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Back Bitter Sweets Save as PDF
Chapters (41)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Nadim Rub’s Most Magnificent Deception
  4. The Alchemic Conception of
  5. The Puppy Love of Parvez Khan
  6. The Crushed Rose Petals of a
  7. The Relative Cost of Gold
  8. The Beginning of the Double Life
  9. The Triumphant Return of Ricky
  10. Of Sunflowers and Sunny Side Ups
  11. A Glorious Spring Wedding for
  12. The Importance of Not Forgetting to
  13. The Middle-Naming of
  14. The Married Life of Ricky Karim and
  15. The Musical Memories of Sharif Khan
  16. The Balti Ballads of Tooting Broadway
  17. Parvez Khan Mourns the Loss of Love
  18. Shona Khan Discovers Photos
  19. The Octopus in the Garage
  20. The Academic Pursuits of Omar Khan
  21. Between Greek Tragedy and
  22. The Balti Ballads Play Brick Lane
  23. The Trouble with December Evenings
  24. Châteauneuf du Pape in a
  25. Burnt Cookies and Driving Lessons
  26. Becoming Accustomed to a Face
  27. Ricky-Rashid Makes a Damning Discovery
  28. Shona Khan Makes a Damning Discovery
  29. Sharif Khan Meets an Angel in Tennis Shoes
  30. The Romantic Memories of Sharif Khan
  31. Omar Khan Celebrates May Day in Oxford
  32. Mrs Henna Karim Extends a
  33. The Dhaka Tea Party
  34. A Performance, a Bookmark and a
  35. Sharif Khan and the Terrifying Truth
  36. Won’t Let Us Have a Breakdown
  37. Confessions Across a Hospital Bed
  38. The Mother and Child Reunion
  39. Party in the Park
  40. Acknowledgements
  41. AN INTERVIEW

Ricky regretfully abandoned all thoughts of the pleasant little lunch for ten, and enthusiastically helped Verity plan their glorious spring wedding at her parents’ village, with a cream satin dress embroidered with false pearls on the bodice, an organist to accompany her up the aisle of the pretty local church and a wedding breakfast for a hundred in a marquee on her parents’ land. The hardest part for him was finding enough guests to fill his side of the church; he invited a good deal of his work colleagues, and his local cricket club and tennis partners. He surprised his boss by asking him to be his best man. He explained the lack of immediate family apologetically to Verity - his mother was too unwell to make the journey from Bangladesh, his brother Aziz was needed to look after her, and besides, they had never approved of him moving to England, so much so that they were all but estranged. ‘So you see, Verity, you are my family; you’re really all the family I have. And you’re all the family I need,’ he told her sincerely, and Verity was touched that she was enough to replace his mother and brother for him.

The wedding itself passed in a vivid blur for Ricky. Satisfied by how truly happy Verity looked and acted, his only regret was that his daughter wasn’t there to participate. She was only thirty miles away in a poky flat in Tooting while he was sipping champagne in a flower-filled tent, with his new in-laws laughing at his jokes. He wished he could have invited her and then cast a magic spell so that she would forget all about it; in a funny way, he thought Shona would have been happy for him, on this day of all days. In a funny way, he thought she would have understood.

art

The Importance of Not Forgetting to

Check Under the Bed

RICKY WAS BARELY back from his honeymoon in Florence when Shona called, quite out of the blue, to say that she needed to see him.

‘Papa? Good, I’m glad you’re in. I need to see you about something urgent, I’ll be over in an hour.’

Ricky, who had only popped to the company flat to pick up some of his books, looked nervously around. It seemed to him to have every telltale sign of his double life on its neutral, uninhabited walls. ‘No need to rush all the way here, Jaan. I’ll come over to you. Did you want me to take something to Bangladesh for you? I can pick it up from your place.’