The house girl pours coffee into plastic mugs and sets them down. Purity talks to her in Swahili indicating things around the house, the almost-empty jar of jam, the dust which gathers around the table legs and the wonky paintings on the wall. At least that’s what Kiama gathers from her overly animated way of speaking and the few words of Swahili he catches. The girl looks tired but nods anyway.

‘I hope it’s okay us staying here,’ Kiama says. ‘We arrived so late and—’

‘Ki-Yama,’ Purity says softly, taking hold of his arm. ‘Mwana mwema ni taji tukufu kwa wazazi wake.’

His mouth falls open for he understands, yet it’s not something he wants to hear right now.

She pulls her head back and drops his arm. ‘You forgot?’

‘No, I, er. I never really knew it,’ he lies. ‘The other kids always spoke to me in English.’

‘But I spoke to you. I spoke with you every day and now you have forgotten.’

It’s true, she would have him in the kitchen, reading recipes from the big Delia Smith cookbooks aloud. It’s how he eventually got better at reading. He would read it in English and she would repeat it back in Swahili and then he would copy her. If he tried, he could probably describe how to make pasta in Swahili but little else, even Mum never spoke it that well. He remembers how she would insist on ordering in restaurants, even when the staff spoke English. ‘They appreciate you trying,’ she’d tell Kiama and it was true, waiting staff were forever congratulating her on making the effort, yet the wrong meal often came out.

‘I’d love to learn again,’ Kiama says. All it would take is for Purity to talk to him, just like she used to, then it would flood back in the same way other fragments of memory have been doing since he arrived. He takes his phone out, ready to pull up some old Delia Smith recipe and ask Purity to translate, but then remembers there’s no connection here.

Delia snorts, ‘Difficult, isn’t it? Being offline.’

Maybe Yvonne was right, maybe he is addicted. He puts the phone on the table face down and picks up a coffee instead.

‘Why have you come?’ Purity asks as she removes the eggshell in one expert move.

The coffee burns his tongue and Purity waits for her answer. The girls too, their eyes turned towards him. ‘To, you know, to see my grandparents.’

‘Yes. Your grandfather, he is a good man. You must greet him for me.’ She leans closer, eating her egg and waiting for him to say more.

‘And I wanted to see some of the places Mum liked and took me to when we lived here.’

‘Ahem,’ she nods.

‘I have photos of a school or orphanage she used to work at, I can show you. I’d like to go there too.’