Beside her, Douglas continued to keep his eyes fixed on the road ahead, his jaw set in a hard line, his mouth tightly closed. He drove fast. Too fast, she thought, as they swung round the sharp bends, descending the mountain. Evie clung onto the door handle, trying to control her shaking, and struggling to hold back the incipient tears.

‘I told you, this is a business relationship. I was very clear to you, Evie, my intentions towards you have never been romantic. I’ve apologised. It was the heat of the moment. It shouldn’t have happened. It was inappropriate. Undignified. And it won’t happen again. Not like that.’

He took one hand off the wheel and scrabbled in the glove compartment, producing a pack of cigarettes. Evie drew away when his hand accidentally brushed against her knees as he reached to close the catch before expertly lighting his cigarette. The rest of the journey passed in complete silence.

When they reached George Town he pulled up outside the house. ‘I’ll pick up Jasmine from school and drop her back here on my way to the ferry. Goodbye.’

Without waiting for an answer, he drove away, leaving her standing alone on the pavement.

11

After Douglas had left, Evie stumbled through the rest of the day in a daze. Eating supper, seeing Jasmine to bed that night, sitting by her bedside listening to her reading, kissing the child goodnight – she did all this as if in a trance, her body acting automatically, while her brain was elsewhere. When Jasmine was asleep, Evie went downstairs. The house was silent and there was no sign of Benny. She went into the garden from where she could see Aunty Mimi silhouetted at the kitchen window washing the supper dishes.

The garden was dark, with a sea breeze stirring the leaves, helping cool her down and keeping the mosquitoes at bay. Evie breathed in the sweet heady scent of frangipani, and the soft, subtle pine smell of the casuarina trees. Moths circled in the light spilling from the drawing room onto the lawn.

From further down the street, cockerels were crowing, even though it was only late evening. She’d asked Mary why they did that – often breaking into full crowing in the middle of the night. Mary told her it was because the poor birds were kept in cramped bamboo cages, starved of food, in readiness for cock fighting. Evie shivered at the thought. So much about this place was alien to her, almost savage, far removed from everything and everyone she had ever known.

Utter loneliness swept over her, depressing her spirits, making her want to run upstairs, pack her suitcase and take the next ship back to Britain. She would never fit in. Never feel welcome or comfortable in this godforsaken country.

Evie’s fragile self-confidence had been bolstered by her blossoming friendship with Mary Helston, and today she had enjoyed the company of Susan Hyde-Underwood. But Mary was occupied at the school each day and Susan, up in her highland eyrie, would soon be occupied herself with a small baby. That same self-confidence had been utterly shattered by the treatment Douglas had meted out to her.