‘Was it before? That is what bothers me. You see, I perfectly well remember falling ill in Entuba. I kept on having attacks of fever which, in the end, resulted in what they called a nervous breakdown – I used to cry a great deal; but really that was only because I felt so useless. Everybody there was so busy that to be useless . . . the very worst thing. So I was to come home, by air. About that, I admit, I remember absolutely nothing. The last thing that I am clear about is my friend Rose Tilbury sitting on the side of my bed and holding my hand and telling me what the doctor from Nairobi had said and saying that I must come back to England, and I began to cry. And then I’m here. And the dates don’t fit. This is July, and I’ve only been here ten days; but I left Africa . . . at least Rose told me I was to leave at once, in January. So there’s a gap, isn’t there?’

‘You haven’t any recollection of Walwyk at all?’

‘Walwyk. Somebody there, Canon Thorby, sent me those roses.’

‘You’ve been living in Walwyk, teaching in the school there.’ She leaned forward in her chair with the air of one who has pressed a switch and expects it to set a machine in motion. They had told her ‘temporary lapse of memory’ and said things like ‘put her in the picture.’

Miss Mayfield stared with a blank astonished face.

‘You remember nothing of that? Or of your accident?’

‘Accident? My accident? I thought the plane had come down.’

‘No. You were in the school, Walwyk school, after all the children had gone, and the lid of your desk fell. It must have knocked you senseless, and you fell and hit the side of your head against the edge of the little platform upon which the desk stood. But for the fact that the piano-tuner came in and found you, and ran straight to the telephone and called Dr Macdonald, you could very easily have bled to death.’

She looked back, and there she was, lying in bed, with Rose holding her hand and telling her she must return to England, and she began to cry.

‘I haven’t any memory of Walwyk at all. What year is this?’

‘Nineteen fifty-nine.’

‘And July. I left Entuba – at least, so I suppose – in January, 1956. I’ve lost three years.’

‘Not lost,’ the Matron ‘said consolingly. ‘Mislaid for the moment.’ She rose and opened the door, and stooped and lifted something. ‘Look, this came this afternoon, but after Nurse had told Sister about your slight . . . confusion over the bed jacket, we thought we’d hold it back until I’d had a little talk with you and put you in the picture.’

She held out a little blue-and-white wireless set, neat and pretty as a jewel box.