I wanted to tell her that humankind should think more of the skeleton and less of the drapery, but I thought she probably knew that already, even if she hadn’t put the knowledge into words. Anyway, I couldn’t be bothered. I worried sometimes that there was something I should have done or said before I took it to the grave, beyond reach, but I was no prophet and had no real desire to be one. I must have said something about death, for Lili said, ‘People used to die so easily. People in novels. Women especially. Their dear one would leave them, or they’d renounce him for some high-minded reason, and before you could say blood tonic they’d dropped dead. For a while they would grow pale and they would flutter about for a bit and then die.’

‘They probably had TB,’ I said. ‘And they were almost certainly undernourished. Invalids used to be given food we should consider most unsuitable.’

‘And people bled them,’ said Lili. ‘And in my opinion they were already severely anaemic.’

‘I wonder if Margaret’s anaemic,’ I said.

‘My mother used to give me iron tonic whenever it got really hot,’ said Lili. ‘My father’s sisters used to laugh at her, but they had very strange medicines of their own—they used to have a kind of competition to see who could stuff me full of the most medicine. I was a crafty little girl. I used to spit it out when they turned round for a lump of loukoum to take the taste away. Otherwise I imagine they’d have poisoned me before I was twelve. Pills, potions, suppositories, ointments—they were always experimenting. They’d get the doctor to give them a bottle of something. Then they’d add to it—minced up Spanish Fly was one of their favourite things, but luckily I think they only put it in ointment. They were always boiling oil and mutton fat and messing about with attar-of-roses. I suppose they were bored stiff.’

‘Your mother was the English one?’ I asked.

‘Mmm,’ said Lili. ‘How funny you should say that. They called her that. The English one. And they used to laugh at her, only she was English enough not to notice. And anyway I don’t think she was quite all there. Whether she started out a bit wanting, or living with my aunts drove her mad, I don’t know. She certainly made more sense when we moved to a place of our own, only then I think my father felt cheated. He was used to dozens of women fussing round him.’

‘It sounds as though you had an interesting childhood,’ I remarked conventionally, looking back to my brief visit to Egypt and trying to remember whether I’d met Lili’s parents. We had met a great many people in a short space of time and I found it difficult to differentiate between them.