‘Did you get my message on Tuesday?’ Mum asks. I don’t say yes and that it made my day. I say yes but I’ve been too busy to call back. She nods.

‘How was the wedding?’ She knows all about my social life and what I do with myself on a daily basis. It’s a tactic to avoid living a life of her own.

‘Fluffy,’ I reply.

‘Beautiful.’ Issie smiles.

‘What a shame about the rain, especially as today is so beautiful. Isn’t that always the way?’

‘They must have expected rain or at least thought there was a fair probability. It is August, it is England.’ I don’t know why I do this. Behave badly. But I always do. My mother always brings out the worst in me. The moment I am in her presence I am incapable of being polite, let alone charming. I become petulant, sulky, churlish and unreasonable. My mother authorizes this appallingly childish behaviour by silently indulging me. The harder she tries to please, the meaner I become. I always leave her house ashamed of myself.

‘Ignore her,’ says Issie.

‘Oh, I do,’ giggles my mum.

‘You know how she hates weddings.’

I pretend to have an overwhelming interest in the yellow patches of grass on the lawn. My mother cuts me a piece of chocolate fudge cake. It was my favourite as a child. I consider telling her I’m dieting but it’s a lie. I’d only be doing it to be pathetic.

‘Did Josh enjoy the wedding?’

‘Seemed to,’ I mutter. I know where this conversation is leading. It’s leading where every conversation my mother ever has about Josh leads. She mistakenly labours under the belief that Josh and I would make a ‘lovely couple’. She insists on deliberately misconstruing his innocent acts of friendship as overtures. Her inference would irritate me, but I comfort myself with the thought that my mother knows absolutely nothing about the male psyche.