Ricky the Conqueror’s next task, which he was to take on the very same day, was that of wooing his English rose, although he didn’t think of her as a rose at all; roses were showy, bumptious, over-ripe and blowsy, and like sirens they tempted you with their scents towards a bed of thorns. No, Verity was more like a violet; pale and shy, as delicate as whimsy. You needed to tread around violets at your feet as carefully as you trod around the dreams you had laid out on your narrow path - Ricky knew from experience that the slightest false step could crush them.

Ricky had already started putting his old life aside for his new life, beginning by cutting short his afternoon reunion with his errant daughter in order to be free to take Verity to dinner. He had arranged to meet Shona after his interview, at the tea-shop-cum-sweet-shop in Tooting, where Parvez was still working. Ricky hadn’t seen Shona in months, not since her unexpected elopement, but while they had their tea (made on Shona’s specific instruction the way she knew her Papa liked it), instead of deploring her ill-advised marriage to a Pakistani pauper, instead of drinking in the sight of her and revelling in her warm and happy glow, instead of passing on all of Henna’s instructions, he found himself looking at his watch. It was almost 5 p.m. In an hour, Verity was due to leave her office, but he hadn’t yet called her to arrange where to meet. He had intended to call her earlier, but his interview had overrun and he had been coaxed into pressing flesh with his new colleagues.