The young, dark woman got up. ‘I’ll get you a coffee, Mummy, and then we should go. Daddy just needs some rest. We’ll come back tomorrow.’ The girl was maybe nineteen, or perhaps twenty, given her self-assured manner. She was wearing a flowing skirt in silver silk that was so light it billowed about her ankles when she walked, with tennis shoes and a fitted white T-shirt. Shona thought ruefully that only youth could carry off an outfit like that. The girl walked so lightly herself that she could have been a dancer. Shona looked after her as she left the room, reminded of what it was like to have been young and graceful, an age when you still believed that you could control your own destiny. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night … Of cloudless climes and starry skies …’ she thought, remembering the dusty volume of Byron’s poetry that used to live in her father’s Dhaka study.

A pitiful sniff reminded Shona of the wretched-looking mother, whose face was a red splodge of unhappiness. Her handkerchief looked crushed and sodden. Shona felt a surge of sympathy - here was real grief, not like that irritating couple who were using it as an excuse to neck inappropriately in public. She went over to the woman and offered her a clean tissue from her pocket pack. ‘Excuse me, would you like one?’

Verity looked up in shock. The kindness of strangers was a phrase which had meant very little to her until she had met Ricky, and she was surprised to encounter it twice in one day, once with that nice teacher, and now with this pleasant-looking woman. ‘So very kind,’ she choked out. And accepting the tissue, she blew her nose hard and felt a little better. Aware that she was making something of an exhibition of herself, she explained to the nice young lady. ‘It’s my husband, you see. He’s everything to me. I couldn’t bear to think of something happening to him, and then it just did.’ She blew her nose again, and carried on, ‘The silly thing is that he’s fine now. But I still feel awful just thinking about what might have happened ….’ She trailed off as her face collapsed into another messy heap of tears. Despite the fact that the woman was several years Shona’s senior, Shona calmly took the used tissue from her and passed her another, as though she was a student crying in the playground.

‘Of course you’re upset,’ she said gently, ‘and it’s best to let it out.’

Verity attempted a quivering smile. ‘Are you visiting, too?’ she asked.

Shona nodded. ‘My father. I’ve just heard that he’d had a heart attack, but they think he’ll be fine.’