She stood in the aisle, jammed in the heat and press of bodies huddled in overcoats, rain pooling beneath the spikes of furled umbrellas. Damp hair, damp wool, damp leather, stale feet, stale sweat all hemmed her in, circulating in the whirr of the heater, forming a mist on the windows that hid the world outside. This must be what cattle feel like, she thought, when they’re herded on to the transport for the abattoir. Patient and enduring as they jerk and rattle towards their doom. If only there was a sliver of blue sky somewhere, even in the distance. She longed for the summer, for the end of lectures and tutorials and exams, and the crush in the library. Then she would leave it all behind for the light of an African morning, the sing-song voices of children passing on the road to school, the sound of the wind in the palm trees and the surf on the reef. She would be free, skimming over the lagoon in her dinghy, holding in the sail and shouting back to Raphael as they raced for the channel. Or they might take off on safari, driving into the bundu, with the sharp scent of acacia trees and red dust filling her nostrils.

She shifted her feet to balance better in the swaying bus and wondered again if she would ever feel at ease in Ireland. Her parents had always talked of ‘going home’ when they came back for holidays. But her home and her true friends were in Africa. A bleak chill settled on her spirits as she thought about the disastrous reunion in London. She had only written to Camilla once since then, a stilted thank-you note. The fuse of resentment still burned inside her when she thought of the scene in the nightclub. She could see Piet’s face, bemused at first, with the blaze of hope suffusing his features as he reached for Camilla’s hand, hardly daring to believe. And then the expression in his eyes when he realised the truth. He had laid himself wide open, no dissembling, no self-protection. The stupid ass! Could he not see what she was doing? They had all been pawns in a savage game Camilla had been playing. Perhaps that was all they had ever been. And then she had cast him off with a callousness that was unbelievable. Unless you considered that she was, after all, her mother’s daughter.