Massa stand in the doorway of the hut not moving, just looking, before him stride cross the dirt floor. Pick me up, not too rough mind you. Hold me away from him. Turn me little body this way and that. Look into me face, me eye them to see if any of him is inside me. Any of him blood roaring round in mine. After a longish time, him smile and I beam back. Like Calla teach me to do. But then him face cloud over. And after, him only able to look at me sideways before him hand me back to Stella.

Finally Massa slap him little riding crop against him brown, canefield muddy boots. ‘A fine fellow,’ is what him say. ‘Strong. Healthy. A little handsome, even,’ before him turn and head out the hut.

Later that evening, Massa show up again and I sense how Stella insides droop and twist and churn. And when him look down at me sideways, suckling at her breast, she turn away a little and veil her eyes. This time him give her presents. A bolt of calico, a calabash of rum.

Then him march back out the hut and up the path again.

Soon after, Stella must pick herself up, return to slaving in the Great House. And every morning when she set out at first light, she carry me in a sling cross her back. She don’t use the path down through the slave village. Winding past wattle and daub huts, sitting close, one beside the other. Thatched roofs on top, small provision grounds out front, scrawny chickens running round, scratching for scraps. Instead, she take the long way round, through the coconut grove, the tall brown trunks, crowned with palms. And while she walking, she use the cool morning walks to start teach me things.

‘Things that help us, me baby boy,’ she whisper. ‘Help us to survive in the wilderness of the life we born into.’

When we reach the grove, Stella bend down low, pick up a dry brown coconut, funny-looking, hairy on the outside. Crack it open on a rock, dig out the white nut inside. Eat a little piece.

‘The oil, it good for cooking. Use the husks to polish the Great House floors. Make all the floors shine, till Mistress Margaret can see her face in them floors.’

Is not a job she like, and her mouth turn way down when she say it.

A little while later we come to the river, cross the bridge, stop in the middle. Listen to the sweet sound of water bubbling below.

‘Must pray for rain. Hope this not a time of drought, a time of hunger,’ she say, shaking her head like she seen too many times like this.