It took an hour to leave.

That is the part nobody puts in the story.

There is no cut to black.

There were sixty-one people and a catering company and a quartet and a cake, and somebody had to deal with all of it, and Samantha and Colonel Adeyemi’s wife dealt with most of it while I stood in a room and made three phone calls.

Pamela found me in the same service corridor, near the same door, which I don’t think she noticed and which I have never stopped noticing.

She had taken the veil off.