‘No,’ said Shona, and then deciding that her curtness could be mistaken for out and out rudeness, which she was well mannered enough to avoid, added, ‘I’m afraid I don’t. Is it nice?’

‘Not so nice that I wanted to stay. I spent four years in Spain teaching in international schools, in Madrid and Barcelona. And then I went to the States and taught in New York, and then I came to London. I’ll have been teaching nineteen years come January. I’ll bet that makes me sound ancient to a young lady like yourself.’

Shona wasn’t sure whether to bristle with annoyance at the ‘young lady’, or to take it as a compliment. She grudgingly accepted that Dermot was both more qualified and experienced for the job than she was, with her thirteen years trudging the beat in the same school, and found her resentment abating. Perhaps it was just as well. It was enough to have cold war at home, without having confrontations at work to boot. ‘That’s kind, but I’m hardly a young lady. I’ve got two grown-up boys, one is at college already.’ She said college, rather than university, deliberately, as she always did, as she hoped that those in the know would automatically infer that Omar was at Oxbridge without her having to boast.

I’d never have believed it. You look far too young to have grown-up boys!’ Dermot said with what sounded like genuine astonishment. He’s trying to charm me again, thought Shona. ‘You must have married terribly young.’

’Are you married?’ asked Shona, changing the subject.

‘No, not any more. I was, sort of, but not now,’ answered Dermot, looking uncomfortable for the first time, ironically as now Shona was actually trying to make an effort.

‘So, any children?’ Shona asked automatically, wondering what ‘sort of married meant.

‘No,’ Dermot said curtly. It could almost have been described as rude, but he added no softening sentence as Shona had done.

Shona regarded Dermot with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. She remembered, before she had the boys, how she too had snapped curtly at anyone who asked whether she had any children, or enquired when she and Parvez were going to start trying. She still recalled her silent fury at Parvez’s father, who had droned on and on about how they were wasting their lives by not allowing themselves to bring the pleasure of children into them. ‘You can’t imagine the joy that children bring,’ he had said smugly, as he sat fatly and fatuously on their sofa during what felt like an interminable visit from Pakistan. Shona had honestly wanted to kill him.