Then the images were of Salma again. The positive medical test, the hushed voices and days in hospital. For her to be buried in her beloved Egypt would be too costly, too inconvenient, she was destined to stay put. Loved until the very end, her husband devoted, her children gathered around her.

She covered her face with her hands. The future was not meant to be seen. This was not why she had come, not to see the end but to save the present. Not to learn the obvious lesson that there was less time left. Is that all you will give me, Lady Evelyn? Is this how you receive your sister, Zainab? I want to know how I can go on. How I can keep going without taking a fall, without giving up or making a fool of myself. You were lonely too, you were tired, help me. I came here for rejuvenation, a recipe for patience, a cure for disenchantment, the will to keep going, keep going, without wandering astray. I came to get the secret of keeping restlessness at bay, to learn how to feel settled. I came to see you, not to see myself.

She staggered down the slope; where was the strength now to walk six miles back to the car? A shot rang out. Close enough to make her freeze. She stepped away from the path and crouched down next to the rocks. She could now hear what must be the faint gallop of the wounded deer, the last sprints before the final collapse. Flooded with fatigue, she stretched out on the grass and looked up at the sky. She watched the cloud formations. Peace. The kind without thoughts or voices, neither images nor words.

She continued lying until the ground became uncomfortable for her back, the grass damp through her clothes. She pushed herself up and received the shot that was intended for her.

‘I died,’ she said to Moni and Iman in the car park. ‘Then I felt better for it. It was easy to walk back.’

They had heard the gunshots and were relieved that she was here in the car, that she was safe, sane and strong. They were relieved that she would now be able to drive them back home.

Iman sat in the front seat next to her. Her queries about the ‘help wanted’ sign at the hostel had come to nothing but making the attempt had felt like the first small step towards independence. She could be herself without hating the femininity she had been born with. She could still learn even if she hadn’t finished school. She could be Salma’s best friend and nobody’s pet.

Moni, clean now, was comfortable and soothed, ready to go back. She had walked much further than she could ever have imagined, exceeded her own limits. Given another chance, perhaps, just perhaps, she would do it all over again and succeed. She handed Salma a bottle of water.