She opened another bottle of whisky and I had another drink and another cigarette and then I left her and went back to the summerhouse because Monica’s cleaning lady had arrived. She was Mrs Monro’s cleaning lady too. I sometimes felt a bit haunted by her. Margaret had gone. Back to bed probably.

Monica’s house was now uninhabitable with Adam and Eve and the little ones. We had really nothing in common. Eve didn’t like me. She couldn’t see the point of me and I wasn’t going to be bothered to enchant her. Why should I? It would have done neither of us any good and she’d undoubtedly have tried to tell me things I didn’t want to know. So I had to go out a lot. I began to wish I was back in Iskenderiyeh. I began to miss the smell of dust and chickens and onions. I was a gypsy after all and I began to wish I was walking along a gisr, looking down at the river while the sun set red in a haze of dust. Yes, I knew I’d be restless there too, but I was tired of here. A small villa at Ras-et-Tin under the walls of the Khedive’s summer palace would have suited me now; figs and jasmine and a mulberry tree. All gone. All gone. Oh my dear ones, the sadness of life.