‘Watch out for the mosquitoes,’ my mother said, but nothing more. She’d barely spoken to me since the night of the races, although once or twice I’d caught her looking at me with a new, almost uneasy expression. I didn’t know what she’d told my father, but it must have placated him, because he hadn’t mentioned my absence, and I wondered why she’d protected me, or if she was just holding it over me until I did something else.

‘Let’s hope the good weather holds,’ my father said, as we settled ourselves.

I hoped so too – I knew from reading up about it that Lake Naivasha was called after the Maasai word for rough waters.

I leaned my head against the back of my seat and dozed off. It was fifty-four miles from Nairobi to Naivasha, over three hours by train. Occasionally voices broke through – Maud asking questions, my father pointing out towns – but I woke properly only as we were sliding into our station. My father folded his newspaper and bounded up, beaming.

‘Here we are,’ he said.

Ramsay, the man my father had hired to build our new home, was late, pulling up in a dusty Buick a long time after the train had left us behind on the station platform. He was a small, squat man with a Scottish burr, and a glass eye.

‘We expected you an hour ago,’ my father said, frowning at him.

‘You’re on Africa time now,’ Ramsay said. He picked up our suitcases and tossed them into the back seat as if they were made of air. ‘The bairns will have to walk. It’s only a few miles.’

There was a moment of silence.

‘Well –’ my father said, doubtfully, but Ramsay was already laughing to himself.

‘Just a wee joke,’ he said. ‘They can sit on the luggage at the back.’

We clambered on top of the suitcases, almost slipping off when the engine started with a jolt, and travelled like that for the few miles to our new home.

Naivasha was much smaller than Nairobi. The main street was only a few shops long, and they were all shuttered. The surface of the road was even more pitted, and I held Maud’s hand tightly as the car bounced along. No one was out on the road, although occasionally we saw lights in windows, figures moving through rooms on their way to the dinner table, or to gather around the wireless, check the baby was sleeping.