After lunch Camille, Jasmine, Kendrick and the girls wandered away, leaving Melwyn, Carey and Ivan—the other Chinese—with Raj. They walked slowly across the grass. Snatches of disjointed conversation drifted across the air.

‘Look, this tree was planted by the Czar of Russia. I didn’t know that he had been in Ceylon.’

‘The Czar of Russia? It was he who was assassinated. Yes, he’s the one who was assassinated.’

‘Yes, soon after the Revolution broke out. Look, the Prince of Wales planted this.’

‘And this, I’m sure, was planted by that, what’s-his-name, the one who was assassinated in Bangladesh.’

They peered at the name. ‘Yes, that’s right. The plant is dying too. Strange, isn’t it?’

The name boards stood in front of each tree, some were upright, the others crooked. In some the writing was almost effaced. Latin botanical names now as exotic and forgotten as some of the plants. They were like menu cards from a long ago banquet, the ghosts of revellers still clinging to them. The tree, the plant brought from far away, rooted in alien soil, flourished or decayed. The mynahs pecked idly among the grass blades. The Czar of Russia and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh were both dead. Forgotten events in history. Only the trees remained, put forth their leaves or shed them seasonally, bore fruit and flowers and grew with time into time.

‘Do you know Kendrick wept when he heard the commentaries on the Queen’s visit? He wept with emotion when he heard ‘Rule Britannia’—or was it ‘God Save the Queen’—played by the band,’ said Jasmine.

‘Kendrick, were you so overcome?’ asked Camille.

A pleased smile stretched his lips and his cheeks with their firm taut skin flushed with colour.

In the orchid house they moved through the green lights, listening to the sound of trickling water. People came and went, clicking their cameras. An elusive fragrance emanated from the waxy blooms. They felt they were wandering in a cool, dark jungle. Some of the flowers looked tigerish with their dark stripes. Camille felt herself enclosed within a wall of flowers and leaves, lost in an ancient temple which stood forgotten in ruins within this proliferating forest—the grey roots stained with green; flower clusters springing out yellow, purple, orange and mauve; the dark shades of leaves.

She joined the others and walked across to the green house with its tropical foliage. Water slipped over the mossy stones, gurgling and falling into shallow pools. The great monsterras, the gigantic ferns, the velvety purple-green leaves with their thick veins grooved in crimson into the fleshy surface seemed somehow menacing; a gigantic spider’s web of green in which Camille felt herself moving tentatively, knowing that she could not escape. Her insect life felt drawn along those threads to the centre, the strands shaking and trembling yet holding her strongly, not letting her go.