I climbed out of the car, throbbing with tension. She gave me another smile then drove off. I waited until she was out of sight before stumbling into the trees to think about her properly.

Chapter Eleven

For the next few weeks the weather was sunny and cloudless, with the dry smell found only in hot countries – everything dry, especially the baked earth underfoot. The totos moved sluggishly, chopping firewood, hanging up the laundry, scrubbing the dirty kitchen pans. Scotty lay in a shaded corner of the porch, his water bowl next to him and his tongue permanently out. Eventually my mother snapped. ‘We’re spending the next weekend in Nairobi,’ she told us. ‘The Griggs want to take us for supper and I can’t stand looking at this lake a moment longer.’

The Griggs took us to The Nairobi Club. The members were officials and tradesmen as opposed to the settler crowd at the Muthaiga, and the volume in the dining room never increased above a low hum.

We had fish and white wine. Scotty was reunited with his brothers and sisters and they spent the evening chasing each other around the grounds. Lady Joan and my mother discussed the most recent League meeting; Sir Edward listened politely to my father talk about the railway.

‘The natives still call it “the Iron Snake”, of course,’ my father said. ‘One of their medicine men prophesied its coming years ago – had a dream about a black snake coming and all their cattle disappearing. They thought it was a bad omen when we showed up to build it, I can tell you.’

‘I remember,’ Sir Edward said. ‘“One day the Iron Snake will cross the land, causing trouble wherever it goes.”’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Deplorably superstitious, poor buggers.’

I was silent all evening, even when my mother mentioned I’d gone on safari with Nico and Sylvie, and Lady Joan said ‘Ah’, and turned to look at me. Inwardly I squirmed whenever I thought of Sylvie, and the kiss, and wondered if she thought about it still, or if she’d forgotten it completely as soon as she left me. I didn’t know which was worse.

Freddie was in Nairobi too and picked me up the next evening to take me back to the Muthaiga Club. It felt both more and less than a year since my first visit.

Faces I only vaguely recognised crowded around us and hands shook mine.

‘Have you corrupted him yet, Hamilton?’ someone asked.

‘He’s a big hit at the parties,’ Freddie said. ‘All the ladies want to know who he is.’

‘A big hit, is he?’