‘You are silly, Puppy,’ Shona giggled, cheered up despite herself. But then she felt her good cheer dissolve almost immediately, as she said forlornly, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. No one else makes me laugh like you.’

Parvez sighed. They had had this conversation many times before in the months coming up to Shona’s exams. ‘I keep telling you, Goldie. You won’t have to do without me. When you finish, we’ll go back to Dhaka together and I’ll ask your father if we can please get married, and we’ll live together for ever, and the gossips will have to find something else to talk about.’

‘That sounds nice, but Papa will never say yes, not even for me. He’ll ask why you don’t have a degree.’

‘A degree!’ Parvez scoffed. ‘Anyone can get a degree!’ He saw the look on Shona’s face and added quickly, ‘Anyone who works hard, like you, I mean. But how many people can say that they’ve turned their family business around, and increased their turnover and staff by four-fold in as many years?’

‘No one,’ said Shona staunchly. ‘Your family have been lucky to have you.’ She added, a touch disloyally, giving away where her new allegiances lay, ‘Papa tried hard at the family business, but he almost ran our farms into the ground before Uncle Aziz took over.’

‘And I’m going to do more! Your dad is the big Anglophile, isn’t he? Well, what would he think about his daughter moving to London! You know Bhai Hassan wants me to go and help him with his business over there.’

‘He’d hate it,’ said Shona. ‘He’s always wanted to move to England. For you to take me there would be like admitting he’s failed. And besides, Papa isn’t even the problem - he wouldn’t like it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It’s Amma who would never let me marry you. She warns me against you every time I go back for the vacation, and she doesn’t even know we’re together. She just hears the gossip.’ She sighed, ‘And your family don’t even know me, and they don’t like me already. Puppy, I don’t know what to do.’

‘Shh! I told you not to say that in public,’ Parvez said in a stage whisper, and Shona giggled again and reached for his hand.

A middle-aged lady in a voluminous apricot-coloured shalwar looked disapprovingly at Shona as she walked by, and stopped by the bench to address her in ringing tones.

‘Daughter, do your parents know that you hold hands with Strange Boys in parks, hmm?’ the lady said, looking loftily down on them.