‘Happy honeymoon, Puppy,’ she said without a trace of telltale discontent, and kissed him on his slightly stubbly cheek. Parvez relaxed and banished the niggle, reassured that she was going to be all right.

Parvez, determined to be the manly, efficient one, went to the American Express office at the airport and changed some of his travellers’ cheques, for what seemed a vast amount of money to Shona.

‘That’ll do us for a couple of days,’ he said wisely, fastening the notes with the thick gold clip he had started using, which he thought looked rather natty, and which Shona thought looked rather garish.

‘Just a couple of days?’ said Shona faintly. London was clearly a lot more expensive than Karachi. She had no idea how much Parvez had in savings, but she knew he wasn’t rich, and after paying for both their tickets it couldn’t be that much. Shona’s family had always been relatively wealthy, so she had never had to worry about money before. Now she wished she had some savings of her own to contribute - otherwise Parvez might have to start working straightaway, and her honeymoon might be very short indeed.

The cab journey to Tooting took up a distressing amount of Parvez’s precious pinned notes. Standing at the cab rank with her glamorous sari flapping in the wind, with Parvez in his wedding blazer, with their hotchpotch of luggage littering up their feet, Shona was aware that they looked preposterously out of place. The cabbie, seeing them, was prepared to be jovially patronizing, but was stopped short by Shona reading out their address in her father’s cut-glass English accent, which now had additional hints of Harold Abrahams absorbed from Chariots of Fire.

‘Could you possibly take us to Tooting High Street in SWI7, near Tooting Broadway station?’ she asked, as Parvez hoisted up their bags.

‘Blimey, I wasn’t expecting that face to have that voice,’ said the cabbie, nodding respectfully at her. ‘Are you from London, dear?’

Parvez cheerfully answered for her, ‘Not yet, but we soon will be, I hope.’ He laughed good-humouredly, but the cabbie didn’t laugh with him. Parvez’s English was good, but his accent was definitely Pakistani, and the cabbie’s respect disintegrated like a puff of smoke on hearing the familiar immigrant Paki accent. He looked at Shona crossly, as though she had tricked him on purpose. Parvez was unsure what he had done to cause the sudden sinking good humour, but didn’t say another word in English until they reached the grimy, litter-strewn streets of Tooting.