Shona understood. He would have other visitors in the morning, visitors who would probably provide for him better than she could. He had been well looked after for the past twenty years, but she just hadn’t seen it. Or rather, she had looked, but she hadn’t seen, just as her father had said. As she went to leave, she turned and said to him in Bangla, so Sharif wouldn’t understand, ‘Papa, I think we both deserve to be happy. I just want you to be happy too.’

Ricky felt the tightening around his chest that had begun in the last few moments start to subside. ‘Thank you, Shona,’ he said gently. There would be nothing else to say.

At home, Shona sat in the dark of the kitchen and watched the moon in the french windows. She had poured a glass of wine, which she sipped too quickly. She had never felt so alone, and so tortured by secrets and silence. She was half waiting for Parvez to come home, and half hoping that he would call and say he wasn’t. At another time, she would have clung to him for support and told him everything that her suddenly tender heart had to say - told him about her father’s betrayal and secret life, and her complicity so that she would never know the man her father had become, never know the woman who had made him happy, or the sister that she never knew she had. But that time was gone - she could no longer tell Parvez everything. In fact, she could no longer tell him anything. The only person she could tell the truth to was sitting alone, like her, in a flat a few miles away. She glanced at the phone, and shook her head. She couldn’t call Dermot now; it was far too risky. Parvez was due home any minute. She checked her watch; it was almost midnight -still too early to call her mother in Dhaka and tell her about the heart attack. Draining her wine, she decided to call anyway.

The phone rang at the other end with a distant echo and crackle, and gave way to Uncle Aziz’s crisp accent announcing that she had reached the Karim residence, and to leave a short message after the tone. ‘Amma,’ Shona said softly, ‘I guess you’re not up yet. I thought someone might be up. I just need to tell you something … it’s Papa, he’s had a heart attack. He’s stable, and they think he won’t be in too long. I don’t think you need to worry or fly over or anything, we’re taking care of him here. I’m going to bed now, but I’ll call again when I’m up.’ Putting the phone down, she felt emptier than she had before. She had just lied to her mother by everything she hadn’t said.