It’s supposed to mean what it means. You think you’re doing me a big favour by marrying me?

No, I don’t think that, of course not …

They do. They do, the way they were talking. Sneering at me and you didn’t even notice!

Okay, okay, calm down.

A small boy touched his arm, begging. Gnarled fist, black skin turned grey from malnutrition, one eye clogged with thick mucus. He flinched at the unpleasant touch, felt guilty, fumbled in his pockets and started to take out a 200-dinar note.

Are you out of your mind, she said, giving him that amount? He’ll get mugged for it. She opened her bag and gave the boy instead some coins and an orange.

As she got in the car, she told her brother about the beggar and they both laughed in a mocking way. Laughing at him in Arabic, the height of rudeness.

Perhaps you can contribute to the petrol then, the brother drawled, given you have so much cash to spare. I’ve burnt a lot of gas chauffeuring you and your fiancée around, you know.

Right, if this is what you want. He yanked out the notes from his wallet and slammed them down near the handbrake.

Thanks, her brother said, but when he picked up the wad of cash, he stared at it like it was not much, like he had expected more.

She sighed and looked out of the window. It was as if the theft had brought out all the badness in them.

He thought of saying, drop me at the hotel. He thought of giving up and leaving for Scotland the next day. That would punish her for laughing at him, that would hurt her. But he did not ask to be dropped off. He did not give up. True, he had no passport and would not be able to travel, but something else made him stay.

They walked into disarray. Her house, almost unrecognisable for the sheer number of people who were distraught, in shock. A woman was pushing the furniture to one side, another dropped a mattress on the floor; everywhere weeping, weeping and a few hoarse voices shouting orders. Her uncle, Morgan Freeman, had died, dozing in his armchair.

For a moment, the three of them stood in the middle of the room, frozen in disbelief. The brother started to ask questions in a loud voice.

That’s it, she hissed, we’ll never have our wedding now, not in the middle of this mourning, never, never. And she burst into tears.

Before he could respond, her brother led him away, saying the house would be for the women now, we have to go outside. Come on.