Elyas waited quietly in the living room, trying to look suitably respectful. His face glowed golden and Sanam Khan was pleased at what she saw. At least the girl had had the good sense to pick a Pukhtun and one who had grown up with her own brother. ‘Women have been known to give their hearts to one-legged donkeys,’ she said to her daughter. ‘But you have chosen well. Your heart and head are one.’ With warmth and speed she ushered the couple into the dining room.

‘It’s a lovely room,’ said Elyas, looking around, trying to hide his nerves. White flowers filled the place. Even years later the smell of jasmine would make him feel sick.

‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘My husband had the furnishings brought over from his home city in Pakistan. He loves to bring bits of Peshawar back with him. You must have such things in your house?’

‘Our furniture is more Ikea, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘My grandfather came to England to study at the Bar when he was young and never went back. He said he liked the weather here too much, but I suspect it was my grandmother, and the whisky…’ Elyas stopped, thinking he shouldn’t have mentioned his grandfather’s liking of the haram. But Sanam Khan knew there were worse things than a family that drank.

Elyas and Zan had been friends since primary school, but apart from a smile at the school gates Sanam Khan knew little about his parents. ‘Both my parents were born in England,’ Elyas said. ‘I’m really sorry, Mrs Khan, I don’t know anything about the protocols of our culture. I’m sorry.’ He was babbling and he knew it. He should have brought his parents with him, but everything had happened so quickly that he hadn’t had time. And he doubted they would have fared any better.

Elyas had been in love with Jia for as long as he could remember. She was his friend’s little sister, goofy and geeky and funny. Buried under books and her head filled with song lyrics, she was oblivious to him. It was only when he confessed his love one Valentine’s Day by giving her a bottle of perfume that she realised.

‘I can’t accept that,’ she’d said, pushing her chunky brown glasses back with her forefinger. He noticed how grubby the lenses were. She was fifteen at the time, dressed in blue jeans and an oversized jumper she’d borrowed from her father’s wardrobe. She buried her nose in its neckline – it smelt of stale tobacco and her father’s aftershave – and she shook her head. ‘I definitely can’t take it.’ Black-and-red wrapping paper lay strewn around her as she sat cross-legged under the large pine tree in the garden. ‘My mother won’t like it,’ she said matter-of-factly.