After my bath, Sal and I went for a walk. Some days, all the beauty in London is right above your head. We walked from Cleveland Street to Oxford Street to New Bond Street. I made up stories out of the signboards for Sal’s amusement. Hemp bags plump with coins swung next to geese laying golden eggs. There were gilt-edged purses, pewter ships rocking on black oceans, clerks with backs curved like quills. Bare-chested mermaids. Greed and gold and lust. The smells of hot chestnuts and ginger and melting butter swelled around us. Sunlight scrubbed everything clean. Our own chatter blended with the jangle of the hawkers and pedestrians. Some heads turned, but we paid them no mind. The day was too beautiful.

I smoothed my hands along the waistline of my new dress, a pink satin with black rosettes. It was the first thing I’d bought for myself. Sal wore her golden ear-bobs, shaped like conch shells, brown kid breeches and a crimson bandeau around her head. We stopped to buy chestnuts and, when we turned around, stepped right into a man waiting in line. Fat, a gut like the prow of a ship, a thin straggle of beard. ‘Savages,’ he muttered. ‘No room in this country for the likes of you.’

Sal stopped, elbows akimbo. ‘More than enough room. Maybe it’s you taking up too much.’

He spat. ‘Nothing but savages and whores.’

‘Says a man who only got him own well-larded palm to keep company with.’

By now she’d attracted a crowd, and was drawing laughter out of them, too, and that got him angry. Aflame, beetroot, he pushed his face towards hers. Beak to beak, like fighting cocks. ‘I don’t have to stand for this from some nigger,’ he said, ‘come here to eat the bread of idleness.’

‘Sal.’ I pulled at her. ‘Sorry,’ I said. Held my hands up. I could feel all eyes on us.

Around the corner, she turned on me. Our good mood vanished, like soap suds in a drying sun. ‘Why you say sorry to him?’

‘You always start trouble.’

‘Me? I was walking.’ She sucked her teeth. ‘And you? You always looking at clouds and tripping over you own damn feet. Just like a house-nigger.’

The words were like a slap. So much like something Phibbah might have said. ‘Sal –’ I said.

She spat. ‘You might be ’shamed of me. But that’s ’cause you got white hopes. I got Negro expectations.’ She turned on her heels. ‘And stop following me. I not you mother.’

Sal’s words smacked Phibbah’s voice right back into my head: What that gal say only vex you ’cause you know is true. You a house-nigger. You thought that made you better off, and now you not so sure. Tell the truth. All your palabber, only to still end up right here? Right where you already were. You get your precious freedom, and is it any better for you than being a slave? Her voice was lodged in my throat. Memories scraping at me.