We drove back to The Norfolk in silence. Freddie pulled up outside it and snapped the engine off. ‘Carberry can afford the repairs,’ he said. ‘Maybe this’ll be good for him.’

I untied my jumper from the poker, and shook it out over the passenger door. There was a quiet tinkle of glass hitting the road.

‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘Any time.’

I felt a surge of affection for him, and guilt that I’d ever felt like hitting him. Freddie liked to tease others, he liked to have a good time, but he would always be there for me. He was watching me carefully now, and I could sense the crackle of tension in him that was in me too, an excitement about what we’d both just done. I kept one hand in my pocket as I climbed out of the car and walked quickly through to the lobby. I handed the poker to a waiter straightening cushions on an armchair and he took it without a word.

Maud was waiting for me in our bedroom, red-eyed.

‘What did the vet say?’ I asked.

‘His leg’s broken, but it’ll mend. And his face is cut and bruised.’

‘He must have fallen into the ditch I found him in,’ I said. ‘And broken his leg that way. I can’t have tied him up properly.’

‘What about the bruises?’

‘There were rocks at the bottom.’ I lay down on my bed. ‘Where is he?’

She wiped her eyes. ‘He’s with the vet now. We can collect him tomorrow.’

‘He’ll be alright, Spanish,’ I said. ‘Scotty’s a fighter.’

She came and sat on my bed and patted my arm. ‘Thank you for finding him,’ she said.

February turned into March, and the weather stayed hot and sunny and dry. No rain fell, and the ground turned hard and cracked. On my sixteenth birthday we rowed a boat onto the lake and drank champagne and ate cake out there.

‘To our man,’ my mother said, raising her glass to me.

By late March, dark, gigantic clouds were rolling across the horizon, although they were gone by sunset. The air smelled dusty. After my birthday, my mother had suggested to my father that I could be trusted with the car, and I often took it out for long drives, to the Aberdares, to the Maasai Reserve. I liked to turn off the road and drive onto the plains. All around was flat, scrubby land as far as the eye could see, and dry riverbeds and rocks and deserted villages of Maasai huts. Sometimes I saw an eagle gliding high up above me, feathers ruffling in a breeze that never reached ground level. Other times, there was nothing in sight – no birds, no game, no humans – the world vast and completely still.