I escorted her to the front door. She let herself in and we stood for a moment in the hall, then I gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder and said, 'Well, goodbye then.'

I drove home with my Abba tapes playing at full volume. I think I must have broken the speed limit several times. It felt as though the car had wings.

Sunday December 22nd Michael Flowers rang me at 8.30 this morning to tell me that Marigold had been admitted to the Royal Hospital in the early hours with suspected appendicitis. He said that she had been calling for me. He said, 'I phoned that mobile contraption you carry with you, but the bloody thing kept repeating, "It has not been possible to connect your call. Please try again later." She's in a great deal of physical and psychic pain, Adrian. Please go to her. She needs you.

I went to the balcony and looked out. I could see the lights of the monolithic Royal Hospital in the distance. Gielgud was standing by the driver's door, barring the way to my car. Was he trying to tell me not to go to the hospital? Since meeting the Flowers family I see signs and portents everywhere.

On the way to the hospital I phoned Pandora. She answered at once. I begged her to come to Leicester tomorrow. She laughed.

I asked her if she had Keith Vaz's number. She said she had but refused to give it to me. I asked if she knew any celebrities who would help me out at the last minute.

She said, 'On December 23rd, with one day's notice, for no fee and no expenses, are you mad?' Then she dropped her voice and said, 'Seriously, Aidy, are you mad? The last time I saw you you seemed a bit lonely and sad. And that bloody loft, it's so white and cold.'

I told her that Marigold was in hospital and she said, 'It will turn out to be nothing. She's a bloody diva.'

I pointed out that Pandora had not even met Marigold. But she said, 'Wayne Wong likens her to Chairman Mao's wife, small but lethal.'

It took for ever to find Marigold. She had been moved from Accident and Emergency to an overnight observation ward. I eventually found her in Surgical 2, in a bay with five other women. The nurse on the desk said, when I enquired about Marigold and gave my name, 'Oh, you're the fiance.'

I should have contradicted her and asserted my single status, but she had already turned away and was almost running down the ward.

Marigold was watching the small TV set next to her bed. But when she saw me approaching she closed her eyes and turned her head away and appeared to fall into a deep sleep. I had no wish to 'wake' her, so I sat by her bed and watched the news.

Mr Blair was speaking about the danger to the world if tyrants like Saddam Hussein were not challenged. How anybody could doubt Mr Blair's word is a mystery to me. The man radiates honesty and sincerity.

Eventually Marigold 'woke up' and appeared to be surprised to see me sitting there. She held her little hand out and I took it and squeezed it. I had bought her Hello! and a bunch of seedless black grapes from the hospital shop.

She pointed to the notice above her bed which said 'Nil by mouth' and told me that until the doctors had finished their investigations she was not allowed to eat or drink in case she had to have an operation to remove her appendix.

And she rejected Hello!, saying that she pitied rich, famous people and couldn't care less about their clothes and houses.

I tried desperately to find a topic of conversation but failed, and we sat in an awkward silence and watched Scooby-Doo! on television.

At the end, after the janitor had ripped his face mask off and exposed himself as the evil scientist who threatened to blow up the world, Marigold started to cry and said, 'I'll be in hospital for Christmas, and I so wanted us to spend our first Christmas together, Adrian.'

She had completely blanked our conversation of the night before.

An exhausted-looking African doctor came to examine her abdomen.

I tried to leave, but the doctor said, 'No, stay where you are. You're Miss Flowers's fiance, are you not?'

Marigold said yes and I could hardly contradict her in the current circumstances.

I watched as the doctor palpated her lower torso. Marigold reacted as though the doctor's fingers were burning rods searing into her flesh.

After she had rebuttoned her pyjama jacket, the doctor said, 'Your pain is a mystery to me. There is no swelling, you have no temperature, your blood pressure is better than mine. I do not think you have appendicitis. Have you suffered an emotional disturbance recently?'

Marigold said, 'I have been in agony all night.'

The doctor looked at me and said, 'I presume you are having normal sexual relations with your fiancee?'

I took offence at this and said, 'Are you asking me if I am a sexual deviant?'

He said, 'No, you have misunderstood me.' And he turned to Marigold and said, 'Is there pain on intercourse?'

She replied, 'No physical pain.'

I sat with her for another hour, until her mother and father turned up.

Netta gave Marigold half a dozen cards. One was an invitation to Tania Braithwaite's New Year's Eve fancy dress party.

Marigold looked puzzled until I explained that Tania was my ex-stepmother.

I said, 'Don't feel that you have to go to the party, Marigold.'

Netta said, 'No, you must go, Mazzie. It will be something to look forward to.'

9 p.m.

I have left messages for Keith Vaz, MP, Patricia Hewitt, MP, Jim Marshall, MP, Gary Lineker, Martin Johnson, the Tigers captain, Rosemary Conley, Willie Thorne, the Lord Mayor of Leicester and the manager of Marks & Spencer, asking each of them to speak at the dinner.

I then had a brainwave and rang Wayne Wong and asked him if Engelbert Humperdinck was spending Christmas in Leicester with his family as usual.

Wayne said, 'Mr Humperdinck's people haven't made a booking yet.'

While I was on the line, I asked Wayne to book a table for eight people for 7.30 tomorrow.

Wayne said, 'We're fully booked, Aidy. It's Christmas Eve eve.'

He must have heard the desperation in my voice because, after listening to my pleas, he relented and said with ill grace, 'I'll fit you in somewhere, but you'll have to be out by 9.30.'

Monday December 23rd Woke this morning with a black cloud of anxiety hanging above me. On the walk to work I phoned Ken Blunt and Gary Milksop and told them about the arrangements for tonight.

Ken Blunt said, 'Did you manage to get a celebrity speaker?'

I told him that a guest would be joining us for dinner at the Imperial Dragon and that we would be going back to my loft apartment for coffee and the after-dinner speech.

The bell on the shop door never stopped ringing as customers trooped in and out. At one time there was a queue for the fire.

My parents came in. They were doing their last-minute Christmas shopping. My mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told her to buy me rope so that I could hang myself.

She said, 'Why are you so mardy-arsed? Unless you tell me otherwise I'm buying you two pairs of Calvin Klein underpants. I hope you are coming to Wisteria Walk for your Christmas dinner. It'll be the last time, as we're moving out the day after Boxing Day.'

I asked my parents what they wanted for Christmas.

My father said, 'A sledgehammer would be useful.'

And my mother said she had run out of Clinique's Deep Comfort Body Butter moisturizing cream.

She told me that my sister and her boyfriend, Simon, were expected for Christmas Day and warned me to buy presents for them. And she said, 'And Christmas Day will be the first anniversary of the new dog's death, remember.'

My father said, 'He ought to bloody remember. He killed it.'

I said, 'Look, how many times do I have to tell you that I did not give the new dog that turkey bone. It jumped up and stole it from my plate!'

I asked my mother if she knew any celebrities who would be available at short notice for an engagement that evening.

She said that she knew Gary Lineker's cousin's ex-wife, who told amusing anecdotes about Gary when he was a little boy.

I said, 'Unless Gary was reading Dostoevsky at a tender age, I doubt if the woman could keep the creative writing group interested?

At 5.30 I asked Mr Carlton-Hayes if he would be the guest speaker at the creative writing group dinner.

He said, 'My dear, what a shame. I'm hosting a drinks party for the neighbours this evening. The only person you'll get at this late juncture is somebody who likes the sound of their own voice.

We said simultaneously, 'Michael Flowers.'

I checked with the mumming poster. Flowers did not have a performance that evening. I rang him immediately. Netta answered and said that her husband was at the hospital, visiting Marigold. She volunteered the information that Marigold would be discharged in the morning.

I rang Surgical 2 and asked to speak urgently to Michael Flowers. The nurse asked me if I was a relation. I said no.

She said, 'Then I'm afraid I can't put you through.'

I was desperate to speak to him, so I said that I was Marigold Flowers's fiance.

When Michael Flowers came to the phone, I explained to him that I had been badly let down at the last minute by Cherie Blair and had to find a replacement for her by 7.30 tonight. I asked him if he would do the honours.

He said, 'As your future father-in-law, of course I'd be thrilled to help you out of your dilemma.'

He asked me if I had a message for Marigold.

I said, 'Yes, please give her my best wishes.'

Flowers said, 'Come, come, Adrian, you can do better than that, you love-struck swain. No need to be shy with me. Tell the girl you love her.'

What could I do, diary? I was putty in his hands.

I phoned Nigel and asked him to be my partner at the dinner. He said ungraciously, 'Why not? It'll save me cooking.'

I led Nigel into the restaurant, steering him by the front of his shirt. He still banged into chairs and tables on the way, and dropped his white stick twice. His language was unrepeatable. He has developed quite a temper since turning blind.

Wayne had managed to insert an extra table next to the fish tank. The lights inside the tank cast an unpleasant green glow over the table, but I could hardly complain.

Ken Blunt and his wife, Glenda, resembled middle-aged Martians. She is a bit vulgar-looking but friendly enough.

She said, 'I don't mind Ken writing. It is a cheap hobby, not like golf.'

Gary Milksop's eyes lit up when he saw Nigel. Not surprising, because Gary's partner turned out to be a ferret-faced youth with a pencil-thin beard and ears that stuck out like mug handles.

I wish it had been possible to warn Milksop that he stood no chance with Nigel. Nigel likes horny-handed men of toil who order him about and make his life a misery.

Milksop's friends were two serious-looking girls he said he had met at group therapy the previous month. They seemed to think that he was some kind of genius.

Flowers kept us waiting and then made an entrance, shouting, 'I'm expected at the writers' table.' He was wearing a green tweed suit and a large trilby hat.

I said our celebrity guest had arrived.

Ken Blunt turned round and said, 'It's that gobshite from the health food shop in the market?

Glenda Blunt put her autograph book away in her handbag.

Disappointment settled over the table like heavy snow. It was a most unsatisfactory meal. Wayne Wong kept reminding me that we had to be out by 9.30.

Ken Blunt and Michael Flowers quarrelled about Iraq. Ken is violently anti-American -- Glenda told me that he won't allow Coca-Cola in the house -- and Michael Flowers claims to be a pacifist (he doesn't know that I know that Mr Carlton-Hayes knocked him out in that car park fight).

At one point I said that, despite his wife's behaviour in letting the writers' group down, I still had complete faith in Mr Blair and that the Weapons of Mass Destruction would soon be found, but that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of France.

Nigel said, 'Or looking for a piece of turkey in this fucking turkey chow mein.

Gary Milksop said that Iraq was about oil. His acolytes nodded and gazed at him as though he were some kind of political guru.

Nigel stubbornly refused to accept help in locating bits of turkey and continued to drop noodles down his Kenzo shirt front.

The two serious girls talked to each other but seemed reluctant to add anything to the general conversation.

Michael Flowers went into monologue mode -- talk about death by anecdote. At the end of the meal he proposed a vote of thanks to me, saying, 'We have Adrian, my future son-in-law, to thank for arranging this delightful occasion.'

Nigel gave a horrible sardonic laugh and called for champagne.

Wayne Wong brought over a magnum bottle of Pomagne and nine glasses and said, 'What are you celebrating?'

Nigel said, 'Adrian's engaged to Marigold Flowers.'

Wayne Wong said, 'No, you're joking me. Not that thin woman who's scared of the fish?'

I said hurriedly, 'Wayne, this is Marigold's father, Michael.'

Wayne briefly shook Flowers's hand, then said to me, 'It's 9.25, so you'll have to drink up quick.'

When our glasses were charged, Nigel began to sing Cliff Richard's winning Eurovision song, 'Congratulations'.

The other diners in the room joined in and Ken Blunt pulled me to my feet to acknowledge the congratulations of the room.

One of the serious girls took a photograph of me and Michael Flowers embracing and shaking hands. She promised to send me a copy via Gary Milksop.

It seems that, against my will, I have become officially engaged to Marigold Flowers.

Gielgud and the other swans were gathered together in a corner of the car park. I pointed them out to Michael Flowers, who said, 'Methinks we should proceed with caution. A swan can break a man's arm, you know.'