I put on a white shirt, jogging pants and a black hat, slathered myself in sunscreen, and waited for Rudy to pick me up. I packed my handbag with all the usual stuff: my injections, my pills, the sensor. Half an hour after the scheduled time, I heard the beep of the motorcycle. I got onto the scooter and we drove past the airport, towards the same road I’d taken to Lynton’s Gough a few nights before. When we passed through the invisible wall I’d sensed in the faces and houses there, I asked Rudy what the neighbourhood was called. Slave Hill, he said. One of the least-mixed areas on the island.

Twenty minutes later, we reached the university. Rudy parked next to Jerry’s tombstone and his Irish eyes and thick moustache appeared before me again.

‘So that’s your great-great-grandfather?’ Rudy said with an incredulous laugh. ‘The family who sold this land to the university made them agree to conserve the grave. They live next door. We’ll see if they’re home today…’ He started walking towards the water.

Was he going to introduce me to a Lynton? The thought that Rudy might present me as ‘one of the family’ made me feel like an intruder. We walked south a short way along the road and stepped onto a wide, pale orange terrace with white tiles and black fencing. A metal window opened onto the pantry of the house, whose inhabitants sold provisions, mostly to university students. Sitting on a white plastic chair on the terrace was Jaime the cachaco, who leapt up when he saw us. He was taking a break from work, he said, but wouldn’t be joining our excursion to Duppy Gully.

Rudy called out in Creole, ‘Good marnin’! Good marnin’!’ and a figure soon appeared: it was Maa Jose-
phine. I shook my head in disbelief. Yes, there she was, complete with the gap between her teeth.

‘Weeeell! Good marnin’!’ she said in a singsong lilt. Rudy smiled, surprised, and returned her greeting in a similar tone.

‘Well, well, Josephine!’ I said, still stunned, and practically jumped towards her in the doorway of the house.

‘You know each other?’ Rudy stared at me, at her, at me again.

Josephine walked towards the entrance and I hugged her at last. She was spongy and warm and I felt like crying. Josephine held me in her soft arms and I breathed in her scent: lavender powder and fresh mint.

‘Josephine Lynton?’ I said, leaning back to look at her incredulously again. Her laugh rang through the gap and all over the terrace, sharp, contagious. From the table where he sat, even the cachaco laughed without knowing why.

‘No, mama, I’m no Lynton, but I’m ooooold. I’ve been around here for almost… centuries!’ she said with something like elation, still grasping my hand. I laughed. That’s when I realised that Josephine was immortal.