Faria was one of my two flatmates. Two years older than me, the elegant daughter of a prosperous Anglo-Egyptian family, she had taken me under her wing almost as soon as I arrived. Faria was engaged to the son of one of her father’s business associates and liked to tell everyone that as she was practically married, she was ideally placed to chaperone Sarah and me. Behind the backs of whoever we were talking to she would then deliver a huge wink. In fact, Ali was often away, on business in Alexandria or Beirut or Jerusalem, and Faria would have benefited from the attentions of a chaperone rather more than we did.

We were drawn into the group. Chairs were brought over and placed at the table as the officers eagerly made room. I accepted a glass of whisky, at the same time looking around the glimmering garden for my escort. Sandy Allardyce was one of the young men from the British embassy. He insisted to anyone who would listen that he was desperate to get into uniform, but so far he was still chained to his office desk. I guessed that he felt uncomfortable in the company of so many men who were actually fighting, and that he dealt with this by drinking too much. His pink face had turned red within an hour of our arrival at the party.

‘So you lived here as a young girl?’ one of the officers asked. The man next to him clicked his lighter to a cigarette and I glimpsed his face, briefly lit by the umber flare.

‘Just in the holidays. I was at school in England most of the time.’

Faria was laughing extravagantly at a joke made by one of the others, her head thrown back to reveal her satiny throat and the diamond and pearl drops swinging in her ears.

Jessie leaned forward to command my attention again. ‘Are you looking for Sandy? I saw you dancing with him.’ He had noticed my anxiety.

Gratefully I said, ‘Yes. He brought me to the party. I ought to go and find him. He …’ I was going to add something about the orchid, I was already fingering the waxy tip of one of the petals.

Then the man with the cigarette moved his chair so the light from one of the candle lanterns threw his face into relief. There was a blare of music from the band and a burst of applause as a dance finished. I looked at him and forgot whatever remark I had been on the point of uttering, not that it mattered. Cairo party conversation was profoundly superficial.

The man’s eyes were bright with amusement. He was dark-haired, dark-skinned. He might have appeared saturnine if there hadn’t been so much fun in his face.