‘How kind of you,’ my mother said. She didn’t move, and I realised she hadn’t offered Sylvie a drink, or invited her inside, or even shaken her hand. Behind me, I could sense Maud fidgeting, and Fairyfeet still whimpered softly, but otherwise a silence had descended. My mother crossed her arms in front of her chest; Lady Joan raised an eyebrow.

I looked at Sylvie. She’d turned pale. It made her seem much younger, somehow, and helpless, and I felt a wave of anger on her behalf.

‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ I asked.

My mother caught my eye and shook her head, subtly. I hurried on. ‘We don’t have champagne. I don’t know if Abdullah knows how to make whisky sours – you like those, don’t you?’

‘You remember.’ Sylvie smiled at me, and the colour came back into her cheeks. She looked as if she was about to refuse, then Roderigo broke the ice, jumping out of her arms and onto Maud’s shoulder.

‘He knows me,’ Maud said excitedly.

Sylvie laughed. ‘He always chooses the prettiest person to sit on.’

‘Actually,’ I said. ‘We were going to ask your permission for Roderigo’s hand in marriage. Maud’s game.’

‘Theo,’ my mother said, frowning.

‘Maud shouldn’t be thinking about marriage yet,’ Sylvie said. ‘Not for a long time.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind Maud’s ear. ‘You’ve got much more to offer the world, haven’t you, darling?’

There was another pause. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mother draw herself up as if she had something important to say.

‘Sylvie,’ she said. ‘Won’t you join us on the veranda? What would you like to drink?’

Sylvie drove with one hand on the wheel and the other in her lap. She was constantly looking over her shoulder to talk to Maud and drifting across the road, or skidding as we turned corners. Freddie had driven too fast, but at least he’d seemed in control.

Cedar trees whisked past in a dark blur, and golden stalks of corn bowed their prickly heads in our wake. Fairyfeet and Roderigo trembled in Maud’s lap. We were driving towards the mountains, and I had visions of Sylvie tunnelling straight through them. She was telling us the story of their journey to Africa from France, but her words were snatched away by the wind, so I caught only a haze of dances and sea-sickness and misunderstandings.