My sister kissed my husband in front of thirty people at her own anniversary party and called it a joke. Her husband had a wrapped present in his hands and an envelope she had never opened.

And then he put his hands in his pockets and walked into his own house and shut the back door.

And thirty-one people stood in a garden, holding paper plates, in silence, for about eleven seconds, until my mother said — and this is the bit my father still cannot talk about — “Is there any more of the potato salad?”

The rest of that afternoon, which went on for two and a half hours and which is the strangest thing I have ever sat through.

Nobody left.

That is the part nobody believes. Thirty-one people, a hog roast that had been paid for, and a garden with a closed back door at one end of it.

My uncle Ferris carried on doing the barbecue. Gethin Cade stood next to him for another eleven minutes, turning things over, saying nothing, and then put the tongs down on the table and walked out through the side gate and drove off, and nobody stopped him and nobody said goodbye.