The first thing I must do is find out where Melon sister working. That cake must be plenty fortified by now. Melon tell me Winnie work in a house just off Market Street, the main street near the clock tower where they hold the Sunday markets. A few streets back from the port. The house is number 36. I buck up me courage, ask a kind-looking lady where the clock tower is and she point me in the right direction. When I get there, I walk down one side of Market Street, then the other, till me come to a door that have the number 36. There don’t seem to be a back way in so I lift me hand, knock on the front door. It get opened by a light-skinned child, maybe seven or eight.

‘What is your business?’ looking me up and down.

‘Me here to see Winnie,’ I stammer.

The child stare at me.

‘Melon sister?’ hoping this is the right place.

She look me up and down again.

‘Free or slave?’

I never been asked that before, and start to stutter. ‘Me …’

‘Slave,’ she say. ‘Use the back gate. The blue one,’ and slam the door in me face.

It take a good few minutes before I move from that door. This evening proving to be one big lesson. Free or slave? Should make no difference. Seem like even when backra not in charge, we take up them mantle, put it tight cross our shoulders.

Round the back, I see a little laneway and arrive at the gate painted blue. Notice how the house from the back is bigger than it look from the front. See how the plantation way come to town with a little provision garden full up with herbs and vegetables. I knock on the gate. Suddenly a big brown dog with a floppy ear run up, start barking. The dog is on a chain, but I don’t want to open the gate in case him come loose and tear me to pieces. All I do is stand there feeling foolish. I buck up me courage to knock on the gate again, louder this time. Soon a tall woman with a bright red apron round her waist, a blue head-tie, come hurrying down the path.

‘Hush up, Floppy,’ she say, throwing a stone at the dog and him yelp, stop mid-bark. Shy away.

‘I is looking for Winnie,’ I say when she open the gate.

‘I is Winnie,’ she say, looking me up and down. Seem like everybody in this town hold to the same habit.

‘Melon beg me send something for you,’ and this time I do as she do, look her up and down. You can tell they is sisters. Hold to the same features. She fat as Melon, just as round, except where Melon short, and her skin like cocoa, Winnie tall and her skin the colour of cornmeal.