‘There must be something you can get,’ Emma said. ‘Things carved in wood, baskets …’

‘There’s a shop which sells ivory things. Elephants made of ivory and things like that.’

‘No. Not ivory.’

‘I could get you a handbag made of crocodile skin?’

‘No, yuck.’

‘Snake skin?’

‘Stop it, I’m serious.’

‘Ostrich feathers?’

‘No dead animals! Think of something else.’

‘There’s a bead market. Someone once told me about that. I don’t know where it is though. I’ll have to find out.’

‘If you get me beads I can have them made here into a necklace.’ Emma liked necklaces but not bracelets or earrings. The golden necklace with her name in Arabic was from an ex-boyfriend, a mud-logger who had been working rotational from the oil rigs in Oman.

‘Change your mind and come with me. You can take the malaria pills, Samia can take the syrup and it’s just a few vaccines …’

‘A few jabs! Typhoid, yellow fever, cholera, TB! And Samia might get bitten by this sandfly Manaal told us about when she came here. She is only three. It’s not worth it – maybe when she’s older …’

‘You’re not curious to see where I grew up?’

‘I am interested a bit but – I don’t know – I’ve never heard anything good about that place.’

‘This is just a two-week holiday, that’s all. My mother will get to see you and Samia, you’ll have a look around …’ he said, switching the television off.

‘Paintings,’ she said, ‘that’s what you should get. You can bring back paintings of all those things you think I should be curious about. Or just take lots of photographs and bring the beads.’

He bought the beads but did not take any photographs. He had shied away from that, as if unable to click a camera at his house, his old school, the cinemas that brought the sparkle of life abroad. So when Manaal said she knew this English painter, he was enthusiastic about the idea even though it was his last evening in Khartoum. Tomorrow his flight would leave for home. He hoped he would have with him some paintings for Emma. She would care about where each one went, on this wall or that. She cared about things more than he did. She even cared about Samia more than he did. Emma was in tune with the child’s every burp and whimper. In comparison to Emma, Yassir’s feelings for Samia were jammed up, unable to flow. Sometimes with the two of them he felt himself dispensable, he thought they could manage without him. They did just that when he was offshore. They had a life together: playgroup, kindergym, Duthie Park. When Manaal came to Aberdeen she said many times, ‘Emma is so good with the child. She talks to her as if she is an adult.’