‘I tried, Amir. I tried my best. The circumstances were against me.’

‘Nonsense. You needed help that’s all, a bit of support. Your husband isn’t a doctor, is he?’

His voice was neutral, but she knew it was a dig that did not require a reply. Amir was the surgeon now, his private clinic stuffed full of patients, his reputation high, the money coming in. No doubt his wife had a full-time maid, a beach house overlooking the Mediterranean, private schools for the kids.

‘Do it now,’ he was saying. ‘It’s never too late. Sit those exams again.’

For a second, the old ambition surged through her. It flared up like lust. She was conscious of her elbow touching her breast as she held up the phone, her hips brushing the column she was standing against. ‘Or I could just pack it up and return home. Rewind the clock.’ Her voice had an edge to it, an uneven attempt to sound flirty.

‘I would be at the airport waiting for you.’

She could visualise it. To be whisked away, to be young again. ‘Don’t you have better things to do? I reckon you’re busy.’

‘Every day is the same as the one before it,’ he said. ‘My wife is Japanese.’

‘Really? I didn’t know.’

He laughed. ‘Metaphorically.’

She didn’t get the joke and imagined her children heckling in the background: ‘Racist!’

Amir began to explain. ‘She’s super-efficient, methodical and organised . . .’ He suddenly stopped as if caught out. He didn’t want to talk about his wife any more.

Salma rescued the silence with chatter. The Wimbledon matches. It turned out he was following the coverage even more regularly than she was. They were the same people but heavier and slower, their responses taking more time, their words loaded with assumptions, presumptions and the solidity of the past. She told him about Lady Evelyn. Her wedding in 1891 was in the All Saints Church in Cairo. As a gift, the Khedive sent palms and flowers to decorate the church.

‘What was she doing in Egypt?’

‘Her parents owned a villa in Cairo and they spent the winter months there.’

‘I know where that church is,’ said Amir and she almost gasped with delight as he started to connect her with streets and landmarks she had forgotten. ‘I badly need a holiday,’ he said. ‘There is no peace here. Continuous strife every which way I turn.’

She surveyed the scene around her. Fresh cool air, the almost empty lawns of the monastery, the blue-grey waters of the loch up ahead. ‘Plenty of peace here.’

‘I will join you,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘You will be most welcome. Bring a rain jacket.’

‘Seriously. I need to get away. I feel stifled.’

‘You said this years and years ago, the exact wording: I feel stifled.’

‘Did I? What was the occasion?’ He sounded more alert. They both had good memories. Brains that retained information to spill out on examination papers. But why start raking up the past?