Shona sighed as she capitulated and went to leave the room. As usual with her mother, so many things were left unanswered, unaddressed and hung in a thick, conspiratorial fog in the room. She was deeply unsatisfied with this first encounter; there had been no explanation for the sudden rush to come to Bangladesh, or the puzzling absence of Uncle Aziz and her grandmother, and no reason given for the ancient cook’s replacement. Osama had often let her sit in the kitchen as a child, while he gave her tasty tit-bits of the sweet halwa and toasted almonds that he sometimes prepared for special occasions, like Eid or birthdays. There was probably a very simple explanation behind Osama’s departure. This, at least, her mother could tell her. She deserved to know if he had passed away, or retired. Pausing at the door, Shona turned back and asked again, ‘But Osama? Where is he?’

Henna shrugged. ‘He’s not Osama any more, you know. He changed his name in protest against that bearded Saudi cave-dweller who was hiding in Afghanistan; he’s Osman now. I told him it was a stupid name. It doesn’t sound Bangladeshi at all, it sounds like the name of a Turkish carpet-seller. Imagine, an old man like that doing such silly things, as though he has anything to do with world politics.’

’But where is he?’ Shona persisted.

Henna looked at her as though she was a touch retarded. ‘I told you, Shona. At the farms with the rest of them.’

Shona looked mutinously between two outfits. One was a gleaming shalwar kameez that she had bought in Tooting. It was in a shade of sophisticated green that she loved, and looked unmistakably Pakistani in design; it would certainly irritate her mother. Or, after having been compared to crushed linen, it was very tempting to dress in it; she picked up a linen trouser suit and shook it out. Why not? She deserved to have a little fun at her mother, after the way she’d behaved this afternoon.

Omar was already on the veranda, still dressed in his jeans and Sex Pistols T-shirt. He was speaking earnestly to Henna about his course, and Shona was pleased to see that Henna was looking both bored and lost, while nodding sagely, and pretending to know what he was talking about. ‘Hey Ma,’ he said as she seated herself in the wicker chair facing her mother, ‘did you know that Nanu is doing a rep performance of Trial by Jury and The Mikado this week? They’re performing at the college. Lucky we got here, or we’d have missed it; and Nanu wouldn’t have had any other fans in the audience with everyone else being away.’