As it happened, Jimmy’s mother’s ring was far too big for her. The woman must have had enormous hands. Thea said it wouldn’t be right for Jimmy to have it made smaller, surely one’s mother’s ring was sacred and shouldn’t be tampered with. ‘We don’t have to have a ring to be engaged.’ It was the sort of thing you said to a child. She had a sense of déjà vu and remembered that when she got a new tea set aged nine, she said to her friend that they didn’t have to have real tea in the cups. Jimmy seemed content. ‘I’ll get you a super wedding ring.’ Her heart sank a little but moved up a few millimetres when he said, ‘I’m really sorry I won’t be able to come to Damian and Roland’s civil partnership. I’ve got a ticket for Arsenal playing at home.’ Along with the other ‘servants’ they hadn’t invited him. Now she wouldn’t have to explain. She imagined the future civil partners’ reaction if they heard that he called them by their given names. Sooner or later one or other of them (maybe both) would get a knighthood, men in their position always did, and then woe betide anyone who didn’t call him ‘sir’.
