‘Please don’t sleep on the landing tonight, Laila. You’ll get disturbed by Janu leaving,’ Dad pleads. ‘I have to set off with him so early in the morning.’

So I go and lie on Mira’s bed, just to keep him happy.

I can hear Janu on the phone to someone through the wall. It’s Mira. I hear him say her name. And the way he says it makes it sound like he loves her. I feel so sad for Janu. I don’t want to hear this. I plug my earphones in and listen to the playlist Kez has made for me. It’s not the same kind of music that she used to listen to. There’s dance music and a bit of rap, and some of the ambient instrumental tracks that Krish likes, but I think my favourites are still the ones we used to sing together. I turn up the volume on ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ and play it over a few times, trying not to think about Janu and Mira’s conversation. The boy hugging Kez in the photo, the one she didn’t want me to see before, comes into my mind. There was something about the way she snatched the phone away that made me wonder if he was just one of the crowd. As I sing along I keep thinking about how kind Tomek was that day. I suppose there are lots of things Kez doesn’t know about me too, like that I’ve thought about texting Tomek so many times but can’t think what I would say. I blush up all over again at the memory of when we first met. What was I thinking, pretending I was someone else?

While I’m listening to the rest of Kez’s playlist I think about how Bubbe and Nana Josie met each other, and Grandad Kit; how Simon and Nana knew each other; how they were marching against that war in Iraq; how that’s the reason why Pari’s here; and how I’m like a link between them all . . . And it was me who found the chime. Maybe without it I would never have opened Simon’s letter and gone to collect the Protest Book and the Banner Bag . . . I feel like I should know where all this is supposed to lead me . . .

There’s a knock at the door.

Janu peers around it. ‘I could hear you ringing that chime of yours! My friend Yannis uses his worry beads like that!’ He smiles. ‘Mind if I come in?’

I can’t tell if he’s really sad or happy.

He sits next to me on the floor, leaning against the bed.

‘I’ve just been speaking to Mira.’

‘You were on the phone for a long time,’ I say.

‘Were you listening?’ he asks.

I shake my head and unplug my other earpiece.

Janu spreads his arms out, ‘Your sister and I had much to talk about after being apart for so long.’

I check Janu’s face. I feel so sorry for him. After that racist attack the other day I don’t want him to go away feeling sad.

‘Don’t look so troubled, Laila. She asked me to give these to you, for you to keep safe till she gets home.’

Janu lays a red-and-gold envelope on the carpet and hands me the ring box that I saw him hide away when he first arrived.

‘You’ll keep these safe till Mira comes home, won’t you, Laila? I was hoping to hand them to her myself . . . but seems like there was something of a misunderstanding!’ He smiles at me and pats the back of my hand. ‘I think you might also have misunderstood, Laila? Open it!’ he says.

I hesitate for a moment.

‘Go on! Mira told me to show it to you, as long as you guard it with your life till she comes home. No pressure!’ Janu grins.

I open the lid and inside is not a ring at all.

‘And to think your sister doesn’t believe in Karma!’ Janu laughs.

I take Mira’s artichoke charm that she used to wear all the time out of the box. The one Nana Josie gave her, with all the little silver layers and the tiny ruby right in the middle.

‘I though she lost this.’

‘Yes, that’s what she told you.’

Janu looks at his watch. ‘Mira’s made me go over the story five times already so she can fill in the details for you – but no, Laila, she didn’t lose it. She gave it away to a girl on the train near my village.’

‘But she loved this . . . Why would she do that?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

‘Something like a reflex instinct. She was feeling sorry for this girl we were sitting with in our carriage. She felt guilty because she, Mira, had –’ Janu gestures around the room – ‘everything . . . and this girl had not even enough to feed her brothers and sisters.’

The eyes of the girl on the tube come into my mind again. I think I know how Mira felt.

‘Your sister’s like you, Laila. She has a big heart. I told Mira that the girl would sell it and she would never see it again.’

Janu takes out his phone, scans through his album and shows me a photo of this beautiful woman with shiny bobbed hair, wearing skinny jeans and a bright turquoise salwar kameez with the sleeves rolled up. She’s standing next to Janu by a river.

‘Can I?’ I ask, taking the phone from him and homing in on her. ‘She’s got amazing eyes!’

‘Yes, she’s very beautiful – but look what she’s wearing on her wrist.’

It’s the artichoke-heart charm.

‘She came for an interview to work with me, to set up the website for my blog . . . I was wrong – she never sold it.’

‘I’ve got to tell Pari and her mum about this!’ I laugh.

Janu shakes his head.

‘I know! Now Leyla will really think I’m out of one of her Bollywood films! But seriously, sometimes these things do actually happen.’

Janu hands me the envelope and I open it.

‘Her name’s Parvathi!’ I say, laughing.

‘I know – it’s like a saga! Mira’s going to paint us as a wedding present. It’s next year, just after Durga Puja. I hope you will come. I’m going to invite Kez and her family too.’

I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.

‘I thought you were going to ask Mira to marry you! I thought you loved her.’

Janu laughs.

‘I know that now . . . and I think maybe you conveyed it to Mira, and that’s why she was too afraid to meet me!’

‘Sorry!’

‘No, no! It’s also my fault. There was a little romantic idea in me that I should return it to her myself. I wanted to see the look on her face.’ Janu looks down at his hands. ‘Love is complicated, Laila. In a way I will always love your sister – after all, she brought Parv and me together.’ Janu picks up the little bracelet. ‘Or maybe this charm did!’

I nod and hug Janu tight.

‘It’s been good to get to know you, Laila. Keep in touch . . . And remember: no need to say anything about –’ he points to his bruised feet – ‘All healed now.’

I’m lying on the landing when Janu goes. I pretend I’m asleep so Dad doesn’t get annoyed with me. ‘Bye bye, Landing Laila!’ Janu whispers as he passes.

I watch Mum, Dad and Janu getting his things together at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Mira called me late last night. She had an idea that I should give you these. She seems to think they would definitely fit you,’ Mum says, handing Janu a pair of black shiny shoes. ‘They belonged to my dad, Bimal.’

‘I can’t take these . . .’

Dad hands him a pair of his socks. ‘Here, Janu. Look, it’s a miracle! I even found a matching pair!’

Janu puts the socks on, bends down and slips his feet into the shoes.

‘We can always buy some at the airport if—’

‘No need, Sam!’ Janu says. ‘They’re a little tight, but they’ll be fine for the journey. It will be an honour for me to walk in these shoes.’

‘You promise you’ll keep them on till you get through JFK? Anjali’s concerned that you don’t make things more difficult for yourself. You know how tight security is everywhere now,’ Mum says.

‘But are you sure, Uma? These are your baba’s shoes.’

‘Please wear them, Janu – he would have wanted . . .’ Mum’s voice falters.

‘My ma has this saying, Uma . . . “As long as the footprint of the person is remembered by someone living, then we will always walk with them.”’

Janu and Mum hug for a long time.

‘Right then,’ says Dad. ‘Looks like your dad’s travelling with us too, Uma! Come on, you’ve got to let Janu go. He’ll miss his flight!’

Every now and again it’s like I’ve got this new power to see things from a distance. If I was looking at myself as a character in this scene, sitting here on this landing, I used to only be able to see the close-up picture. But recently, just sometimes, I can pull back and see myself and everything else that’s in the frame too, and that makes me feel things I never used to, like Mum’s sadness not just being about Janu leaving, and why Mira wanted Janu to wear Grandad Bimal’s shoes.

I hold Nana Josie’s chime in my hand and ring it. I imagine Janu’s plane taking off, flying through the night. I imagine him looking out of his window at the moon and the stars and falling asleep and waking up to a sunrise in a new country wearing Grandad’s old shoes.