Presumably they were dead. Now something confusing was happening. He knew what was being said about the Soviet Union, he was not one of the innocents who never left Zimlia. The word communist was becoming something like a curse: elsewhere, not here, where you had only to say Marxism to feel you were getting a good mark from the ancestors. (And where were they in all this?) A funny thing: he felt that that house in London had more in common with the ease and warmth of his grandparents' huts in the village (as it happened not all that far from St Luke's Mission) than anything since. And yet in the file on his desk was that nasty piece. He was feeling with every minute deeper resentment -against Sylvia. Why had she done those bad things? She had stolen goods from the new hospital, she had done operations when she shouldn't, and she had killed a patient. What did she expect him to do now? Well what did she expect? That hospital of hers, it had never had any real legal existence. The Mission decides to start a hospital, brings in a doctor, nothing in the files recorded permissions being asked or given... these white people, they come here, they do as they like, they haven't changed, they still...

He sent out for sandwiches for lunch, in case Sylvia was hanging about somewhere waiting to catch him, and when Sylvia's second request arrived, 'Please, Franklin, I must see you', scribbled on an envelope – who did she think she was, treating him like this – he ordered that she must be told he had been called away on urgent business.

He went to the window, and lifted the slats of the blind and there was Sylvia walking down there. Passionate accusations which he might reasonably have directed against Life Itself were focused on Sylvia's back with an intensity that surely she should have felt: little Sylvia, that little angel, as fresh and bright in his memory as a saint on a Holy Card, but she was a middle-aged woman with dry dull hair tied by black ribbon, no different from any of these white wrinkled madams whom he tried not to look at, he disliked them so much. He felt Sylvia had betrayed him. He actually wept a little, standing there holding up the slat and watching the green blob that was Sylvia merge into the pavement crowd.

Sylvia walked straight into a tall distinguished gentleman who took her in his arms and said, 'Darling Sylvia'. It was Andrew, and he was with a girl in dark glasses with a very red mouth, smiling at her. Italian? Spanish?

' This is Mona,’ said Andrew. ‘We've got married. And I am afraid the ramshackle streets of Senga are a shock to her. '

‘Nonsense, darling, I think it's cute. '

' American,’ said Andrew. ‘And she's a famous model. And as beautiful as the day, as you can see. '

' Only when I have all my paint on,’ said Mona and excused herself saying she must lie down, she was sure they had a lot to talk about.

'The altitude is getting to her,' said Andrew, solicitously kissing her and waving her off into Butler's Hotel, a few steps away.

Sylvia was surprised to hear that 6,000 feet was considered altitude, but did not care: this was her Andrew and now she was going to sit and talk to him, so he said, in that cafe there. And there they went, and held hands, while fizzy drinks arrived and Andrew demanded to know everything about her.

She had opened her mouth to begin, thinking that here was one of the important men in the world, and that surely the little matter of the closing of the hospital at St Luke's could be reversed by a word from him, when a group of very well-dressed people filled the café, and he greeted them and they him and a lot of badinage began about this conference they were all attending here, in Senga. ' It's quite the coolest new place for conferences, but it's not exactly Bermuda,’ someone said.

Sylvia did know that Senga was being touted as just the place for any sort of international get together, and, seeing these bright clever smart people, understood how much she had slid away, in the stark exigencies of Kwadere, from being able to take part in this talk.

Andrew continued to hold her hand, smiled at her often, then said perhaps this was not the place to have a chat. More delegates crowded in, joking at the cafe's smallness, which was somehow being equated with Zimlia's lack of sophistication, and these experts on absolutely everything you can think of, in this particular case, 'The Ethics of International Aid', sounded rather like children comparing the merits of parties their respective parents had recently given. There was so much noise, laughter and enjoyment that Sylvia begged Andrew to be allowed to leave. But he said she must come to the dinner tonight: ' There's the big end of conference dinner, and you must come. '

‘I don't have a dress. '

He gave her a frank once-over, making allowances, and said, ‘But it's not evening dress, you'll do. '

And now she had to find somewhere to spend the night. She had come away without enough money: had come away, she saw now, inefficiently, in an unplanned and foolish way. It was all a bit of a haze: she remembered Father McGuire taking command. Had she been a bit sick, perhaps? Was she now? She didn't feel herself, whatever that meant, for if she was not the Doctor Sylvia everyone knew at her hospital, who was she?

She rang Sister Molly, who was in, and asked to stay the night. Sylvia took a taxi there, was welcomed, and heard a good deal of on the whole good-natured mockery of the conference on the Ethics of International Aid, and all similar conferences.

' They talk,’ said Sister Molly. ' They get paid to travel to some beauty spot and talk nonsense you' d not believe. '

‘I’d hardly call Senga a beauty spot. '

'That is true, but they are off every day to see the lions and the giraffes and the dear little monkeys and I don't think they notice that the land is perishing from the drought. '

Sylvia told Molly about the dinner, said she had only what she had on, heard that it was a pity Molly was at least four sizes larger than Sylvia, who could otherwise borrow her one and only dress but as it was she personally would see to it that the suit was cleaned and ready by six o ' clock. Having forgotten these amenities of real civilisation, Sylvia was perhaps disproportionately moved, and took off her suit, lay down on her little iron bed, just like the one she had at the Mission, and was asleep. Sister Molly stood over her for a while, the green suit folded over her arm, her face shedding beams ofbenevolent enquiry, judicious and experienced: after all, she did spend her life assessing people and situations from one end of Zimlia to the other. She did not like what she saw. Bending closer she checked up on this and that feature, sweaty brow, dry lips, flushed face, and lifted Sylvia's hand to look at the wrist where visibly pounded an intemperate pulse.

When Sylvia woke, her suit, nicely pinned and presented, hung on the door. On the chair was a selection of knickers, and a silk slip. 'I got too fat for these ages ago.' Also some smart shoes. Sylvia washed dust out of her hair, got dressed, put on the shoes, hoping she could still manage heels, and took a taxi to Butler's. She suspected she was feverish, but because it would be so inconvenient to be ill, decided she wasn't.

Outside Butler's the international crowd stood chatting, waving to each other, resuming conversations that might have been interrupted in Bogota or Benares. Andrew was waiting for Sylvia, on the steps. Mona was beside him in a pink floaty dress that made her look like one of the species tulips, jagged petals, that seemed cut out of crystallised light. Sylvia knew Andrew was anxious about how she might look, for if evening dress was not obligatory then none of the women was less smart than Mona. But his smile said, You' re all right, and he took her arm. The three went to the staircase which was grand enough for a film set, though in the best possible taste. It delivered them to a terrace where little flowering trees and a fountain filled the dusk with freshness. Lights from inside picked out a face, the dazzle of a white suit, the flash of a necklace. People greeted Andrew: how popular he was, this handsome and distinguished grey-haired gentleman, who must deserve the glamorous girl with him, since the fait accompli of the marriage proved he did.