Marie Claire had written to say she couldn’t come to the wedding and had sent a present of yet more tablecloths and napkins. ‘How useful,’ my mother had remarked. I hadn’t read the letter. I imagined Marie Claire coming to England in the cold to be present at my marriage. She would have worn her furs and her jewellery and she would have struck an even odder note than Lili. She might have made Nour come with her, because she refused to travel alone. They both looked exotic even standing by the Nile and would have seemed remarkably out of place among us. It was perfectly possible that they could have come, and yet unthinkable. My imagination failed.

‘I feel a bit deranged,’ said Lili. ‘I think it must be something to do with the pickled cabbage. Or perhaps it’s just the effect of the Peter Pan collars. Cynthia is a remarkably inefficient woman.’

My mother looked pleased. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said.

‘There’s no need for such messiness,’ said Lili. ‘Messiness makes me feel like hitting someone. I get this inclination to take a broom and a pail and tidy up. I would start by throwing Cynthia away and I would sit the little children on a shelf while I swept the crumbs off the floor.’

‘The place wasn’t actually dirty,’ said my mother with conspicuous justice, ‘but it is dreadfully untidy. She doesn’t seem to put anything away. There are clothes everywhere.’

‘And such clothes,’ cried Lili, who seemed intent on gratifying my mother. ‘She dresses like the offspring of the vicar and his cleaning lady. When she goes to parties she will wear not a party frock but a summer frock with a bow at the neck and a tie round the waist. She will undoubtedly wear a summer frock for the wedding.’

‘She’s quite kind,’ I said.

Lili went towards the drinks table. ‘Where stands the sun in relation to the yard-arm?’ she inquired rhetorically, pouring a Gin and It. ‘As if it mattered. I drank brandy for breakfast in Tanta.’

‘I’ll have a Martini,’ said my mother. She was sitting back relaxedly and looking more contented than she had for some time. ‘Margaret?’

‘Yes please,’ I said, all at once looking forward to the mild dulling of the senses, the ease which the evening drinks induced.

‘It is better not to drink in the daytime,’ said Lili. ‘Not so much because of the liver but because it spoils the effect of the first drink of the evening.’ She was wearing a burgundy-coloured dress of fine corduroy and reminded me herself of foreign wine.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t need it,’ said my mother remembering her responsibilities, ‘not at your age.’

‘I have had this dress for ten years,’ remarked Lili. ‘I was ten years younger when I had it made. You see this tiny patch where the material is paler. That is where I spilled vodka on it the day I wore it for the first time.’