Sarah closed the door of the flat and pulled her woollen hat down on her head, battling the gusts of wind that tore at her as she made her way to the main road. She had decided to go into college, to see if the darkroom was free. There could be a good two hours of work on her enlargements if the bus came soon. The rain had been at it for days, falling out of the sky in a continuous deluge. Passing tyres threw showers of oil-slicked water on to the pavement, thrumming against her boots until she felt the damp seeping up through her whole body. The sly wind stole under her coat collar, pushing water down her neck and into her face, no matter which way she turned. She was sick of the interminable gloom. It wasn’t like the monsoon in Kenya, when torrents of water plunged on to the parched earth for a few hours and then were gone, leaving steam rising into a shimmer of warm air. When it rained in Mombasa the children ran outside, shrieking with delight and splashing one another in the newly formed puddles. Pye-dogs lapped at the muddy water, and there was the rich scent of thirsty loam soaking up the promise of greenness to come. Here, people huddled in doorways or jostled in a sea of umbrellas, each in their private world of misery, trapped in the insistent drizzle that hung in a curtain from low clouds even when the heavy rain had stopped. She would never get used to this country. This was May. It was supposed to be spring turning into summer, for God’s sake! Her bus pulled up in a watery squeal of brakes, as she thrust out her arm at the last minute to stop it.