Little did Ms. Aouda Fogg – also known as Lady Aouda Fogg – know that she would end up in Durban. She intended to whisk around the world in 80 days, just like her granddad did; Phileas Fogg, whose biographer, Mr. Jules Verne, made sure that he was famous during the times when Britain was quite Great. Not like now, she mused, when we are struggling not to be expelled from the Commonwealth.

Durban was outside her itinerary. Her only real link to that faraway place was her first cousin Solly. Of course, her mother was born there, and her father who served as a Pro-Consul for a few years in that colonial harbour, decided that she was his ultimate desire and in no time, Shahida Meer found herself trailing after her rather ambitious man to London. The Foggs were distinguished men who, unlike many of their ilk, were always members of the Reform Club and secret patrons of the Labour Party.

Ms. Aouda Fogg had the distinction of being the only lady of a darker hue in London's society and one of the very few who was, to her detriment, very much involved with Red Ken's London in Maggie Thatcher's day. When the Reform Club opened its doors to women in 1974, she joined in memory of her mom who had struggled all her life to gain access to the Club, even though Sir Phileas Fogg Jr. was a member of the House of Lords.

She still lived in Savile Row, a road parallel to Regent Street. Unlike her granddad though, she was not a frequent and noticeable patron at the Reform Club, as she preferred not to hang around much in what she considered “stuffy”. Enigmatic she was, because she revealed little in polite society. They knew that she abhorred the prime minister and that he was not very fond of her either. They knew that she was very active in charities and soft on the Muslim question and that she had received a doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies. Her looks belied her age and her darker complexion gave her face a certain degree of enviable youthfulness.