I turned away from the market, out of the gloom of the timber sheds and onto the road. Sydney roiled about: raucous and uncaring, a stripling at forty-two years of age. Bullocks and horses splattered the dust of the street. Voices hailed and harangued; someone yelling about oysters. Scrapping children, the eyes of the old folk upon them, wondering in their breasts if these generations differed somehow for the accident of their birth. We do differ, down to the bones. And yet still we look homeward.

I turned back the way I’d come, stopped and drew out the hunk of mutton. Unwrapped it and made an elaborate show of winding the muslin around it once again as I looked directly at the man who shadowed me.

No, not a native. An Indian, I thought, though that told me nothing. The street swarmed with natives, with Africans, Bengalis, Malays. Even among the white faces there would be Americans and Welshmen and Dutchmen, and there perched on his wagon was the Chinaman who ran the Lion.

The man watching me was older, better dressed and much shorter than me. His remaining hair was a rich blue-black, his scalp smooth and unmarked, glowing in the sun. The face was lined with thought or care; there were years on his neck and his cheeks but he wore them comfortably, as time and not decay. His eyes were fixed upon me in a way that alarmed me.

I turned back to the market, found old Copsley with his firebox. He greeted me warmly but his smile faltered as he looked closer. I did not want to alert him, or cause a scene at this stage.

‘I wonder if I could ask a small favour of you, sir.’

‘Of course, miss.’

‘Could I borrow that poker?’ I cut my eyes towards it, on the bed of straw by the firewood.

His eyebrows shot up. ‘This one?’

‘No, the one beside it, with the hook-end. I need it at home.’ He did not look askance at the odd request but simply went to grab it.

‘No, I don’t want to carry it around, not for the moment,’ I said. ‘Other things to do. But would you be kind enough to put it in the panniers on my mare? That’s her, by the big tree.’ I didn’t point, merely indicated once more by eye. ‘I’d be most obliged.’

‘Certainly, miss.’

I turned my back without another word and came out into the street again. If this man intended to follow me, I would draw him away.

I visited some more of the traders, manufacturing small conversations. The eyes burned on me, out at the margins. Could I say it was open malevolence? No, I thought not. But it is troubling enough to be stared at.