I said to Margaret, ‘You look as though you haven’t been sleeping.’ She jumped and muttered something. I lit a cigarette and began to think about the awful boringness of unpacking the suitcases which, after all, I’d only packed an hour or so before in the dreadful hotel. I was not looking my best; not exactly travel-stained because what was there to stain you these days? Boats and trains and taxis kept you out of the mud; we had encountered no blood and no one had thrown wine over me. I was unstained, but my clothes were crumpled. I looked at Margaret, wondering whether I could say to her, ‘Darling, would you be a little heavenly angel and just press this blouse for me?’ But it wouldn’t have been any use. You can’t really ask people to do things for you if you can’t see any signs of life in them. There isn’t any point.

‘And how is Syl?’ I asked when we had sat down to dinner. I asked partly out of politeness, because why should I care how he was after all this time, and partly out of curiosity because I couldn’t imagine why she was going to marry him. He was twice her age. ‘Is he still handsome?’ I said, because it was the politest thing I could think of to say, and Monica said he flew around playing squash and golf and kept himself very fit. Margaret said nothing to add to this unappealing picture and I began to feel rather old, for Syl and I were the same age, were we not, and what was all this talk about keeping in trim? I was in trim. I didn’t need to play stupid games or jump up and down all over the place. I was fit as a flea. Healthy Lili. Oh, naughty, nasty Margaret to make me feel suddenly old.

Monica said, ‘Tell Lili what you thought of Egypt,’ as though the girl was a parrot to utter a phrase and be given a nut. ‘It- was-very-nice,’ said Margaret in her little dull voice as though she feared I would be offended if she said she’d hated it. I don’t own Egypt—I thought—I’m not Cleopatra—I don’t care if you hated the sight of the Valley of the Kings and all the accoutrements of Tutankhamun. I don’t care if you detested the fellahin and feluccas and falafel. Nothing to do with me.

‘What did you think of Marie Claire?’ I asked her, and I wondered whether perhaps she had been in love with the beastly little Nour and was marrying old Syl on the rebound.

‘She-was-very-kind,’ came the response. I might have known.

‘She’s very clever,’ said Monica.

I wasn’t having that. ‘Kind I will allow,’ I said, ‘Marie Claire is not ungenerous...’ (I thought this magnanimous of me) ‘...but she hasn’t got the sense of a chicken.’

‘Oh Lili,’ said Monica. ‘She was cleverer than all of us in school. She was top of the class, time after time.’