Clare, who’d selected a dress, was now assembling underwear and accessories. ‘Yes, twenty-eight days, isn’t it? But I suppose you can spring it on your guests as last-minute as you like!’

My heart renewed its ghastly thumping. So Melia had known about this morning for four weeks. Four assignations with me – including the cable-car excursion – and not a word breathed. What was she playing at, expecting me to be a witness at her wedding when she’d told me she loved me?

Not told. Implied. I felt myself deflate: what kind of a middle-aged sap was I to be thinking in terms of love? In the shower, I turned the water to the most savage cold in an attempt to extinguish my smouldering thoughts. Melia and I were over. It had only been five months and yet there’d been times, when I woke in the morning and the fragments hadn’t yet pieced together, that I couldn’t begin to fathom the double life I’d been leading. How had we survived as long as we had without detection? Kit, I’d understood to lack sensitivity to altered cues, but Clare was something else. If this marked the end of Melia and me, which surely it did, then I had to consider my exit as having been made by the skin of my teeth.

Easier said than done.

Scrubbed, shaved and dressed halfway smartly, I dashed down to join Clare, who looked delightful in a poppy red dress, her hair in a big blow-dry, a chunky chain-link necklace sitting on her collarbone. Next thing we were in the taxi and pulling up at Woolwich Town Hall, a grand edifice with domed roof and a clock tower.

‘I forget what a nice building this is,’ I said.

‘Edwardian Baroque. Wait till you see inside. There’s got to be a waiting list as long as your arm for this venue. Melia must have got a cancellation.’

She automatically assumed Melia had driven this and I didn’t challenge her.

She was right about the interior, a surreal sight for eyes accustomed to gazing into a coffee cup at this hour on a weekend: a vast domed ceiling with chequered flooring, stained glass, a staircase worthy of a sultan, all presided over by a marble Queen Victoria.

We found the happy couple in a waiting area on the upper level. Perhaps because of the opulence of the venue, they both looked slight and innocent, particularly Melia, who was in a simple dove-grey sundress and sandals that were little more than flip flops. Long earrings made of dangling silver strands threatened to get tangled in her hair, which she wore loose and natural on uncovered shoulders. Other than lipstick and mascara, she presented herself to her husband-to-be bare-faced. Kit was in tailored dog-tooth check trousers and black shirt – a young mod – but the sharpness of his dress seemed only to accentuate his lack of life experience. He’d never looked so out of his depth as he did now.

‘Is this Mum and Dad?’ the official said to Melia and I pretended not to hear. I had a very strong feeling that no good was going to come of this for any of those present and accepted Kit’s handshake with such reluctance he began laughing.

‘I know you don’t believe in marriage, Jamie, but you can do better than that.’

Embarrassed, I pulled him into a hug. ‘Sorry, mate, I’m just a bit thrown. Had no idea this was on the cards.’

Clare kissed them both. For a self-proclaimed wedding cynic, she was exuberant, even joyful. ‘Hang on, do you not have flowers, Melia? You have to have flowers. I’ll nip out and get some for you.’

No sooner had she departed than Kit was asking for directions to the loo and Melia and I were left alone. Her cheeks were the exact soft pink you’d apply with a brush to a bride’s skin, only natural. Her eyes, when turned towards me, were ardent, radiating devotion – a highly disconcerting sight, given the circumstances.

‘Jamie,’ she murmured, ‘thank you for this.’

This? I hardly knew where to start. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Her smile was hard to read, combining excitement and apology and another emotion oddly like guile. ‘I was going to when we met on Wednesday, but . . .’

‘But it didn’t make the news headlines?’ It had all happened so quickly I wasn’t certain if my agony was caused by her decision to marry Kit, an unsuitable husband by anyone’s standards, or her decision to marry at all. I was sick both with envy of him and self-loathing for the way I’d betrayed him – and Clare.

She stepped closer, cupped my elbow. Her touch was tender, full of commiseration. ‘Look, there’s not time now, but I’ll explain everything next time we meet.’

‘You don’t need to explain, darling.’ I pulled myself together, tried to look pleased for her.

‘Don’t I?’ She was suddenly full of sorrow. ‘Are you saying you don’t want me to?’

‘I’m saying I don’t expect you to. If this is what you want, then—’

‘Next week,’ she interrupted, taking the risk of placing a finger on my lips.

Next week? She couldn’t mean . . . I knew her well enough to know she was unusually willing – some might say entitled – to have her cake and eat it, but surely that didn’t include wedding cake? Gently, I brushed her finger away. ‘I’m going on holiday next week, Melia. I told you. We leave on Wednesday. I’ll be away for two weeks.’

‘Oh yes. As soon as you get back then. I haven’t got my schedule yet for that week, so I don’t know which day is good. Wednesday or Thursday, though, same as usual.’

‘Same as usual?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes gripped mine with an almost fanatical desire to persuade. ‘Trust me, Jamie. I need you. I really— Oh, Clare, they’re so pretty!’

Clare had returned with a sweet bunch of wildflowers, which Melia clutched demurely over her abdomen while Clare took photos on her phone. She had taken on a semi-officiating role, it seemed. ‘Are you planning a honeymoon, Me? I hate to be the bad guy, but you haven’t booked any leave, have you? The holiday roster was worked out ages ago. Should I talk to Richard for you?’

Melia’s smiled as if sharing a joke. ‘Oh, we’re not having a honeymoon. We can’t afford that.’

Kit, who’d spent so long in the loo I could only guess what he’d been doing there, reappeared by her side. ‘We can’t afford anything,’ he agreed, cheerfully. ‘We begin our married life as beggars.’

And then the beggars’ names were called and it was happening. The official was full of genuine good cheer, even if it was a comically short service in an empty room, there being no readings or additional vows and no other guests besides Clare and me.

Afterwards, like a star and his hippie child bride, the newlyweds fled the opulent interior for the stone steps outside, feet kicking confetti from the unions that preceded their own. They were holding hands, giggling together. You’d never guess one of them had promised to continue her adultery with a third party just moments before taking her vows and the other had inhaled illegal drugs he couldn’t afford. Then they got on their phones and invited people, seemingly at random, to join them for drinks at the Stag, a big pub on the river at Greenwich.

We shared a taxi there, Melia sandwiched between Kit and Clare in the back. I could smell the jasmine of her scent and wondered, with sudden fright, if Clare had ever smelled it on me. No, she couldn’t have or we wouldn’t all be here together today.