‘But all good things, as they say. Eventually it was time to leave and I became difficult. All of a sudden, I understood what my grandmother meant about the limited horizons of the farm. I understood why my aunts had chosen to go wild in the city, why my mother had chosen to die in the city, my father too. I told my well-meaning aunt that I was never going back to the farm and that I would stay at La Grange Skating Rink forever. My aunt, who had no experience with children, must have wondered what had happened to the little angel she had been with all day. But I was throwing my first ever tantrum and making the most of it.

‘A woman said, very kindly given the circumstances, “Here, perhaps this will make your daughter feel better.” She handed me a blue-and-white scarf … so delicate … so light … so seemingly made of air and even more refined things. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I loved it immediately. I guess I was my mother’s daughter because the present of a pretty something had the desired effect: I stopped my crying and screaming and just gazed at the thing I held in my hands.’

Marion Hartley stopped again and reached into her handbag. However, this time she did not retrieve the box of cigarettes. She removed a gorgeous and much-loved blue-and-white scarf and handed it to Spokes.

‘I had hardly paid attention to the woman’s words, but my aunt had, and those words were to change my entire life. On the farm, everyone had a different hue. There were different textures of hair, eyes of different colours. No one looked the same, but there were some similarities, family resemblances. I understood that the Hartleys on the farmstead were all white. I understood that the people who lived in the village were mostly black. I understood that my family was made up of members who were various shades of brown. I understood that I was the lightest, that I had the straightest hair, that I had the bluest eyes. But none of it had ever really meant anything to me, or to anyone else, for that matter, who lived in that series of brick-and-mortar structures on the periphery of the Hartley farmstead. Until my aunt asked my grandmother if I could be her daughter – and my grandmother, with very little hesitation, agreed.