‘My Ricky had a heart attack/ Verity replied, composing herself a little. ‘I kept telling him to slow down, but he keeps working so hard, and travelling all over the place. He’s only just back from Bangladesh - it’s no good for someone his age.’

‘My family’s from Bangladesh,’ said Shona slowly, finding herself looking at the poor woman assessingly instead of sympathetically. Her father had just been in Dhaka visiting her Nanu; until the phone call she hadn’t even known that he had come back. The woman looked up and, seeing Shona’s suddenly hard expression, misinterpreted it as criticism.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t blather on so …’ she said miserably, looking down at her feet. Shona, ashamed at herself for her suspicions, looked down too. Her own guilty affair had made her paranoid. But then she couldn’t help noticing the woman’s feet, which were just a few inches away from her own. They were a couple of sizes bigger than Shona’s feet - probably size 6. Shona reminded herself that size 6 feet were perfectly ordinary and in themselves indicated nothing of significance; but then the woman’s pretty, dark-haired daughter returned, without the promised coffee.

‘Sorry, Mummy, the machine coffee doesn’t look up to much. The black coffee button isn’t working, and there wasn’t any sugar at all, much less brown. Let’s go down to the hospital cafe.’

‘If you think so, dear,’ replied Verity, gathering herself together. She hesitated shyly before turning to Shona. ‘Thank you so much for the hankies.’

‘Really, don’t think anything of it,’ said Shona, who could no longer deny the significance of size 6 shoes, especially combined with coffee and brown sugar. But that had been years ago, before the boys had even been born. She was distracted from drawing any disturbing conclusions by Sharif swanning in, looking very pleased with himself and even more handsome than usual, so much so that one part of the kissing couple stopped in mid-embrace to admire him.

‘I have just met the most gorgeously amazing girl,’ he said, sitting down on the seat that Verity had vacated. ‘Here you go,’ he added, giving her a cup of machine tea.

‘I didn’t ask you to get me tea, I asked you to park and come straight up,’ Shona said pointedly, looking at him crossly.

‘Ah, but the Amazing Girl was by the drinks machine. She had a walk like pure poetry, and the most amazing name, like something from a song: Candida Trueman-Karim.’ Sharif pronounced the name reverently, giving attention to every syllable. ‘Can-dee-da,’ he sighed blissfully.

Shona’s tea-holding hand shook so much that the tea spilled and squelched wetly over her. Fortunately it was only lukewarm. She looked at her son, who showed no signs of noticing her reaction to the name. He probably didn’t even remember that Karim was her maiden name; it was such a common name, after all.