Evander looked at his daughter then, full in the face. All he was aware of was the distaste he saw there, coupled with shock. Too late, he remembered he was in stockinged feet, his trousers unbuckled because they were tight, his shirt, clean on that afternoon, stained with drink and food. But it wasn’t that that appalled her: it was the grey-tinged hands with their claw-like fingers.

Kerry looked at them both. Seeing Liselle’s eyes riveted to Evander’s distorted hands, she grasped her daughter by the shoulders and pushed her into the open doorway of the lounge. She closed the front door that was letting in a weak light from the street together with the freezing snow, and followed her daughter into the warmth.

‘Yes, look at his hands. That was your Aunt Briony’s work. Oh, she denied it, but she did that. Broke his fingers, every one of them, and his wrists, too. Smashed to smithereens in Briony’s name. Now you know why I never told you. Was never going to tell you. Then he turned up here and I realised that you had to know. Especially after last night.’

Liselle still hadn’t opened her mouth. She was staring in disgust at the man in front of her. He was fat, he was unkempt, this was not what girlish dreams were made of. This was not what she’d wanted. Deep inside herself she had known he was a black man, she admitted to herself she’d always known, but she had never really expected to have it thrust on her like this in a dingy little house in Notting Hill. It was laughable. That this man, with the huge belly and the clawed hands, could have been her reason for living! Nowhere in her wildest imaginings could she imagine him young and handsome and taking her mother, her beautiful mother, and giving her a child. Herself.

Evander looked at the girl with her silky blue-black hair and the high prominent cheekbones, her sensuous lips, and felt the enormity of what he’d done. What he had created. In the States she would have been aware of what she was from day one and would have adjusted accordingly. Brought up here, in this cold barren country, she wasn’t remotely prepared for what life was going to dish out to her. Inside himself, he felt a cracking, breaking sensation. It was fear: fear of what she would think of him, fear of what was going to happen to this tall lithe creature who would draw men to her, who had such a beautiful, appealing exterior thanks to himself and his forefathers. Here in England she’d live in a no man’s land, neither black nor white. Brought up white, she’d have no understanding of the black culture, of her people. Until she began to breed. Then she’d bear the legacy of her father and his father’s father.