‘How are you doing?!’ I asked.

‘Doing great, thanks,’ she said. ‘Really enjoying the day.’

‘Where did you get your dress from?’

‘Little boutique not too far from here, actually. Never thought I’d go for strapless, but there we go.’

I could tell she was keen to move on, but she was graciously giving us our allotted three minutes. I realized the tone of our conversation was not dissimilar to two showbiz journalists interviewing a movie star on the red carpet outside a premiere.

‘I’ve got to go say hi to some people, but I’ll see you later.’ She glided away, the train of her skirt looped around her wrist like Cinderella.

‘How was this morning?’ Lola asked.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Really fun. You should see it from the other side, Lola. You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Tell me everything.’

‘Stayed up and got really drunk last night – sang some sea shanties and everything. Woke up at eleven. Ate a massive fry-up. Had showers, got changed, did ten minutes of photos and then came to the church.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I get why men always say they had so much fun on their wedding day and so many women I know have breakdowns.’

‘That’s so unfair.’

‘And I don’t think that men know what happens on the other side either. I don’t even think they know about all the matching dressing gowns with the names of the bridesmaids embroidered on the back.’

Lola sighed. ‘I’m going to go get more drinks. Sometimes they only do champagne as the gateway for the first half-hour before they wean you on to the harder street stuff.’

‘Cava?’

‘Yeah.’

I went over to Katherine, who was standing with Meera and holding her one-year-old baby boy, Finlay. I bent down and looked into his large chocolatey eyes, twinkling from the residual tears of his last tantrum.

‘Where’s Eddie?’ I asked Meera.

‘Oh, he and Mark are smoking weed in the car park,’ Katherine said with a sigh.

‘We’ve been at the reception for less than an hour.’

‘Yeah,’ Katherine said. ‘Spot the new dads out on the razz.’

Meera noted the judgement in my face. ‘I’m sure I’ll get to have some fun later,’ she said.

‘Do you want to have a cuddle with Aunty Nina?’ Katherine said to Finlay in a sweet, high-pitched voice, before passing him over to me. He wriggled into my arms and his warm, calming weight made my feet feel fastened to the ground.

‘How have you found it this time?’ Meera asked Katherine.

She stroked her tummy. ‘Wonderful, actually. I adore being pregnant.’

‘God, you’re lucky. I hated it. I had to give up all my favourite things – wine, fags, caffeine, nice cheese.’

‘I don’t mind that at all,’ Katherine said, adjusting her sunglasses. ‘I love giving my body a full detox. I don’t miss any of it.’

Lola came over, holding three glasses of champagne. She passed one to me.

‘Oh my God, Andreas’s parents are here.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘How do you know?’

‘Who’s Andreas?’ Katherine asked.

‘A guy I’ve been dating.’

‘Are you dating now?’ Meera asked.

‘No, not really.’

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘How do you know they’re his parents?’

‘Because I’ve obviously looked at every Facebook album he’s ever uploaded and I recognize them from there.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. Oh my God, what are the chances? They must be friends with Lucy’s parents.’ She knocked her head back and took a thirsty gulp.

‘Okay, don’t stress about it, they won’t recognize you, so you can just ignore them all day,’ Meera said.

‘I don’t want to ignore them all day. I want to make friends with them.’

‘Why?’ I asked despairingly.

‘Because, if I make friends with them, then next time they see Andreas they might say, “We met this charming girl at a wedding called Lola, she’s exactly the sort of person you should be with,” and THEN he’ll realize what he’s missing.’

‘Can we please ban the phrase “what he’s missing”,’ I said. ‘I’d like to issue a house-style guide for talking about being single, and “what he’s missing” is strictly forbidden.’

Katherine put her arm around Lola. ‘Darling, are you sure that’s a good idea?’ she asked.

‘Yes, or – OR – I could befriend them and then post a photo of us together on Instagram? That would really give him the willies!’

‘You’ll look like a stalker,’ said Meera.

‘No, but he doesn’t know that I know they’re his parents. As far as I know, they’re just a lovely couple in their sixties who I met at a wedding and who have invited me to stay at their house for the weekend this summer. Then he wouldn’t be able to ghost me, would he?!’

‘I think you should hold the baby,’ I said, passing Finlay over to Lola. ‘He’s very soothing.’

She positioned him on her hip and swayed from side to side. He gurgled and giggled.

‘You’re a natural,’ Katherine said.

Pathetically, I noticed that she hadn’t said that when I was holding Finlay. Performative, public baby-holding had become a competitive sport for childless women at events over the last five years. We all hoped for those three words to be passed over to us by an Adjudicator of Maternal Qualification like Katherine. You’re a natural.

‘Ladies!’ Franny said as she bustled towards us and beckoned with her hand. ‘We’re doing a group photo for all married or engaged girls. So, Lola, Nina, you stay put, but you two, you’ll need to come with me.’

‘Are you fucking joking?’ Lola said.

‘I know,’ Meera said. ‘But I feel now is not the day to protest.’

‘We’ll look after the baby,’ I said. Meera and Katherine walked towards the front of the house where a collection of women gathered.

‘DO WIDOWS COUNT?’ a frail-looking great-aunt with a neat silver bob and a walking stick shouted.

‘Yes, as long as YOU HAVE A RING ON YOUR FINGER!’ Franny shouted across the lawn as the great-aunt hobbled towards her hurriedly. ‘IF IT’S JUST A RINGLESS OR THEORETICAL PROPOSAL, YOU DON’T NEED TO COME JOIN US.’

The grass where we stood was now covered only in suits and a handful of women who smiled sympathetically at one other – we had been marked. The photographer, scurrying back and forth across the line of women, asked them all to reach their ring-finger hands forward.

‘That’s it!’ he shouted. ‘Now look happy, you’re all in love!’

‘Are we?!’ Franny shouted, before waving at her husband and getting a cheap laugh from the crowd.

‘This is what they fought for,’ I said. ‘All those women before us who were married off and locked up in a house with no voice or vote or money or freedom. This is what they wanted. For a group of professional women to all wave their engagement rings around like it’s a Nobel Prize.’

‘I think Franny might be a total cunt, you know,’ Lola said.

I was put on a table with Meera and Eddie, Mark and Katherine, Franny and her husband, Hugo, and Lola. Since Joe and I broke up, Lola and I were regularly grouped together as a counterfeit couple. Like all weddings, the drinking-on-the-grass portion of the day had gone on for an hour too long and everyone was a bit too drunk to be sitting down for dinner. Mark was pawing at the miniature bottle of damson gin party favour, trying to open it and drink it in one. Eddie’s face was pink with booze and excitement as he explained to the table why he thought there were so many eligible thirty-something women who were single.

‘It’s the Blair Bulge,’ he asserted, leaning across the table to fill my glass with white wine. ‘I’m convinced of it.’

‘What’s the Blair Bulge?’

‘Women with degrees will only rarely marry men without them, but men are less fussy,’ he explained. ‘Because Tony Blair made more people go to university, there are loads of university-educated women who struggle to find suitable long-term partners. This cohort is the Blair Bulge.’

‘So basically, we’ve become too smart for marriage.’

‘Precisely!’ he said.

‘I mean, that’s sort of encouraging.’

‘Where’s Lola?’ Katherine asked. The seat next to me was empty.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. I glanced around the marquee and saw her standing by the table plan, looking like a giant orange-flavoured ice lolly, laughing and talking to a couple in their sixties. ‘Oh God. I think she’s talking to Andreas’s parents.’

‘I’ve got a question for all you fellow old marrieds!’ Franny piped up. ‘Sorry, Nina.’

I shook my head. ‘Really, no offence taken,’ I said.

‘I want to know what your love language is.’

‘What’s a love language?’ Mark asked.

‘Oh, Mark, you must know about it! Katherine, do you know about it?’

‘Yes, I did the quiz online.’

‘So did I,’ Meera said.

‘Right, so, listen carefully, boys,’ Franny said. ‘There are five different ways of expressing love and every person’s is different. It was so useful for us to work out what our ones are, wasn’t it, darling?’