My mother gazed at her inquiringly with a so-what expression on her face.

‘I have been drinking all my life,’ explained Lili. ‘And I am growing older. But my clothes are not. My clothes remain the same. They never wear out because I look after them so well and they stay young while I...I...’

‘Portrait of Dorian Gray,’ interrupted my mother triumphantly.

‘Quite,’ said Lili.

‘Don’t they date?’ asked my mother. ‘I find I have to change my wardrobe every other year or so.’

‘Not really,’ said Lili.

‘What about hem-length?’ inquired my mother.

It would be impossible to accuse Lili of being ill-dressed, but if she wore the same clothes for decade after decade while my mother did not, then there was something wrong somewhere and my mother was suspecting that, implicit in the situation, lay criticism of her taste and judgement.

‘I always keep the same hem-length,’ said Lili. ‘Mid-calf.’ She spoke casually without looking at my mother, and changed the subject. ‘Did Marie Claire say why she couldn’t come?’

‘Oh, some family business,’ said my mother. ‘They have those dozens of cousins and aunts and there’s always some sort of crisis going on.’

As far as I could gather, Nour’s father had taken on responsibility for all his sisters, married or not, and for their offspring, and since his death Marie Claire had assumed the burden. Eventually it doubtless would fall to Nour. I wondered what sort of job he would make of it. I had once imagined that I too might one day be involved in that large, confusing family with its extended degrees of affinity. I wondered how it could be that I was going to marry Syl.

‘I don’t want to marry Syl,’ I said, surprised to hear that I had spoken aloud.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said my mother.

‘Have another Martini,’ said Lili.

‘I don’t,’ I said.

‘Now look here. . .’ began my mother.

‘I want to be a nun,’ I said. I had wanted to be a nun before Nour had made me love him with his golden hair and his golden face and his golden eyes. I wondered how long it would be before I stopped loving him. I had loved God before Nour. I had been a vessel of pure water and I had been spilled. I had loved God more than I had loved Nour and I had betrayed him. I had rendered myself purposeless.

‘You can’t change your mind at this point,’ said my mother, carefully reasonable, and ignoring this imbecile talk of nuns.

Lili looked thoughtful, but I didn’t know what she was thinking about. I was angry with her for not saying anything, not doing anything. I still had a formless feeling that she understood me where my mother did not. Perhaps it was despair that made me believe there was one person in the world who might know that I was in despair.

‘Do have another Martini,’ said my mother. ‘Lili, you have one too.’