Croydon was much as I remembered it. I was not your usual sort of foreigner; not convinced that only Park Lane was fit for human habitation. I liked Croydon, and I found Monica’s house very comfortable. It might have been in the country with its big garden and its big rooms. If I could have taken it to Râs-et-Tin I could have lived in it happily for the rest of my life. As it was, I enjoyed its Englishness. Robert didn’t like it. He said it was an architectural abortion, but I really didn’t care what it looked like from outside. My own little villa—which was all I had left now—didn’t look very good from outside. Inside it was different: half oriental, half rive gauche. Very me. I was a cosmopolitan and happy anywhere if it was warm. I had gypsy blood, for I was an Egyptian. Do you see?

‘Oh, Monica,’ I said, ‘my dearest, how lovely to see you after all this time.’ I kissed her on both cheeks, behaving in a foreign way, because it would be more interesting for her and the little Margaret. The little Margaret I didn’t recognize for I hadn’t seen her for years and years since she was a child. I just assumed it was her because it couldn’t really have been anybody else and I said I must congratulate her on her forthcoming nuptials, and Monica said one was meant to congratulate the groom, not the bride, so I said I trusted she was doing the right thing and Monica said one was supposed to wish the bride happiness. So I did that and I talked rather a lot because it is always a little awkward meeting again people you have not seen for a long time, and I was remembering the things that Marie Claire had told me that I knew I was not supposed to know, and really it came as a relief when Monica asked where Robert was.