Barky looked puzzled. Well he might. Perhaps it was absurd that someone like me might turn their nose up at Vincent, but it was precisely because I was starting to know myself that I’d walked away. In the carriage, as we’d crossed over Waterloo Bridge, Vincent had called out to the driver to head straight for Northumberland Avenue. He was taking it for granted that I’d go with him, but I couldn’t do it. Better to be on my own than with someone I couldn’t trust.

‘I’d have said he was one of the good ones, Zillah.’

Sad to say he probably was, but I didn’t want to talk about it any more. There’d been too much talk today already and the effects of the opium still lingered. A yawn took over my face. All I wanted to do was lie down.

‘I suppose you’ll be back at St Giles tonight.’

I looked at the floor. The thought of trying to find a room at the Rookery was unbearable. I still had the scabs of the flea bites from my last stay there.

‘I don’t suppose …’

‘Oh, you’re trying to wheedle yourself into staying here, is that it?’

‘Please, Barky. You know I wouldn’t ask unless I was desperate.’

There was a time when I might have called on Ellen, but we weren’t as friendly as we’d once been.

Indecision floated across Barky’s face. I knew he liked his privacy, that his neighbours would hate it, thinking he’d lowered the tone of the area if they saw a Black girl coming and going. At last his better self won out.

‘I’ll put you up until you find your feet,’ he said and I slumped with relief.

‘I won’t outstay my welcome. You’ll hardly know I’m here and I promise not to make a show of myself.’

‘That’s right. Headscarf in and out and no one from the theatre can know. I don’t want all and sundry turning up if they fall on hard times.’

‘They’d never guess I’d come here,’ I said. ‘But I know you’ve always looked out for me.’

I squeezed his hand and he patted my head awkwardly.

‘None of that. I’ve got to get back to work, you know. Aldous is on with his rabbits tonight.’

‘I can give you some money when I get paid?’

‘No, keep your pennies. You’ll be short after missing all these nights and being late for rehearsals.’

I hadn’t even thought of that, and any money I did have I wanted to keep in case the Leopard Lady needed it when I found her.

‘You’re not back at work until next week, I hear? Very jammy. That was Vincent’s doing. Not mine. I’d have called you in and had you scrubbing the stage as a punishment. You owe him.’