IT WAS 1991. I was travelling around Africa with my fiancé, George, and we had just reached the relative sanctuary and sanitation of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Overexcited by the sight of good food and alcohol, we had overeaten and drunk ourselves to oblivion the night before, and were now nursing hangovers. I felt as if a heavy ball were rolling around inside my skull, knocking against each temple.

Only when I collapsed later on that afternoon did it become apparent I was suffering from something more serious. I was on my way to the camp-site showers, and the last thing I remember was that I could hear the thunder that is Victoria Falls in the distance, before the ground came up to meet me and the world filled with darkness.

When I came to, I was lying in a bed of crisp white sheets, the stench of disinfectant wafting in the air around me. My fiancé was sitting in the corner of the room. “You’ve got malaria, honey,” was the first thing he said. “I had to bring you to the hospital.”

Then I became aware of a stupendous snoring. “That’s Mat. An Aussie,” George said. “He’s the only other westerner in the hospital, so they’ve put you in this room together.”

George wasn’t allowed to stay the night, and bade me farewell with a lingering look of concern. I fell asleep and spent the night rolling around in a puddle of my own sweat. My joints throbbed. The pain in my head pulsed with delirium. “A snake,” I heard my own voice shout out in the night. “There’s a snake in my bed.”

Another voice, not my own, told me there was nothing there. “They’ve given you Halfan,” it said. “Makes you feel worse than the malaria.”

By morning, although my body told me I was dying, my head told me I was not. Mat pulled back the curtain and gave me a slanting smile. “Tough night?” he asked, and even in his emaciated state I could see how handsome he was. We chatted until George arrived with fresh pineapple. I felt my cheeks burning.

Over the following week, in the hours when my fiancé wasn’t there, we didn’t stop talking. In the hours when George was there, he sat between us like a spare wheel, making stilted chitchat as we fell silent. When, at the end of the week, the sister told us we’d both be discharged the next day, I felt my stomach shift with foreboding.

“I still don’t feel good,” Mat told me with a lingering look. “Me neither,” I replied. That night, I crept into his bed and we gently made love. It was as heavenly as the previous nights had been hellish.

By morning, we had contrived a way to lengthen our hospitalisation. Making use of my stays in the school sanatorium, we rubbed toothpaste on our tongues to make our temperatures soar and dampened our faces with wet towels. We were kept in for three more days.

When my fiancé and I returned home to England a month later, both of us knew that we were never going to be husband and wife. I called the wedding off and a week later was on a plane for Australia. Two years on, Mat and I returned to Vic Falls for our honeymoon. We must be the only two people in the world who look fondly upon any mosquito that crosses our path.