Michele Gorman - The Big Little Wedding in Carlton Square

‘I thought Daniel’s family offered to help,’ Kelly says. ‘Do you need to sit down? You don’t look good.’

I sigh. ‘They did offer, but Dad’s adamant that he doesn’t want their help. He says he should be able to take care of his own family.’

‘That’s so sad, with everything he’s been through,’ says Kell. ‘I feel sorry for him.’

A lump wells up in my throat. That’s been happening a lot lately when I think about how Dad must feel. ‘At first I thought he was just being his usual stubborn self, but it’s really important to him that he and Mum do this for me. He’d be crushed if he thought someone else had to pay for my wedding. I’ve got to figure out a way to do this.’

Kell puts her arm around me as we turn our backs on the Stationers’ Hall. ‘You don’t have to do it on your own. I’ve got some savings that you could have if you need it.’

‘Thank you, but even all our money together won’t cover the cost of something like this. And it’s just the start. We’ll need food and drink too.’

Kelly purses her lips. ‘What if we did a takeaway, fish and chips or a curry or something? That’d only be six or seven quid a head. That’s not too expensive.’

I nod. ‘It’s a bargain. Then we’d just need another five thousand quid to have somewhere to eat our takeaway. No, this is going to have to be on a shoestring. And by shoestring, I mean the flimsiest piece of thread you’ve ever seen.’

The problem is, Daniel’s family is expecting those shoestrings to lace up a fancy pair of Manolos. I’ve got the sinking feeling that a curry and a can of lager isn’t going to cut it for them.

‘There is another place closer to home,’ she says as our bus pulls up. ‘It’s the library at Queen Mary. You could even walk there on your wedding day. Save a few bob on bus fare.’

‘That one pound fifty will come in handy, but it doesn’t really make a dent in the hire fee, does it?’

There has to be another option that’s within our budget and, since I can be as stubborn as my dad, I’ll just have to find it.

Kell and I did go see the library at Queen Mary’s, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Or at least, my wallet wasn’t. It would have been perfect, grand and Victorian and stuffed with books – two soaring balconies surrounding the huge and airy octagon-shaped room with sunshine streaming through enormous windows to light the elegant vaulted dome high above. It was slightly less expensive than Stationer’s Hall, in the way that sirloin steak is slightly less expensive than a fillet. No matter how many places we’ve visited, and it seems to be all we’ve done for the last two weeks, Kell and I can’t find a nice, cheap burger of a venue. At this rate we really are going to end up under the arches. Won’t Daniel’s mother just love that?

This is turning out to be so much harder than I imagined. I can’t concentrate on my coursework with the wedding hanging over me. I’ve been rereading the same page for the last twenty minutes. Anti-social behaviour, looting, blah blah blah.

But my final exams start in two weeks and I haven’t gone to uni for the past five years to bungle it now. It’s been hard enough getting this far.

Just try telling everyone you know that you’re studying criminology when everyone you know has at least second-hand experience with the Old Bill. The mistrust of authority round here won’t go away just because one of their own has enrolled at the Open University.

People only tolerate our neighbour, PC Billy Bramble, because he gets them out of scrapes and drinks in the Cock and Crown.

Dad still suspects I’m going to end up working for the Met like Billy, that one day he’ll see me walking the beat in a Kevlar stab vest and one of those hats with the checkerboard bands. And Mum wishes I would for the pension, as long as I find a nice, safe desk job.

Dad doesn’t have to worry, though, and Mum shouldn’t hope. I don’t want to be the one catching or punishing the kids who go off the rails. I’d rather be the one making sure they don’t derail in the first place. I’m not exactly sure yet where I’ll work, but I can imagine what the job will look like. It’ll be something that keeps kids in school and out of prison or gives them interesting things to do so they don’t feel so hopeless.

A couple of do-gooders, that’s what Kell calls Daniel and me. She’s right. Daniel’s kids walk miles for clean water and, once I find my job, I’ll have to keep mine from nicking stuff.

I knew all about Daniel’s kindness streak by the time we had our first date, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when he took me to a fundraising gig that his charity was doing. I was tempted to ring Kell when we walked into the venue and I saw who was playing. She’d headlined at Glastonbury and won Grammies. And there she was sitting on a stool, in a jumper and jeans, with her voice floating over the piano that accompanied her. I’d never been that close to someone so famous.

‘We don’t need to stay long,’ he’d said into my ear. ‘I’ve just promised my boss I’d stop by, that’s all.’

‘You didn’t tell me your job was so glamorous.’ As far as I knew, he was just a lowly staffer at a water charity.

He’d laughed and grabbed my hand, shifting our month-long flirtation up a gear. My tummy flipped. ‘It’s usually very unglamorous. I talk about drilling and well specifications with engineers a lot,’ he’d said. ‘This fundraiser has been a treat. She even came into the offices to see what we do. I was completely tongue-tied when I met her.’

‘You met her?! Wait, are you trying to impress me by basking in reflected celeb glory?’

‘Yah. Is it helping at all?’

I’d nodded. What I didn’t add was that even without the eye-wateringly famous connection I already knew I was nuts about Daniel.

Auntie Rose stirs. ‘You’re up with the birds,’ she says.

‘Just revising before work.’ I close my book. There’s no chance of getting anything done once the house starts to wake. ‘I’ll do more later.’

She sits up with a grunt. ‘I don’t know where you came from,’ she says, not for the first time.

I play dumb. She loves having this conversation. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I couldn’t abide school, neither could your mother or your Gran. Your mum bunked off every chance she got. And there’s no Einstein on your father’s side, either. Must be some rogue gene making you so bookish. I’ve never seen another like you.’ I can hear the pride in her voice, like I always do.

‘That’s good,’ she continues as I pack away my books. ‘Look at you, about to graduate from university! You’re the only one of us who didn’t quit by sixteen. You’re going to do good things, Emma.’ She smiles. ‘You might even get out of here.’

‘I don’t want to get out of here!’ I say.

‘But you will, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.’

Her words echo in my head as I make my way to work. I know every single shop, school and business along the route, and quite a few of the people too. Some of them wave when they see me – there aren’t that many powder blue Vespas about. The rhythms of the street and its characters are as familiar to me as those in a little village would be to someone from the countryside. There might be more buildings and pollution and graffiti and crime, but this is home. Why would I ever want to leave?

My colleague pulls up at the same time as me. ‘All right?’ Zane asks. I’ll smooth out his accent for you, which is Jamaican courtesy of Hackney Wick. If I were to spell it out, it’d have only vowels. He likes to lean and gurn when he talks too. He thinks it’s street.