After a while my mother had a word with Joseph and he grudgingly started cooking food we were more used to. He could cook anything: meringues, custard flans, layer cake, soups, breads, scones, pies. It had felt strange sitting down to schnitzel and potatoes in the middle of Africa, but no stranger than kidney pie and rice pudding.

Abdullah, the head boy, was gentle in everything. He had big brown eyes and a slight stammer that made him shy to speak. Every evening he put down a prayer mat on the grass and prayed for exactly seven minutes. Unlike the other servants who were all Kikuyus, Ramsay told us, head boys were normally Somalis because they were nobler and stricter. My father liked Abdullah a lot, because he approved of my father’s beard that he was trying to grow. My mother liked him because he was a genius at running the house, and Maud liked him because he helped her nurse injured birds she found in the garden. When Miss Graham was on leave, it was Abdullah who looked after us. Soon after we moved in, Maud fell out of a tree we were exploring, and ended up with a small gash on her shin. Abdullah washed the wound, then left us sitting by the well while he hunted through the grass near the woods.

‘What’s he looking for?’ Maud asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How’s your leg?’

‘Bleeding.’

‘Do you think you’ll bleed to death?’

‘Don’t – you’re not funny.’

Abdullah made his way back to us with something in between his thumb and forefinger. ‘This is for you,’ he said, as he reached the well.

‘What is it?’ Maud asked.

‘Safari ant.’ He showed us the ant, which was squirming in his grip. It was a deep cherry-red colour, and almost twice the size of his thumbnail, with long, pincer-like jaws protruding from either side of its head.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ Maud asked, biting her lip.

‘Maasai use them like this,’ Abdullah said. He brought the ant down to Maud’s cut, until the pincers were on either side of the wound then pressed them onto her skin. The ant went rigid, the pincers snapped together and Abdullah twisted the body off in a quick, clean movement. ‘Very strong,’ he said.

We looked down – the head was still hanging off Maud’s leg, but the pincers had closed the gash like a makeshift suture.

‘How long does it last?’ I asked.

‘Until skin heals,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Abdullah,’ Maud said. She blushed as he helped her to her feet.

It was April, almost three months after we’d moved in, when Sylvie arrived out of the blue. I was out on the lake with Maud when I saw her sitting on our jetty, legs outstretched in the sun. She raised a hand lazily and I jumped up, almost sending us head first into the water.