The two little boys emerged from the font area and set off back down the aisle. God, the baby was really yelling now.

The vicar paused and cleared his throat. Turned round to see the boys kicking the football against the pews. Caught Mark's eye. Suddenly he put down his prayer book, stepped out of the pew, picked one of the boys up under each arm and marched them out of the church.

"I now declare you man and wife."

The whole church burst into applause and Jude and Richard beamed happily.

By the time we emerged from signing the register the atmosphere amongst the under-fives was positively festive. There was, effectively, a children's party going on in front of the altar and we walked back down the aisle behind a furious Magda carrying a screaming Constance out of the church going "Mummy will smack, she will smack, she will smack."

As we emerged into freezing rain and high winds, I overheard the mother of the footballing boys saying nastily to a bemused Mark, "But it's wonderful having children just being themselves at a wedding. I mean that's what a wedding is all about, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," said Mark cheerfully. "Couldn't hear a bloody thing."

Returned to Claridge's to find Jude's parents had unbridledly pushed the boat out and the ballroom was festooned with bronzed, be-leaved and be-fruited streamer things and copper-coloured pyramids of fruit and cherubs the size of donkeys.

All you could hear, when walked in, was people going: "Two hundred and fifty grand."

"Oh come on. It must have been at least 300,000."

"Are you kidding? Claridge's? Half a million."

Caught sight of Rebecca, looking frantically round the room with a fixed smile like a toy with a head on a stick. Giles was nervously following her, his hand hovering round her waist.

Jude's father, Sir Ralph Russell, a booming 'don't worry, everyone, I'm a fantastically rich and successful businessman', was shaking Sharon's hand in the line.

"Ah, Sarah," he roared. "Feeling better?"

"Sharon," corrected Jude, radiantly.

"Oh yes, thank you," said Shaz, a hand delicately fluttering to her throat. "It was -just the heat ... "

Nearly spurted out laughing considering it was so fridge-like that everyone was wearing thermal underwear. "Are you sure it wasn't the tightness of your stays

against the Chardonnav, Shaz." said Mark, at which she stuck a finger up at him, laughing.

Jude's mother smiled icily. She was stick thin in some sort of encrusted Escada nightmare with unexplained fins sticking out around the hips, presumably to make it look as if she had some. (Oh joyous deception to be in need of.)

"Giles, don't put your wallet in your trouser pocket, darling, it makes your thighs look big," snapped Rebecca.

"Now you're being co-dependent, darling," said Giles, putting his hand towards her waist.

"I'm not" said Rebecca, brushing his hand away crossly, then putting back the smile. "Mark" she cried. She looked at him as if she thought the crowd had parted, time had stopped still and the Glen Miller Band was going to strike up with 'It Had to be You'.

"Oh hi..." said Mark, casually. "Giles, old boy! Never thought I'd see you in a waistcoat!"

"Hello, Bridget," said Giles, giving me a smacking kiss. "Lovely dress."

"Apart from the hole," said Rebecca.

I looked away in exasperation and spotted Magda at the edge of the room looking agonized, obsessively pushing a non-existent strand of hair from her face.

"Oh that's part of the design," Mark was saying, smiling proudly. "It's a Yurdisb fertility symbol."

"Excuse me," I said. Then reached up and whispered in Mark's car, "There's something wrong with Magda."

Found Magda so upset she could hardly speak. "Stop it, darling, stop it," she was saying vaguely as Constance tried messily to push a chocolate lolly into the pocket of her pistachio suit.

"What's wrong"'

"That ... that ... witch who had the affair with Jeremy last year. She's here. If he so much as dares fucking speak to her - "

"Hey, Constance? Did you enjoy the wedding?" It was Mark, holding out a glass of champagne for Magda. "What?" said Constance, looking up at Mark with round eyes.

"The wedding? In the church?"

"The parpy?"

"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?"