Mrs Smythe

There is no Mr Hashimoto.

Whether he doesn't exist or is dead or they're separated/ divorced, I can't tell. Maybe she has eaten him like some insects do.

The next morning we leave (separate bedrooms) and bump along to Tariq Road. Tariq Road is one of those Jekyll & Hyde locations. It's just one long street and is either a deserted thoroughfare with shreds of newspaper idling in the hot breeze, like today, or it's a sea of people diving in and out of endless shop fronts. Shops of shoes, material, cafes, sweets, more shoes and so on and on and on. There's also an irritating concrete divider preventing easy switching between lanes.

Halfway along, we turn into backstreets. We stop outside a low flat-topped building with just one storey.  Upstairs, I am introduced by Mrs Hashimoto to her friend, Mrs Smythe. (Not her real name, which I have forgotten, which is just as well.)

Mrs Smythe is a typical old-fashioned English housewife. Blustering, bubbly, wearing a loose printed dress. She has short and scruffy blond hair, is in her fifties with a florid face. She uses the Urdu word chakkar a lot slotted into English sentences. Sitting in the same room as Mrs Hashimoto, with her straight back, and neatly composed appearance, the contrast cannot be more vivid. I wonder how they can be friends, which the obviously are from their banter and ribbing. Mrs Hashimoto whoops: Mrs Smythe giggles.

Mrs Smythe's husband, she says, is a Sikh. I don't know whether to believe this. She also has a daughter, Maya, just reaching her teens - beautiful and tall. There's a son, too, Yusif, who is always dressed up in a jacket and tie, though he doesn't seem to do much. He is dark and handsome and speaks with an affected American drawl. I wonder what the father must be like.

Rahmania Mosque, Tariq Road. This is a much later addition.