I wondered if she’d been about to say more but Lucien was back with her punch and, before Elvira had taken one or two sips, she was called away to another group who wanted her opinion on their discussions.

‘She agreed to help?’ Lucien said.

‘She did.’ I was about to explain, when an announcer called out that the second half of the evening would shortly start.

‘Bankole and Gbeho will be taking questions, but if there is anything you wanted to ask, I’m sure I could help,’ Lucien said. ‘Shall we go for a walk instead?’

It was nice to be out in the cold evening air.

‘I can escort you to St Giles if you wish?’ Lucien said.

‘I’d prefer it if we walked around the fountain.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ Lucien said, and I wondered if maybe the exchange between Elvira and me had piqued his attention. Whether he wanted to know more about my living arrangements without directly asking. Well, I wasn’t going to get caught up in that. I started towards Trafalgar Square and he followed me.

‘How many people will go to Sierra Leone?’ I said as we took a slow turn around the fountain, the wind blowing the spray from the plumes of water it threw up back on to our faces.

‘There is space for a little over two hundred souls to travel in a fortnight’s time.’

‘And will you be one of them?’

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘But one day you will return to Africa?’

He didn’t answer, but I felt him nod and then he began to speak.

‘I was a child when I came to England. I don’t remember much about the journey here, but it was hard. Harder than they acknowledged tonight.’

I’d been right. He had reacted when they’d spoken of the passage. I kept quiet and after a minute he carried on speaking.

‘It was in a coffee house that I was gifted.’

I didn’t quite understand. I already knew he’d been a slave. ‘Don’t you mean you were sold?’ I said

I still found it hard to believe. Lucien a slave? This proud man before me had been bound, gagged. I couldn’t think of it, pushed away the thoughts of my mother that suddenly began to crowd in. I squeezed my eyes shut before I could stop myself. I have always been free, I reminded myself. I have always been free. I knew now that slavery was nothing to be ashamed of, that being born free meant I was lucky, not special, but horror was still my gut reaction.

‘I didn’t misspeak. My owner gifted me to the wife of a friend. She kept me like a sort of pet.’

‘Like a lapdog?’

‘Like one of the pages you will have seen in the park.’