Parvez got up from the table and pulled the book out from his briefcase. ‘They didn’t have the Penguin Classic version you wanted, so I got this one instead. It cost quite a bit more, but it’s beautifully illustrated; I thought you might prefer it.’ He put it in front of her, and waited expectantly for her approval.

Shona looked at it cursorily and, instantly appalled, flicked from the inside front cover to the back pages in disbelief. A glossy coffee table version of The Iliad was the last thing she needed. What on earth had Parvez been thinking? Did he really think that pretty pictures were all that mattered in a book? She resisted the urge to snap, and said matter-of-factly, ‘It’s a bit too heavy for me to take into school; and I really wanted the foreword and notes in the other version. Just leave me the receipt and I’ll return it when I go into town tomorrow.’ She got up and took their plates to the sink to rinse.

Parvez looked at her stiff back and said quietly, unable to keep the reproach from his voice, ‘You could at least say thank you, Shona. I was trying to do something nice for you.’

Shona didn’t turn around, and carefully put the plates in the dishwasher. She knew she should apologize for being so offhand, but she couldn’t stop herself saying instead, in the same matter-of-fact tone, ‘But I did say thanks, Parvez; I said it twice.’

Chased outside by the icy climate within, Parvez disappeared to the garden to do some useless task out there, and the rice pudding Shona had put on for dessert burnt dry as he stayed out twenty minutes longer than he said he would. Shona binned it without telling him, and when he came back in, his muddy boots messing up her newly cleaned kitchen floor, she said nothing in criticism, and clanked the mop and bucket round with an eloquent noisiness that said it all. It was funny, she thought, that she hadn’t minded cleaning up after the puppy, but cleaning up after Parvez filled her with an anger that she couldn’t even express. Parvez courteously poured her another glass of wine, and himself a whisky, and disappeared to lose himself in his music in the lounge. She took the wine without comment, and went upstairs to their bedroom to watch a comedy on the television.

Much later, when Parvez came up for bed, she pretended to be asleep, but he knew that she was awake as she didn’t automatically turn into him, resting her head in the hollow between his head and shoulder, as she did in her sleep. He whispered to her, ‘I just want you to be happy, Shona. You want me to be happy too, don’t you?’