‘I asked two scholars,’ said Salma. ‘And they gave me different answers. One said yes, it’s an extension of nursing, with the intention to heal, and one said no – only massage women and children.’

‘You got the no answer first, I’ll bet. Otherwise you wouldn’t have tried again.’

Salma smiled. ‘That’s what happened. But I work in a hospital, so I rarely had the bad experiences other therapists had. There are weirdos and perverts out there.’ She sometimes felt that her hijab protected her, made her hazy and distant, further out of reach. The signals she sent out were muffled by clothes, obscured by layers, buried out of the way. But Moni was right: to choose her clients would be a step in the right direction, to focus on women and children would make her life easier.

‘You told me once,’ said Iman, joining in the conversation, ‘that most massage therapists are self-employed.’

‘Yes,’ said Salma. ‘The pay is better if you’re self-employed. But you end up working plenty of weekends and evenings. Then again, with better pay, you can train in other methods. I’ve always wanted to learn reiki.’

‘What’s that?’

They spoke about it for some time, how the word sounded like the Arabic ruqyah, the healing prayers accompanied by touching or blowing. Iman told them about a woman in her village who was believed to have been possessed by a djinn. Ruqyah was used to cure her.

With Iman now feeling better, the other two started to drift and to contemplate their exits. Moni longing to search for the boy, Salma to text again – I’m not telling you where I am, stop asking. Finally, when they left, and she found herself alone, Iman picked up Lady Evelyn’s book, which Moni had abandoned on the coffee table. She looked at the pictures – the clothes and hairstyles. In 1895, the demure floor-length skirt and long jacket with puffed sleeves, hair held back and covered by a hat. In the mid-twenties, the soft bobbed hair and long pearl necklace. A pleated skirt, ankle length; a cloche hat, probably wool.

In a photograph taken at Glencarron, Lady Evelyn was aiming a gun, wearing jodhpurs that reached just over her knees, with long stockings underneath. Iman made the effort to read one of the captions. Her progress was slow, but she persevered. ‘Evelyn in one of her famous tweed skirts.’ ­Molyneux, the French fashion designer from whom she ordered her clothes, had his studio in the garden of her house in Mayfair. If only the photographs had colour! ‘Which outfit is my favourite?’ Iman asked herself. She wasn’t sure. In a photograph taken in Kenya, right outside a hut, Lady Evelyn was in a pair of high-waist, wide-leg trousers. This would definitely be Salma’s favourite because she had a maroon pair that looked exactly the same.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight