My mother took a nervous step forward and stooped, sliding her fingers up my father’s shin. She patted her hand around it.

‘You said you’d take me seriously if I had my legs waxed. Well, there you are. I’ve done it.’

My mother stared at him in disbelief. ‘You got your legs waxed?’

‘I did. And if I’d had any idea you were going through pain like that, love, I would have kept my stupid mouth shut. What fecking torture is that? Who the hell thinks that is a good idea?’

‘Bernard –’

‘I don’t care. I’ve been through hell, Josie. But I’d do it again if it means we can get things back on track. I miss you. So much. I don’t care if you want to do a hundred college courses – feminist politics, Middle Eastern studies, macramé for dogs, whatever – as long as we’re together. And to prove to you exactly how far I’d go for you, I’ve booked myself in again next week, for a back, sack and – What is it?’

‘Crack,’ said my sister, unhappily.

‘Oh, God.’ My mother’s hand flew to her neck.

Beside me Sam had started to shake silently. ‘Stop them,’ he murmured. ‘I’m going to bust my stitches.’

‘I’ll do the lot. I’ll go the full-plucked ruddy chicken if it shows you what you mean to me.’

‘Oh, my days, Bernard.’

‘I mean it, Josie. That’s how desperate I am.’

‘And this is why our family doesn’t do romance,’ muttered Treena.

‘What’s a crack, back and wax?’ asked Thomas.

‘Oh, love, I’ve missed the bones of you.’ My mother put her arms around my father’s neck and kissed him. The relief on his face was almost palpable. He buried his head in her shoulder and then he kissed her again, her ear, her hair, holding her hands, like a small boy.

‘Gross,’ said Thomas.

‘So I don’t have to do the –’

My mother stroked my father’s cheek. ‘We’ll cancel your appointment first thing.’

My father visibly relaxed.

‘Well,’ I said, when the commotion had died down, and it was clear from Camilla Traynor’s blanched complexion that Lily had just explained to her exactly what my father had planned to endure in the name of love, ‘I think we should do one last check of everyone’s glasses, and then maybe … we should start?’

What with the merriment over Dad’s grand gesture, Baby Traynor’s explosive nappy change, and the revelation that Thomas had been dropping egg sandwiches onto Mr Antony Gardiner’s balcony (and his brand-new replacement Conran wicker-effect sun chair) below, it was another twenty minutes before the rooftop grew silent. Amid some surreptitious scanning of notes and clearing of throats, Marc stepped into the middle. He was taller than I’d thought – I had only ever seen him sitting down.

‘Welcome, everyone. First, I’d like to thank Louisa for offering us this lovely space for our end-of-term ceremony. There’s something rather appropriate about being this much closer to the heavens …’ He paused for laughter. ‘This is an unusual final ceremony for us – for the first time we have some faces here who aren’t part of the group – but I think it’s a rather lovely idea to open up and celebrate among friends. Everyone here knows what it’s like to have loved and lost. So we’re all honorary members of the group today.’

Jake stood beside his father, a freckle-faced, sandy-haired man, who, unfortunately, I couldn’t look at without picturing him weeping after coitus. Now he reached out and gently pulled his son to him. Jake caught my eye and rolled his. But he smiled.

‘I like to say that although we’re called the Moving On Circle, none of us moves on without a backward look. We move on always carrying with us those we have lost. What we aim to do in our little group is ensure that carrying them is not a burden that feels impossible to bear, a weight keeping us stuck in the same place. We want their presence to feel like a gift.

‘And what we learn through sharing our memories and our sadnesses and our little victories with each other is that it’s okay to feel sad. Or lost. Or angry. It’s okay to feel a whole host of things that other people might not understand, and often for a long time. Everyone has his or her own journey. We don’t judge.’

‘Except the biscuits,’ muttered Fred. ‘I judge those Rich Teas. They were shocking.’

‘And that, impossible as it may feel at first, we will each get to a point where we can rejoice in the fact that every person we have discussed and mourned and grieved over was here, walking among us – and whether they were taken after six months or sixty years, we were lucky to have them.’ He nodded. ‘We were lucky to have them.’

I looked around the faces I had grown fond of, rapt with attention, and I thought of Will. I closed my eyes and recalled his face, his smile and his laugh, and thought of what loving him had cost me, but mostly of what he had given me.

Marc looked at our little group. Daphne dabbed surreptitiously at the corner of her eye. ‘So … what we usually do now is just say a few words acknowledging where we are. It doesn’t have to be much. It’s just a closing of a door on this little bit of your journey. And nobody has to do it, but if you do, it can be a nice thing.’