Shushu didn’t reply and poured herself another drink. Ever since they had installed the satellite dish and Shushu could see the Egyptian channel, she watched it all weekend. She enjoyed it thoroughly, even though it sometimes made her envious and homesick.

When Kassim came, Shushu was sulky and refused to speak to him. She pressed the remote control and the room was drowned in the voice of the Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram. ‘We can sit in the kitchen,’ Dina said to Kassim.

They sat in the kitchen. Dina started to show him her father’s clothes. She had washed them, ironed them and folded them up neatly. She had spent hours doing it, with Shushu sneering in the background.

Kassim started to tell her about Syria, about the hundreds of thousands killed, people losing their homes and living in camps. She started to cry and he thought she was moved by what he had been saying. But she had not really taken in what he was saying; it was all so far away. She cried for her father, she was, for the first time, freely grieving. Kassim, and what he was saying about Syria, took her away from her mother’s bitterness, her mother’s opinion of her father.

Gin made Shushu crave olives. Naughty olives that were full of calories. She resisted at first, then left the television to get the jar from the fridge. She discovered Dina sobbing and Kassim looking embarrassed.

‘Why are you crying?’ She turned to Kassim, ‘You made her cry. Why is she crying? What did you do to upset her?’

‘Nothing, Mrs McIntyre.’

‘Then why is she crying?’

‘Mum, I’m okay,’ said Dina breathing. ‘It’s nothing. He didn’t make me cry.’

‘Why is he here anyway?’ Shushu whispered under her breath, but it was audible. She got the jar of green olives out of the fridge and sat with them at the table.

‘I’d better be off,’ said Kassim standing up.

‘See you.’ Dina felt glued to her chair, heavy and unattractive.

‘Yeah, see you.’

‘Goodbye Mrs McIntyre.’

Shushu didn’t answer and instead twisted open the jar of olives. Kassim picked up the black bin liner that was full of clothes and saw himself out, quietly closing the kitchen door.

Shushu dipped her fingers into brine and popped an olive in her mouth. Dina followed, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I forgot to give him Dad’s suits.’

For all her faults, Shushu had a mother’s instinct. She sensed the threat of Kassim. ‘So that’s the boy from the kebab shop …’

‘I like him.’ Dina bit into another olive. The green ones were always more bitter than the black.

‘You’ll end up in a horrible council flat with racist graffiti on the wall.’ There was no menace in Shushu’s voice, just disappointment.