‘I am fully aware of your society’s mores and lack of morals, young man. You must answer me this: if your father were alive, would you be here now?’

‘No way. I would never have contemplated leaving, even before he needed my help. He’d have called me a vagabond, a waster.’

‘My mother would have wanted me in Jamaica too. If she had lived longer, I would never have had such a remarkable life. Ask yourself this question: if I stay with this Jessie, what will I be like in ten years’ time?’

He hesitated, although the answer required no meditation.

‘Crushed,’ he mumbled.

‘To be avoided, is it not?’

She smiled at him for the first time since they’d met, as if she’d accomplished what she had set out to achieve. She had no teeth. Her mouth was a black hole. Stanley tried not to stare.

‘I think you were way ahead of your time, Mrs Mother Aunty Yellow Doctress Mary Jane Seacole.’

‘I do believe you are correct, you impudent rapscallion. It is truly of some sadness to me that I was not born in your time.’ She sighed, rubbing her chest. ‘Do you know that after the war a fund was set up for me by Crimean veterans who wrote to the very distinguished Times newspaper rallying support for me? While the benevolent deeds of Florence Nightingale are being handed down to posterity with blessings and imperishable renown, are the actions of Mrs Seacole to be entirely forgotten? A Grand Military Festival benefit was held for me over four nights at the Royal Surrey Gardens. It was attended by forty thousand people. Oh, my dear, I was lionized, my boy, I was lionized.’

Old Istanbul

Last stop! Büyük Çarşi! Last stop! Büyük Çarşi!

I crawled out of sleep to no Mother Seacole,

and a deserted bus. I stepped on to

a slag heap of bloated beans, fish spines,

bloody bones, pulped fruit, broken eggs,

surrounded by scavengers in red smocks.

I headed towards some market arches,

avoiding dogs chasing each other, rats

dangling from foaming jaws like wet rags.

Under arcaded ceilings, boys carried hillocks

of sweetmeats on their heads; craftsmen

made samovars, cribs, clocks, carpets;

a street seller clinked two cups together,

packages of sherbet in his wooden waist-trough;

cross-legged men sat in coffee shops.

Something was driving me on.

I was thinking Star Trek, I was

thinking Doctor Who, I was thinking

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

A group of veiled women glided

by in glittering slippers with curled-up toes;

a beggarly man was banging a drum;

rich boppas wore turbans the size of pumpkins,

gems stuck in the middle, jewel-encrusted

daggers hooked into cumbersome belts.

It was Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves.

It was A Thousand & One Nights.

It was Sinbad, Aladdin. Lord, it was bedlam.

It was bizarre. It was the bazaar.

It was the Great Market of Constantinople –