Nazneen went to make tea. All but two of the mugs were packed. While the kettle boiled she pinched the air out of bubbles in the plastic wrapping.

When she returned to the sitting room Mrs Islam was lying on the sofa, feet on one armrest, head on the other.

'Not long now.' Her voice was small but still sharp around the edges.

'Tomorrow,' said Nazneen.

'Tomorrow?' snapped Mrs Islam. 'I don't have long, but I can assure you I will live out this day and the next.' She snorted. 'God willing,' she added.

'What I thought you meant. . .'

'Yes, yes. What you thought I meant. I know. But how is it that young people these days never listen to their elders?'

Son Number One and Son Number Two stood behind the sofa. Son Number One wore a round-necked peach jumper and a collar of chest hair. The distance between his nostrils and his upper lip was unusually small. As a result he appeared constantly offended. He looked like he was making up insults. And failing. By contrast, his brother looked like a genius. He had a politician's face: alert, eager, sensitive, cunning. His eyes twinkled with a love of his fellow man, and his mouth was a cast of sympathy. How galling it must be for Mrs Islam. How often did she look at Son Number Two, let hope triumph over experience, and expect from him what his face so patently promised?

Mrs Islam regarded her sons. She closed her eyes.

Nazneen poured tea.

Upstairs the television was on. An audience applauded. Two faint pings, some mumbling, more applause.

'I have brought something for the girls,' said Mrs Islam. She opened her eyes and fluttered her hand at Son Number One.

Son Number One opened the big black bag. 'They're here.' He closed the bag.

His mother mouthed some terrible and soundless curse. She pushed her hand against her forehead.

'Make her give the money first.' Son Number One's mouth appeared to brush his nose as he spoke.

'Idiot! Stupid! Imbecile!' Mrs Islam blew the words from her mouth like poison darts. 'First you must get a brain, then you can use it.' She began to cough. Each cough lifted her feet off the armrest.

Son Number One looked straight ahead, his face immobile as his brain.

Son Number Two seized the medicine bag. He fished out two little brown-glass bottles with white prescription labels. Mrs Islam took the pills and chewed them slowly. Her teeth clacked together. She washed down the bitter powders with a swig of Benylin Chesty Coughs.

'The girls,' she said to Son Number Two.

Son Number Two drew two sets of ankle bells from his mother's bag. He shook them next to one ear and then the other.

Mrs Islam gave him a look.

'Just a small thing. A gift between friends.' She spoke in short gasps and held her chest as though that would stop it heaving. 'How are the girls? Don't tell me. They don't want to go. I know how it is. Giving you plenty of worry. And it never stops.' She gave birth to a long-gestated sigh. 'Believe me, it never stops.'

Nazneen said, 'I was coming to see you.'

But Mrs Islam was still circling her own thought. Her hair was coming loose as it rubbed on the sofa. It was tied in a loose white bundle. The hair looked so dry it was a wonder it did not simply crumble.

'You'll miss the march, then,' said Son Number Two. He turned his intelligent face to Nazneen.

'Yes. The flight is later, but yes.' Nazneen looked around. 'So much to do.'

'We'll be there,' said Son Number One. 'It's going to be good.'

'I reckon,' said Son Number Two. He wagged his finger and looked sure to produce some insight of stunning acuity. 'It's going to be a laugh.'

'Laugh? I'll tell you what's funny.' Mrs Islam lifted her head and propped herself on her elbows. 'All our boys going around, march, march, march. They have nothing better to do. Who is going to go and march against them? One or two troublemakers sticking dirty leaflets through our door. Why not catch them and give them a good once-for-all beating? Why go to all this bother, march, march, march. I will tell you something now.' She paused a while. 'I will tell you something. Not more than ten white people will turn up tomorrow. Not more than ten.'

She rested her head again. Nazneen could hear her breathe. Each breath came so unwillingly, how many more could come? How brave it will be, thought Nazneen, to stand up to this dying woman.

'I'll tell you something else,' said Mrs Islam, speaking to the ceiling. 'The rest will not come because they are too busy. When there is money to be made, why should they care about anything else? No. They will not come because they are not afraid. They have no respect for us. How can they fear us?'

She began to rub her hip and Son Number Two, proving no slouch, handed her the Ralgex. Mrs Islam sprayed her sari indiscriminately.

'Now, if we had money,' she went on, 'then you would see the difference. The block off Adler Street, the council sold it off. Do you know how many flats inside there now? Eight! Each one the size of a cricket pitch. Only one or two people living in each flat. How are they going to respect us, living ten to one room? They will not march. It is too much trouble. If they want us out of here, they can buy us out.'

Son Number One said, 'Not us though, eh? We'll buy them out first.'

Mrs Islam pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and spat into it.

Son Number Two said, 'Didn't she tell you to keep quiet?'

Nazneen looked at the brothers. There was a rumour that they owned a pub in Stepney. There was another rumour that on Sunday mornings a woman danced in the pub and took all her clothes off. It was said that this was an English tradition. That the men went to the pub on Sunday morning, sent by wives who wanted to cook and clean while the husbands were out of the way, looking at another woman's breasts. Son Number One pushed his lips further up his face, working really hard on an insult. There was a rumour that Son Number One had a white girlfriend and two buttermilk children. There was a rumour that Son Number Two had been in prison for assault, or fraud, or both.

Rumour surrounded them but it did not touch them.

'Two hundred pounds, to settle the debt,' said Mrs Islam, still talking to the ceiling.

Footsteps traced the length of the room above.

The only thing that people did not talk about was this: the moneylending.

Son Number Two came out from behind the sofa. He stood by the showcase with his hands behind his back.

'How much did my husband borrow?'

'What?' said Mrs Islam as faintly as she could. 'Oh, two hundred will settle it.'

Nazneen looked down at her hands. 'Because I worked it out. And unless I made a mistake, then we've paid it all back.'

Mrs Islam's breath rattled the windowpanes. She coughed so much that her shoulders and her feet lifted and she sort of folded in the middle. 'Whenever God decides, I am ready,' she rasped.

'We paid it all back, and some more as well.'

'I am an old woman now. Do as you like. The money is for the madrassa, but what does it matter to you? I am an old woman now.' Mrs Islam took a spotted handkerchief from her stores and dabbed it over her face.

The sound of breaking glass shot like iced water down Nazneen's spine. She looked up.

'You're upsetting my mother,' said Son Number Two. 'When she gets upset, I get upset. Sometimes I break things.'

The top of the showcase was caved in. A little cloud of glass dust showered the pottery figures.

'Sometimes I break things as well,' said Son Number One.

Mrs Islam panted. She motioned to Nazneen to get moving. 'Quick. Two hundred pounds and settle it.'

Nazneen's blood thickened. Her heart strained to push it round her body. 'No.'

Son Number Two had conjured a cricket bat from somewhere. As he lifted it over his head, Nazneen wondered if it had been inside the black bag.

The bat came down on the showcase and smashed through two shelves. The noise was terrific. Son Number Two turned round. He had flecks of blood on his cheek, glassed by splinters. His expression was both analytical and concerned, and entirely pleasant.

'Wooo!' said Son Number One. He tickled his chest hairs and tried to tuck them down his jumper.

'We paid what we owed,' said Nazneen. Her voice clogged up her ears. 'We paid at least three hundred pounds on top of that. I am not going to pay any more . . .' She hesitated. 'Any more riba.'

'You bitch,' said Son Number One. 'Should I make her pay?' He looked at his mother with great hope in his little eyes.

'Riba,' whispered Mrs Islam. 'Riba, she says.' Her head lolled around as if the word had given her fever. 'Do you think, before God, that I would charge interest? Am I a moneylender? A usurer? Is this how I am repaid for helping a friend in need?'

'No?' said Nazneen. She thought she might be shouting, but she really could not help it. 'Not interest? Not a usurer? Let's see then. Swear it.' She ran across to where the Book was kept. Glass crunched beneath her sandals. 'Swear on the Qur'an. And I'll give you the two hundred.'

Mrs Islam was perfectly still. Nazneen listened for her breath, but all she could hear was her own.

Son Number One stirred. 'I'm going to break . . .'

'My arm,' shouted Nazneen. 'Break my arm. Break them both.' She held her arms out, until she began to feel foolish.

Slowly, Mrs Islam swung her feet down and sat up on the sofa. Her hair had been dragged apart and it hung in thick swathes around her neck. She glared at Nazneen with her hot-coal eyes. Nazneen took it and she turned it round. A minute passed. The television crowd applauded with muffled enthusiasm. Music came and went, and the lunatic scramble of advertisements. Mrs Islam stood up.

'There are some things a wife does not want a husband to know.'

Nazneen burned. She did not look away.

'Fresh start,' said Mrs Islam. 'New life, back home. You don't want anything to spoil it.'

'My husband,' said Nazneen slowly, 'knows everything. He'll come soon. Why don't you ask him?'

The impossible happened. Mrs Islam looked surprised.

Nazneen, strengthened, said, 'Swear on the Qur'an. That's all you have to do.'

Mrs Islam picked up the ankle bells from the back of the sofa. She placed them on the coffee table. 'For the girls,' she said.

She walked over to Son Number Two and picked up her bag.

Son Number Two nodded, as if everything had happened just as he expected.

'Let's go,' he said. 'They paid too much anyway.' He gave a good-natured laugh.

Mrs Islam let out a cry, a low animal noise of despair. With both hands she raised her medicine bag and swung it at her son's shoulder. It bounced off. She swung at his head and missed. She made another cry; shrill this time, as if she had been cut. Son Number Two moved leisurely towards the door. He put his hands up to shield his head. Mrs Islam followed. As she passed, Nazneen saw the tears flood her eyes and pour down her cheeks. She wielded the bag once more and struck Son Number Two on the back. She made a sound in the back of her throat that Nazneen remembered for days.

Son Number One was still at his station behind the sofa. He looked around, trying to decide something. Then he walked over to the ruins of the showcase and levelled a kick at the one remaining door. The door twanged and vibrated and came to rest intact. Son Number One shrugged. With the tip of his shoe he toppled a few boxes, and then he left.

Nazneen fetched the dustpan and brush. She wrapped the large pieces of glass in newspaper and began to sweep up the rest. Nothing at all came to her mind. As she squatted in the debris, everything inside was peaceful. She stopped working and slipped into the moment like a hot bath. Gradually, a thought began to form. God provided a way. Nazneen smiled. God provided a way, and I found it.

She walked down Brick Lane to get to the tube station at Whitechapel. Days of the Raj restaurant had a new statue in the window: Ganesh seated against a rising sun, his trunk curling playfully on his breast. The Lancer already displayed Radha-Krishna; Popadum went with Saraswati; and Sweet Lassi covered all the options with a black-tongued, evil-eyed Kali and a torpid soapstone Buddha. 'Hindus?' said Nazneen when the trend first started. 'Here?' Chanu patted his stomach. 'Not Hindus. Marketing. Biggest god of all.' The white people liked to see the gods. 'For authenticity,' said Chanu.

Outside the station a little lad, maybe ten or twelve years old, walked back and forth across the entrance. He had headphones round his neck and springs in his heels. A boy came galloping up the steps and banged into him.

'Watch it,' said the little lad.

'You all right? Didn't see you there.' The boy was older; old enough perhaps that he called himself a man.

'Clear off,' said the small one. 'Or else.'

'Or else?' The boy was amused. 'Or else what, little brother?'

'You fucking-bloody-bastard,' said the lad calmly.

The boy raised his hands, smiling. He shook his head. 'Shouldn't you be at school?'

No answer. The little brother put his headphones on.

The boy began to walk away, still shaking his head.

'Don't come around here again,' the little one shouted. 'If I see you again, you're dead.'

Nazneen reached the entrance. She stopped in front of the little brother and pulled off his headphones. 'Fanu Rahman! Does your mother know where you are? Get yourself off to school this second.'

As she bought her ticket, she wondered what she should tell Nazma about her fifth and most precious son. Then she remembered that Nazma was not speaking to her.

There were two other people on the platform. Nazneen stood close to the edge, watching the mice twitch in and out of the tracks and looking out for the eye of the train in the black tunnel. She willed the train to come. Two hours ago, she had dialled his number and felt her skin prickle at the sound of his voice. Since then, she wanted to knock down walls, banish distance, abolish time, to get to him. What she had to say to him could not wait. The electronic noticeboard said four minutes until the next train. Then it blinked and added another couple of minutes.

Somebody passed behind her on the platform. She turned round. A young woman in high-heeled boots and jeans, a denim jacket pegged on her fingers and slung over her shoulder, stalked towards the free bench. Her footsteps rang like declarations.

Nazneen fell in line behind her. The way the woman walked was fascinating. Nazneen watched her and stepped as she stepped. How much could it say? One step in front of the other. Could it say, I am this and I am not this? Could a walk tell lies? Could it change you?

The woman reached the bench. Nazneen almost collided with her. 'Sorry,' said the woman. 'Sorry,' said Nazneen. They both sat down.

The train took her to King's Cross. She had to change to the Piccadilly Line. Karim had explained it all. She got lost and walked for miles through tunnels and up steps and down escalators, across ticket halls, past shops and barriers and through more tunnels. A couple of times she was close to tears. She challenged the tears to come and they backed down. Eventually, she found the platform and entered the train. By the time she sat down she was sweating. She tried to think about what she would say to Karim. The urgency inside her began to fade. Only three more stations to go. There was not enough time.

A picture of him came into her mind. Karim in his jeans and trainers, sitting at her table, bouncing his leg. Karim with a magazine, feeding her slices of the world. Karim in his white shirt, rubbing his smooth jaw, telling her all the things that lay hidden just outside her window. He knew about the world and his place in the world. That was how she liked to remember him.

It was never so. Apart from where it mattered, in her head. He was who he was. Question and answer. The same as her. Maybe not even that. Karim had never even been to Bangladesh. Nazneen felt a stab of pity. Karim was born a foreigner. When he spoke in Bengali, he stammered. Why had it puzzled her? She saw only what she wanted to see. Karim did not have his place in the world. That was why he defended it.

At Covent Garden the carriage emptied. Nazneen rode in the lift. She saw Karim across the street immediately she came out. He waited by a clothes shop, as they had arranged. She did not pass the barrier but stood to the side and watched. A burger van greased the air with fatty smells. Cars jammed the road and people weaved in and out. On a plinth, a man who seemed to have been dipped in white paint stood still as a rock while a child poked his leg and was pulled away by her mother. A gaggle of girls walked with their arms folded beneath their breasts, clutching their purses and cackling at each other. As they walked they knocked shoulders, a friendship ritual. Two men came out of a pub and made a show of tucking their shirts into their trousers, trying to get back into shape after a long lunch. Nazneen watched Karim watching the people. He leaned against a strip of wall between two shop windows, and rested a foot up against the brickwork. Behind the plate glass white lights heated the faceless mannequins. It had rained, and the slick brown pavements bore a liquid print of the light inside and carried it down to the gutter.

People passed in front of Karim. The street was busy. All day long, people passed each other. Nobody spared a glance for the boy in the panjabi-pyjama and expensive brown fleece. Karim bounced his leg. He looked at his watch. She had seen what she wanted to see. She had looked at him and seen only his possibilities. Now she looked again and saw that the disappointments of his life, which would shape him, had yet to happen. It gave her pain. She almost changed her mind.