She had bought Rosalee a brightly coloured coat as she did every year. A thick warm wool coat that would please her immensely. She caressed the silver wrapping paper, looking forward to seeing Rosalee tear it to pieces.

It was going to be a good Christmas.

Evander was feeling closer to his daughter by the day. After a particularly difficult beginning they were finally getting to respect and trust each other. He knew she found it hard to look at his hands, and could understand that. He still found it hard to look at them himself. They were now next to useless. His piano playing was laboured and he found it painful. But he also found it extremely difficult to stop playing, which was the bug bear. The music was in him day and night. Hearing a beat or a few notes brought back his longing, and this made him either resentful of whoever was playing, or depressed because he knew he’d never play like that again.

He also found it hard to face Kerry. If only he could make it right with her, he would be happy. But Kerry was finding it hard to forgive him, and in the same circumstances he would have felt the same.

Liselle watched the changing expressions on her father’s face. Father. The word seemed strange to her, alien. Yet she knew it was the truth. This man with the deep brown voice and the claw-like hands had been the reason for her existence. It was so hard to visualise him as a young man, with handsome good looks, a way with women, and her mother’s heart held firmly into his then perfect hands. Now she knew, it didn’t really affect her any more.

She had known she was different since childhood, had guessed she was part-coloured. Admitting it had taken a burden from her. A great burden. Over the years she had been asked out numerous times. But she had always put the man off. Perhaps because deep inside she didn’t want the heartache she knew the relationship might bring. Her only wish now was that she was a little darker so there could be no mistake about her parentage. This lightness, this illusion of whiteness she gave out, would always cause her the most trouble. With white people anyway. She knew now that Bessie and the band had always known about her, not just because of Evander but because they had known half-castes all their life. Only their half-castes in America were from black women and white men. Her mother, as usual, had done it the other way round.