She knew better than to ask me how I felt about any of it. And I knew better than to tell her.

Even now, writing of it, I’m afflicted with some queer feeling that goes right through my spine. I fear to write about it. You will judge me for it. How could you not? The news cast me down, same way thinking about it casts me down now. One part of what I was feeling was regret.

He should have died before now, I thought, and I should have been the one to kill him.

The next day, work done for the night, Sal and I went down to Hyde Park Corner, to one of the kitchen stalls. We bought saveloys, and ham sliced right off the pig, took our food to eat in the park. My satin skirts trailed behind us, and so did Sal’s laugh, a scurry of fresh mint from the single leaf she chewed after smoking. If Sal had known what I was thinking, she’d have boxed my ears. Because I was wondering if she was there. Would I see her? Would I turn a corner on one of the paths, and find her there? It was the thing I wanted most, yet feared even more.

I leaned over for a bite of ham, which was hot and salty and coated my fingers with grease. ‘Sal. Do you know anything about George Benham?’

‘George Benham.’ She swung her head towards me. ‘Why you ask?’

‘I worked for him. That’s where I came from.’

‘That’s who your old bastard gave you away to?’

‘Do you know him?’

She sucked on her cigar. ‘And that’s who you white woman is.’

Something was hovering on her lips, and I had to wait for it. Her smoke stung my eyes and I fiddled with a button on my boot. ‘Don’t know much about George Benham,’ she said at last, ‘except to know if that’s where you was, you better off here.’

She ground her cigar out under her heel. ‘Saw her. Once.’

‘What? Where?’

She laughed. ‘Settle yourself! Not yesterday. I went to the fisticuffs. It was just before you came. Laddie Lightning was fixing to break his knuckles on one a their champs. Name slips me. Some big, lardy fellow. Drew all the niggers like flies, a course.’

‘I must have been under a bridge at the time,’ I said, trying to raise a laugh, drown out his name.

‘Oho. You missed something. He jumped them ropes afterwards, words flying, spit flying. Blood just lashing off him. But then him just stop – braps ‒ and bow, like so. Like him lifting a hat . . . but him never have no hat. Him staring at somebody. Everybody turn see who. Was like him put footlights on her. She the only white woman up front. Wearing some head-wrap, like she fooling a soul. She shook her head at him, then she left. But she was all the talk afterwards.’ She gave me a look. ‘That’s how I knew who she was.’