She took me to her bedroom; it was filled with flowers, lilies and roses and forget-me-nots, and their smell mingled with her perfume. She was standing perfectly still at her dressing table, but I could sense the restlessness coming from her in waves. Outside the window, the eland ambled past keeping to the shade, and the river flowed away from us in liquid gold.

‘It’s such a nice day,’ I said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I like your hair like that.’

‘I call it Clouds on a Mountaintop.’

I looked around the room. Brown paper luggage tags had been tied to various items of furniture, the dresser, the mirror, the bed. I could make out Sylvie’s writing on them.

‘Are you moving?’

‘No.’

I turned over the tag attached to the floor lamp where I was standing and saw the name ‘Edie’.

‘You’re giving it all away?’

‘I don’t need it,’ Sylvie said. ‘Any of it.’ She clasped her hands together and tried to smile.

‘What’s wrong, darling?’ I asked her.

She was quiet.

‘Should I call the Matron?’

‘Do you remember Samson?’ she said, looking at me properly for the first time. ‘Do you remember how I blamed Nico for giving him up?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘I felt awful about it afterwards, you know.’

‘You were right,’ I said, moving towards her. ‘Samson belonged with you out here, not in a zoo, or a circus.’

‘But we spoiled him,’ she said. ‘We made him think he was one way, when he should have been another. And then it was worse when he learned what lions are. He was dangerous.’

‘Does that make you feel differently about him?’ I tried to take her in my arms and she looked as if she was going to struggle, but she went limp instead.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He was a wild animal – I knew that. We shouldn’t have treated him as a toy.’

I kissed her chin. ‘Don’t think about it too much.’

‘I can’t help it,’ she said, and ran her fingers through my hair. ‘It’s all our fault. Now go away and leave me in peace.’

‘Let me say goodbye properly first.’

I kissed her again, on her mouth this time, and she kissed back. I let her go and she smiled at me, still that same shy, wicked smile.

‘I do love you, Theo. Remember that.’

‘I love you too – more than anything.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Everyone loves you.’

‘I know.’

The smell of lilies followed me all the way to the car.

Chapter Thirty-Two

From the stern of the ship I could see the buildings along Mombasa’s shore. After years of being scorched by the sun, their white and yellow paint was flaking off like the burnt skin of the fish cooked and sold near the harbour.