We could say you’re ill, and confined to bed, I wrote, although she might get suspicious.

It rained heavily in the morning, and the drive down that Friday was slow, with hardly any other cars on the road other than an old Bentley driving slowly behind an African who walked ahead with a stick, checking for pot-holes in the puddles. Occasionally my mother asked me about work, but I was distracted, trying to come up with a plan as to how we could keep Maud’s secret from her. Unless she’d already heard something; I couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited Kiboko, and wondered why the sudden interest in seeing us.

The sun, when it appeared from behind the clouds, had a milky quality to it, and when I turned into the drive the lake seemed darker, more impenetrable in its light.

Maud was waiting for us in the sitting room. She seemed thinner and paler than before; even I could hardly tell she was pregnant. My mother kissed her, then held her face in her hands for what seemed like a long time.

‘I’m going to wash and change,’ she said eventually.

‘Would you like tea?’

‘Yes, I would.’ She kissed Maud again, looked back at me with a strange expression, then left the room.

‘How are you, Spanish?’ I said when tea was laid out on the veranda.

‘I’ve been better, I suppose,’ she said, fumbling for her cup. ‘I can’t keep anything down. I thought it would go away after a while, but it’s been getting worse.’

‘I can hardly see a bump.’

‘I wear a corset,’ she said. She looked at the garden over the rim of her cup. ‘I think some of the servants know. Joseph keeps making me special broths.’

I grinned at her. ‘He’s probably trying to turn it into a man – he did that for me.’

She smiled back. ‘I hope it won’t disappoint him too much if it’s a girl.’

I took her hand in mine. ‘Please move to Nairobi. You need proper doctors around you.’

She shook her head. Bulawayo came out and she withdrew her hand.

‘Bulawayo, can you ask Joseph if we can have some sandwiches with the tea?’ she asked him.

He leered at us.

‘Did you hear?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Bwana.’

‘So why aren’t you following orders?’

He took a step forwards. ‘You no better than us,’ he said, and spat on the veranda floor.

I almost caught him, but he was too quick, and he disappeared inside.

‘Leave him,’ Maud said, putting her hand out as I went to follow him.

‘He can’t get away with that.’

‘I know, it’s awful. But they don’t trust us any more.’ She pushed a lock of hair out of her eye. ‘Can you blame them? Even if we give them votes and representation, they’ll never be equal in their own country.’