He paused a little, stirred sugar in his coffee with a plastic spoon. ‘She’s a lollipop lady.’

Shadia smirked into her coffee, took a sip.

‘My father,’ she said proudly, ‘is a doctor, a specialist.’ Her father was a gynaecologist. The woman who was his wife now had been one of his patients. Before that, Shadia’s friends had teased her about her father’s job, crude jokes that made her laugh. It was all so sordid now.

‘And my mother,’ she blew the truth up out of proportion, ‘comes from a very big family. A ruling family. If you British hadn’t colonised us, my mother would have been a princess now.’

‘Ye walk like a princess,’ he said.

What a gullible, silly boy! She wiped her forehead with her hand, said, ‘You mean I am conceited and proud?’

‘No, ah didnae mean that, no …’ The packet of sugar he was tearing open tipped from his hand, its contents scattering over the table. ‘Ah shit … sorry …’ He tried to scoop up the sugar and knocked against his coffee mug, spilling a little on the table.

She took out a tissue from her bag, reached over and mopped up the stain. It was easy to pick up all the bits of sugar with the damp tissue.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbled and they were silent. The cafeteria was busy, full of the humming, buzzing sounds of people talking to each other, trays and dishes. In Khartoum, she avoided being alone with Fareed. She preferred it when they were with others, their families or their many mutual friends. If they were ever alone, she imagined that her mother was with them, could hear them, and spoke to Fareed with that audience in mind.

Bryan was speaking to her, saying something about rowing on the river Dee. He belonged to a rowing club and went rowing on the weekends.

To make herself pleasing to people was a skill Shadia was well-trained in. It was not difficult to please people. Agree with them, never dominate the conversation, be economical with the truth. Now here was someone whom all these rules needn’t apply to. She said to him, ‘The Nile is superior to the Dee. I saw your Dee, it is nothing, it is like a stream. There are two Niles, the Blue and the White, named after their colours. They come from the south, from two different places. They travel for miles, over countries with different names, never knowing they will meet. I think they get tired of running alone, it is such a long way to the sea. They want to reach the sea so that they can rest, stop running. There is a bridge in Khartoum and under this bridge the two Niles meet, and if you stand on the bridge and look down, you can see the two waters mixing together.’