Sort this pony lark out.’

Yes, I would, I thought as I drove home. They had their work cut out, that family – my family, I thought with a lurch – and I hadn't always realized it. Hadn't realized how other people struggled to keep