Pretty, silly Sarah was no use at all.

The room smelt of roses and polish. Absently she twitched the fringe of a rug and smoothed two cushions, letting her eye dwell on the symmetry of soft curtain, shining parquet and rosewood desk. There was a photograph in a silver frame of herself and the children; Emma demure in lace, Joanne just a baby. So peaceful. So English. And Susie was so far away.

She was late for her meals-on-wheels duty, but that would have to wait. For once Douglas had forgotten to take the Telegraph with him, which was some measure of his discomfiture this morning. Sarah scanned it quickly, searching for the piece on Mandoto. Only a paragraph on the front page, but inside there was a feature giving the details. Mandoto had been granted independence some three years ago, and all had seemed quiet until the last few months. It appeared that an old tribal feud had been rumbling unresolved and when the Prime Minister, of one tribe, fired members of his cabinet, who were of another, the trouble began. Now a general in the army had seized power, assassinated the president and half the government and was attempting to gain control of the provincial towns, still loyal to the old regime. Fighting had broken out throughout the country.

Sarah chewed at a finger, alarmed despite herself. She and Susan had been very close as girls, although so different. Sue had been the bright bubbly one who changed her boyfriends as rapidly and with as much regret as a chameleon changing colour. Sarah could never be like that, for her boyfriends were always deep in love. When finally she steeled herself to be rid of them it was agony for them both, but what it was about herself that inspired such devotion was a mystery.

‘You’re too kind and too shy,’ Susan had stated. ‘You make them want to rescue you.’

‘I don’t need rescuing,’ objected Sarah, but perhaps in a way she had. At least when Douglas appeared with his experience and his charm and his American Express card she felt rather as if she had been fished out of the pond. And now Susan, bright funny Susan who had held Sarah’s hand on the night before her wedding and assured her that Douglas was the right choice, now she was alone, and pregnant and in danger.

Sarah rushed to the phone and began the long, tedious business of trying to make a call. It was always difficult, with delays and time differences and elephants breaking the line, but today the operator could make no progress at all. ‘If you would try again later, caller,’ she urged in her singsong voice, and Sarah agreed that she would. In the meantime there was nothing to do but begin her meals-on-wheels round, however belatedly.

*   *   *

She had noticed before that whenever she was late each and every one of her old people she visited seemed determined to keep her talking. Mrs Tinson wanted help with her knitting, which was really beyond redemption, and the Mandotan revolution had revived memories of the South African war in old Mr Braithwaite. He had rooted out photographs of his time in a cavalry regiment, a thin, totally unrecognisable figure in a white pith helmet standing next to a glum-looking horse.

‘Never known heat like it,’ he said with relish. ‘Burn the flesh off a man it would. Them natives don’t feel it though, oh no, running about like spring chickens when we were on our knees. And bloodthirsty—’, he lowered his voice conspiratorially—‘think nothing of life, them black boys don’t. Slit your throat as soon as look at you. Tell you, I wouldn’t like to be out there, what with a revolution and all.