The girl who opened the door had a towel wrapped around her hair like a turban. She kissed Manaal and he could hear, amidst their greetings, the words shower and sorry. They walked towards him, something he was not expecting and before he could get out of the car the girl leaned, and through the open window of the seat next to his, extended her hand. The car filled up with the smell of soap and shampoo, he thought his hand would later smell of her soap. She had the same colouring as his daughter Samia, the froth of cappuccino, dark-grey eyes, thick eyebrows. Her face was dotted with pink spots, round and raised like little sweets. He imagined those grey eyes soft with sadness when she examined her acne in the bathroom mirror, running her fingertips over the bumps.

With a twig and some pebbles, Zahra drew them a map of the painter’s house in the dust of the pavement. She sat on her heels rather primly, careful not to get dust on her jellabiya. She marked the main road and where they should turn left. ‘When you see a house with no garden walls, no fence,’ she said, ‘that’s where you should turn left.’

She stood up, dusted off her hands and, when Manaal got into the car, she waved to them until they turned out of sight. Yassir drove back on to the main road, from the dust to the asphalt. The asphalt road was raised and because it had no pavements, its sides were continually being eroded, eaten away. They looked jagged, crumbly. The afternoon was beginning to mellow and sunset was drawing near.

‘I imagine that when Samia grows up she will look like your friend,’ he said.

‘Maybe, yes. I haven’t thought of it before,’ Manaal said. ‘Did you like the earrings for Samia?’ He nodded. His mother had given him a pair of earrings for Samia. He had thanked her, not saying that his daughter’s ears were not pierced.

‘She’s beginning to accept the situation.’ His voice had a tinge of bravado about it. He was talking about his mother and Manaal knew. She was looking out of the window. She turned to him and said, ‘She likes the photographs that you send. She shows them to everyone.’

Yassir had been sending photographs from Aberdeen. Photographs of Emma and Samia. Some were in the snow, some taken in the Winter Gardens at Duthie Park, some at home.

‘So why doesn’t she tell me that? Instead of ‘What’s her name?’ or whatever she keeps saying?’

‘You should have given her some idea very early on, you should have … consulted her,’ Manaal spoke slowly, with caution, like she was afraid.

‘And what would she have said if I had asked her? Tell me, what do you think she would have said?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do know.’

‘How can I?’