And here was Jasmine now, bubbling over. It was always she who hugged them all with crazy abandon, laughed until she cried with her crazy wit, pulling out boxes of surprises from the car, basket after basket, carefully and thoughtfully packed with goodies, as she called them—vegetables from the estate, woven bags of pan kola, kalu dodol, delicate embroideries, enormously rich chocolate cakes set on mirrored stands which reflected the extravagant sugared roses and layers of cream.

They all trooped into the house to drink coffee and lime juice. First Melwyn stepped forward. He was the Chinese who seemed to possess all the authority. He sat quietly on one of the chairs; the rest followed suit unobtrusively. He looked carefully away from the chiffonier which dominated the room, its golden, polished wood glowing. The gleaming top was arranged with porcelain ginger jars, Dutch plates and cut-glass decanters.

Jasmine pointed at the chiffonier.

‘Yes, I saw it,’ Melwyn said, without even glancing at the chiffonier. Or perhaps his shrewd glance had already appraised it at once and valued it. No; rather he had appraised not so much the priceless bits of furniture as the owners themselves. They were marketable and he had priced them in his mind. He felt their lack of money. He had summed them up, found that their possessions were indeed beyond price but that they themselves did not have what he had—an overwhelming abundance of money.

To him barter appeared easy. There was a powerful lack here, in this household, of what gave Melwyn the necessary bargaining power over other humans. After all, he was in this country for a purpose. He did not need to be philanthropic. He had come not to fulfil their needs but his own. He looked around: the sagging cane and the torn-up upholstery with the cotton stuffing coming out; everything was badly in need of being refurbished. He could not see anything beyond that fact. He had already set his price on everything, and that price was not high. But looking at their faces he felt a twinge of doubt; perhaps it would not be all that easy to buy them over with the contents of his fat leather wallet. He felt its weight in his trouser pocket; it gave him a sense of security and power over them all. But they appeared to be so nonchalant about their possessions. They belonged here as he did not. Their roots were far more deeply embedded in this soil than his would ever be anywhere.

A fragile blue and white teapot stood on the carved Dutch sideboard. ‘Can you read the Chinese characters on this teapot?’ Camille asked Melwyn.

They all crowded round it. The Chinese grew excited; they huddled together, peering at it. It was of delicate white porcelain as thin and transparent as an egg shell, with blue bamboo leaves and Chinese characters, perhaps a line of poetry, perhaps the name of the artist, painted on it.