When the stewardesses started serving breakfast, Shona put on her headset and watched Chariots of Fire on the airplane TV. Her papa loved the film, and she heard his own cut-glass accent in the accents of the Oxbridge students who ran for England. She considered changing out of her sari, but the airplane loos were unpromisingly busy and there wasn’t enough room in the cubicles of the Dubai stopover. Besides, it was probably best if she didn’t meet Bhai Hassan in casual western dress. She wasn’t sure how traditional he was, and as the first member of Parvez’s close family that she’d be meeting, she wanted to make a good first impression.

As they descended towards Heathrow, Shona watched the blue sky around them dull to grey, cold-looking clouds and pulled the blanket, which she had now commandeered for her exclusive use, closer to protect her. She was glad that she had packed a shawl - she would get it out as soon as they got their bags back. As they approached for landing, Shona, who had seen desert, snow-capped mountains and wondrous oceans on their journey over, was unimpressed. So this was England, the place of her father’s dreams, the location of all his happy memories and interminable university stories - this grey, patchwork quilt of a country. Even the cheerful chatter of the fellow passengers now seemed muted with the weather, and they lowered their voices to hushed whispers; or perhaps it just felt that way with the air pressure in her ears. She looked down at her sari, which seemed outrageously garish in this new gloomy and solemn world - dressed for a party, she had been taken to a wake.

‘Hey, it’s not that cold, it’s not even raining,’ said Parvez, sensing Shona’s disappointment as they got off the plane. ‘I want my money back - I think they took us to the wrong country.’ There was a touch of concern in his bonhomie; Shona’s muted reaction to this muted new country was giving him his first niggle of doubt as to whether they had done the right thing. Shona gave him a slight, tremulous smile and squeezed his hand, wondering how she was ever going to feel at home here. Perhaps the trick was not to think about it as a home, but just a long holiday, like the time Papa had taken her to the beach at Cox’s Bazaar to learn to swim, or when she and Amma had gone to Lahore together, and first met Parvez. This was her honeymoon, wasn’t it? How many of the tittering, giggling girls at college would have Just Died and Gone to Heaven at the idea of a honeymoon in London? Shona had got so good at lying she could even persuade herself that she was happy, which made it much easier to persuade the man standing by her side.