"Yes," he said laughing, "the party in the church."
"Well, Mummy took me out," she said, looking at him as if he were an imbecile.
"Fucking bitch" said Magda.
"It was supposed to be a parpy," Constance said darkly.
"Can you take her away?" I whispered to Mark.
"Come on, Constance, let's go find the football."
To my surprise, Constance took his hand and happily pottered off with him.
"Fucking bitch. I'm gonna kill 'er, I'm gonna. . ."
I followed Magda's gaze to where a young girl, dressed in pink, was in animated conversation with Jude. It was the same girl I'd seen Jeremy with last year in a restaurant in Portobello and again outside The Ivy one night, getting into a taxi.
"What's Jude doing inviting her?" said Magda, furiously. "Well, how would Jude know it was her?" I said, watching them. "Maybe she works with her or something."
"Weddings! Keep you only to her! Oh God, Bridge." Magda started crying and trying to fumble for a tissue. "I'm sorry."
Saw Shaz spot the crisis and start hurrying towards us. "Come on, girls, come on!"Jude, oblivious, surrounded by enraptured friends of her parents, was about to chuck the bouquet. She started ploughing her way loudly towards us, followed by the entourage. "Here we go. Ready now, Bridget."
As if in slow motion, I saw the bouquet fly through the air towards me, half caught it, took one look at Magda's tear-stained face and chucked it at Shazzer, who dropped it on the floor.
"Ladies and gentlemen." A ludicrous be-knickerbockered butler was banging a cherub-shaped hammer on a bronze flower-decked lectern. "Will you please be silent and upstanding as the wedding party makes its way to the top table."
Fuck! Top table! Where was my bouquet? I bent down, picked up Jude's from Shazzer's feet and, with a gay fixed grin, held it up in front of the hole in my dress.
"It was when we moved to Great Missenclen that Judith's outstanding gifts in the freestyle and butterfly strokes . . ."
By 5 o'clock Sir Ralph had already been talking for twenty-five minutes.
"...Became strongly apparent not only to us, her admittedly biased.." - he looked up to elicit a dutiful faint ripple of pretend laughter - "parents, but to the entire South Buckinghamshire region. It was a year in which Judith not only attaincd first place for the butterfly and freestyle sections in three consecutive tournaments in the South Buckinghamshire Under-Twelves Dolphin League but obtained her Gold Personal Survival Medal just three weeks before her first year exams!".
"What's going on with you and Simon?" I hissed to Shaz.
"Nothing," she hissed back, staring straight ahead at the audience.
"...In that same very busy year Judith obtained a distinction in her Grade 11 Associated Board Examinations on the clarinet - an early indication of the rounded 'Famma Universale' she was to become. . ."
"But he must have been watching you in church otherwise he wouldn't have rushed up in time to catch you."
"I know, but I was sick in his hand in the vestry."
"... Keen and accomplished swimmer, deputy head girl - and frankly this, as the headmistress privately admitted to me, was an error of judgement since Karen Jenkins' performance as head girl was ... well. This is a day for celebration, not for regret, and I know Karen's, er, father is with us today . . ."
Caught Mark's eye and thought was going to explode. Jude was a model of detachment, beaming at everyone, stroking Vile Richard's knee and giving him little kisses for all the world as if the cauchemarish cacophony were not happening and she had not, on so many occasions, slumped drunkenly on my floor incanting "Commitmentphobic bastard. Vile by name, and Vile by nature, 'ere, ave we run out of wine?"
"..Second lead clarinetist in the school orchestra, keen trapezer, Judith was and is a prize beyond rubies. . ."
Could see where all this was leading. Unfortunately it took a further thirty-five-minute trawl through Jude's gap year, Cambridge triumph, and meteoric rise through the corridors of the financial world to get there.
"...And finally, it only remains for me to hope that, er..."
Everyone held their breath as Sir Ralph looked down at his notes for really beyond all sense, beyond all reason, beyond all decorum and good English manners, too long.
"Richard!" he said finally, "is suitably grateful for this priceless gift, this jewel, which has today been so graciously bestowed upon him."