Fleur turned away, back into the room. It was like a small sign from the gods. Hope for her and her daughter; new life in the grandchild to come. She ate a quick breakfast and took the lift downstairs. The young Malaysian porter stood by the huge glass doors. He beamed at her.

‘Selamat pagi! Apa khabar?’

Fleur beamed back. ‘Baik. OK. Terima kasih. Can I walk to the Botanical Gardens from here?’

‘Yes, Mem, turn left out of hotel. About fifteen minutes’ walk.’

‘Terima kasih.’ ‘Sama-sama.’

Outside on the steps she blinked in the glare and put on her sunglasses. She turned left, waited for the lights and crossed the intersection. The heat bore down on her. Fleur lifted her arm for a taxi. She could not walk far in this heat without melting and she wanted to explore the gardens.

The taxi turned off Bukit Timar Road and into a wide road full of colonial-type buildings that had probably been embassy houses. At the end of one leafy road stood the Botanical Gardens with its gated entrance. Fleur remembered none of this. The taxi took her inside the gates and dropped her in front of the building where groups of taxi drivers waited for fares. She walked through the entrance and inside.

Years ago, there had been no formal entrance. Fleur remembered entering from a small side gate off a busy road. It must have been at the other end of the gardens. It had been more of a park then; people picnicked on the grass. There had been one small place to eat and buy drinks. Amahs and Indian ayahs pushed prams or ran after toddlers and flitted like exotic butterflies round the small paths through the trees. There had been a fountain and in the pool fat yellow fish hid behind lily leaves. There had been monkeys swinging from the trees and down beside you to pinch your food. Grumbling and fighting up in the branches, their tails switching, their voices screeching ominously above you. There had been a man in uniform leaning against a tree by the fountain, waiting for her.

Fleur’s heart pounded in memory as she walked the wide tended paths that were all signposted now. Large glasshouses stood on a hill and a new pavilion was being made. The grass was neatly kept and there were fewer trees to hide in the shade. Fewer places to hold hands when you should not; to kiss, shaking with the possibility that all might become well and whole again if you did not think, if you pretended for an afternoon away from the army base, away from the uniforms, in this one anonymous place in the centre of a city. If you clung to the only sure and safe person in a life so suddenly turned on its head.

Restaurants and cafés were now placed strategically in clearings. There was no anonymity any more. Wealthy Europeans and Chinese walked together, pushing expensive buggies full of children down the wide cleansed paths. It had all been sanitised and commercialised. It was beautiful still, but the gardens had lost their mystery. Without the monkeys and the deep shade of trees and the hint of danger, it was a place that could have been any botanical gardens anywhere in the world.