Surprised by the unexpected solemnness in her tone that replaced her usual flirtatious banter, and even more so by the alien sound of his real name from her lips, Parvez put her down immediately. ‘What are you first-naming me for?’ he asked reproachfully. ‘You only call me Parvez when you’re upset with me. Aren’t you excited, Goldie?’

‘I’m sorry, Puppy,’ Shona said appeasingly. ‘Of course I’m excited. They’re my children, too. It’s just that we have to be careful now- we’re so lucky that we conceived, I don’t want anything to harm them.’ Parvez was pouting, and she added, to mollify him, ‘Besides, I’ll need to get used to calling you Parvez when the babies come along. We can’t have them thinking that your name is Puppy. They should learn to call you Baba.’

‘Why Baba?’ complained Parvez peevishly. ‘It sounds like a cartoon elephant. Baba indeed! You don’t even call your own father Baba. And it’s not as if I’m even Bangladeshi,’ Parvez said.

‘Well, Abbu then,’ said Shona. ‘They can call you Abbu like good little Pakistani boys.’

‘I don’t want good little boys,’ retorted Parvez, his voice softening as he added, ‘I want good little golden girls who’ll look just like their Amma.’ He traced Shona’s jawline. ‘The prettiest Amma in the world,’ he whispered, kissing her.

‘I’m pretty sure that they’ll look more like you,’ Shona said after their kiss. ‘You have stronger genes.’

However, when the boys were born, tiny and perfect, in a south London hospital, Parvez couldn’t see himself in them at all. Sitting quietly with Shona some hours after the terror and excitement of the birth, he found himself inspecting them critically. They were so pale, paler even than Shona, with the milky whiteness that the Karim clan had. They looked like milky-faced Karims through and through. Shona, holding the little aliens, looked up at Parvez’s handsome, confused face, willing him to keep hold of the thrilled reaction he had when the first bloody baby had emerged, willing him to feel the paternal pride in their shared achievement. ‘This one has your eyes, I think,’ she said, passing their first-born to him.

‘But his eyes are blue, Goldie,’ replied Parvez, holding his child gingerly. He instantly regretted his prosaic comment; out loud it sounded almost petulant.

‘All babies’ eyes are blue, Puppy. But he will have your eyes, I can tell,’ Shona said firmly. ‘And this one has your nose,’ she added, brushing her lips against the tiny forehead of the child that lay in her arms.