Through her sobs, Moni managed to say, ‘Thanks, Salma.’ When Salma had found her telling the baffled nurses that she wanted to stay, she had, to Moni’s relief, taken control of the situation. Gentle and firm, she had eased Adam out of her arms and reassured her yet again that he would be in the best of care. Adam had not understood that she was leaving him, and she was grateful for that. She now wondered if he cared that he was the only black child. If he even noticed. Sometimes at home, looking into his eyes, she searched for things other than the dull pain, other than the acceptance. The staff had been kind and patient with her. Every medical establishment Moni had encountered through the NHS was full of sympathy and understanding. While all Murtada could say was: We must behave normally. Life goes on. He said this when she was still refusing to have sex three whole months after the birth. When she did not want to go back home on holiday. Eventually they did go to Sudan for Murtada’s brother’s wedding, but people were so unkind about Adam, so blatantly curious, at turns blaming her (it had to be someone’s fault) and pitying her, that she was miserable. She began to keep Adam not only indoors but in her room, away from the prying visitors, who seemed to be attracted to him as a grotesque curiosity.

Before his birth, Moni had been active, positive and smiling, with her high-powered bank job and independence. Murtada had courted her for years before she succumbed. At first, she had not judged him good enough for her and assumed she could do better. It was his own matter-of-fact awareness of this which caught her attention, his blunt, ‘I know your family is better off than mine, I know that you are socially higher, but I will not take a penny from you because that’s not why I want you,’ which roused her admiration. He was a chartered accountant specialising in corporate finance and they had met when he was securing a loan through her bank. She was impressed and humbled by his dedication to his career and perseverance; his efforts at improving himself touched her, his ambitions for gaining international experience captured her imagination. She wanted a large family and his instinct to provide – ‘I will pamper you even more than your family pampered you. I will do anything for you’ – won her over. She loved how he described his very first impression of her on the day they met – bust straining against the tailored jacket she was wearing, her hijab tied slick, the ruthless way she questioned his proposal. This truly was how she had been. Then Adam’s birth bulldozed her. After that failed visit back home, she stood up to Murtada. ‘I will not take Adam there again. I will not take him to those backward fools.’ Murtada had replied, ‘These fools are our flesh and blood.’ But she didn’t care. She became one of those women to whom things were clear-cut. Everything back there was bad, and everything here was good.