In England her friends’ lives were a smooth continuation of their parents’ or so it seemed to her. When they made Valentine’s cards at school, their mothers understood; when they dressed up for Halloween, their mothers helped. But Lateefa would not understand, ‘You wasted good time at school making cards!’ ‘Those silly beoble telling their children the bresents came from Santa Claus. How will they learn to be grateful that their fathers and mothers get them nice things?’ Lateefa’s words would stay in Nadia’s mind, echoing, though she tried hard to push them away. She could see things in the ‘normal’ way, the same way that her friends did, untainted by Lateefa’s judgments. But she could also change the lens and see what her mother saw. It was as if Lateefa’s values were a subtle, throttled part of her. She had sucked them down with her mother’s milk.

Her cousin, Khalid, was waiting to meet them, leaning against the iron railing that separated the emerging passengers from the car park. The Khalid of each and every summer, old enough to be intriguing, young enough to be her only Cairo friend. She aimed her trolley at him and began to walk faster. ‘It’s so hot,’ she said to her mother but Lateefa, surging ahead, didn’t hear.

Although it was midnight, the airport was as busy as ever. Large tourist buses were parked in the open-air car park amidst the taxis that worked with meters and the posh ‘limousines’ which charged higher rates. The drivers had spilled out of their vehicles and were shouting, ‘Taxee! Taxee!’ into the dense crowd of tourists. They were aggressive and persistent, a few of them reaching to grab Nadia’s trolley. She kept shaking her head. She kept saying, ‘Thanks, but no we don’t need a taxi.’

‘Just ignore them,’ Lateefa yelled back as if this was the easiest thing in the world. She was the one who reached Khalid first, beaming and hugging him, pulling his neck down to kiss his forehead and cheeks. ‘You still haven’t shaved your beard?’ she scolded. ‘One of these days you’ll be arrested for a terrorist!’

He laughed and turned to shake Nadia’s hand. When she was younger she had sat on his lap in cars and cinemas; in swimming pools she had wrapped slippery legs around his waist and squealed, ‘Again! Again!’ when he lifted her up from under her arms and threw her in the water. But that was a long time ago when he was a schoolboy and she was a child and the age gap between them had seemed large. For the past few years though, she had felt shy in his presence, especially in the first few days of the visit.