Langton interrupted, sucking in his cheeks. ‘Not a one of my niggers is a doctor.’

‘No. No. Bush doctors, then,’ Thomson corrected. ‘But they –’

‘You know, brutes are not botanists,’ Langton spat, folding his arms and sitting back. ‘Long said that.’

‘Actually, Long said they were botanists by instinct.’

Langton snorted. ‘Same thing.’

Phibbah and I watched each other, stuck in our own thoughts, at the sideboard. I could hear frogs clearing their throats, the dogs making piggish little noises outside, giving chase. I was sticky damp under my arms, didn’t dare wipe, or squirm. Langton slapped a mosquito into a black speck on the cloth. I peered up at her, wishing she would say something. Phibbah is not a brute! I wanted to shout. But she stayed where she was, and said nothing, quiet breaths singing in and out of her, face wide as a black moon.

Langton kept on: ‘True, they might blunder now and then onto something useful. But all that voodoo can be a powder keg. At that very estate you’ve just come from – Mesopotamia ‒ one of the old-timers was reported last year. Her own daughter turned her in. They searched her cabin and found the whole lot, the usual rubbish. Thunder stones, cat’s ears, bird-hearts . . . bones. Bones! Imagine! Cope had her transported, and then bam! Not a drop of trouble down there since.’

Mr Thomson licked forefinger and thumb, then looked over at us, eyes so dark they almost seemed sorry. And maybe he was. ‘Well, yes, but I believe we can harness their brute instincts. We can make adjustments, make something useful of their concoctions. Take the history of chocolate, for example ‒’

‘Chocolate! Let me tell you this, Mr Thomson. My grandfather came to Jamaica to make a fortune, not to turn apothecary.’

‘Nevertheless, we must follow the trail. Even if it leads to the Negro ‒’

Langton cut him off again, with a wave of his hand. ‘If my girl knows anything useful, you’re welcome to it.’

Next morning, Langton paid a visit to the cook-room, lifted the lid on the hominy, peered in. ‘No wonder you getting so fat, girl.’ He dipped a finger into the pot, spoke without looking up: ‘Thomson’s a buffoon, but he has something I want. Understand me?’

Phibbah set down her knife, swept up onion skins, tossed them onto the trash pile, smacked the work-table with her hands, and stared down at it, like she was looking for another thing to chop. ‘What he have that you want?’

He laughed. ‘Publishers. English publishers. Not that you’d know the first thing about it.’ He rattled the lid back down, and I jumped. Then he turned to go. ‘So you better answer all his fool-fool questions.’

‘Or what?’

He turned back, and laughed again, so soft you had to cock your ears to hear it that time. Stared at her. She stared back. ‘Or I’ll whip that girl right back into the womb.’ I scuttled my eyes back down to the napkins I was supposed to be scrubbing.