Just as Stanley was going to reply that his father would slap him upside his head if ever he spoke a hint of the patois that his father spoke all the time, she continued. ‘My father was an army officer from Scotland. I never did meet him, but I am proud of my Scotch blood. Now, my Creole mother was a free woman, a doctress, who kept a boarding house on East Street in Kingston, and it was she who passed on the science of herbs and midwifery that had been handed down by the slaves. This I supplemented with the medical knowledge taught me by the European doctors.’

‘May I ask your name, ma’am?’ He did not know where the ma’am came from, but it seemed appropriate.

‘You may. I am Mrs Mary Jane Seacole.’ Her tone was somewhat self-reverential. ‘Indeed, the very one. Yes, I am she.’

He thought of feigning recognition, but he’d concluded very early on in life that lying was ultimately a very stressful exercise. Not the actual lying itself but maintaining the pretence.

‘Should I have heard of you, Mary?’

He immediately knew he should have, because she delivered the kind of fruity, rubbery tchups! more associated with a Trenchtown market trader than with an Uptown Brown.

‘Mek I tell you somet’ing. During my time everyone had heard of me, and so they will again. And, you must kindly call me Mrs Seacole, young man.’

She then regained her composure as if she had never dropped it, lifted a corner of the napkin and brought out a brittle, antique book. This she passed over.

‘Be careful or it will come apart. It is the first edition of my autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, and it is exactly one hundred and thirty-two years old this very day.’

An older, hardened, more masculine Mrs Seacole was pictured on the cover. Stanley likened her to a rakish buccaneer, with her wide-brimmed black hat tilted back at an angle, a neckerchief, a black doublet.

‘You wrote this?’ He ran his hands over the book.

‘Is that not me on the front? I was most famous after the war, most famous. I received many medals of honour.’

‘I guess I should have heard of you, then, Mrs Seacole. That’s me all over. I know nothing.’

‘Allow me to elucidate. It all began when my husband, Edward Horatio Nelson, godson of Lord Nelson, of whom you are no doubt familiar, passed away shortly after our marriage. Unfortunately tragedy struck twice.’

She took the book out of his hand and read aloud, ‘I had one other grief to master, the loss of my mother, and then I was allowed to battle with the world as best I might.’

‘I understand grief,’ Stanley said, almost to himself; it was private, not to be talked about without a great deal of pain.