I was glad she was talking to me again. Things had been frosty between us for a couple of weeks ever since Crillick had made me the headline act and cut Ellen’s solo from the bill to give me more stage time. It wasn’t my fault, of course, and she knew it, but that didn’t stop her being miffed. I suppose I would’ve been too, in her position, seeing as how green I’d been when I started.

I’d joined Crillick’s company nine months earlier, at new year. Ellen had been one of the first people I’d met backstage. She was the only one to welcome me, to pass the time of day while I got to know my act. Straight away the others hated me, and didn’t trouble to hide it. When I entered a room, they sniggered behind their hands. Just a drop or two of colour was enough to make me an outcast in their eyes. But Ellen, coming from Galway as she did, knew just enough of what it was to be different to see that we could be allies. She’d been kind and all she’d got in return for her troubles was to be demoted. She could ill afford it too, what with all her money being sent back home. I did my best to be nice as I could, let her know I wasn’t trying to displace her. We’d always had a laugh together. I didn’t want us to feel like rivals.

All this time Ellen had been straining her eyes to look at the African.

‘You recognise him?’ she said.

‘No, why would I?’

‘I only asked.’

I shouldn’t have snapped. It felt like all the Irish people in town knew one another so she probably meant nothing by it. But I didn’t know him, had never seen him before in my life. He wasn’t ‘one of mine’ like she’d said. I had no one.

But I didn’t want me and Ellen to be on the outs any more. I had enough battles to fight so I squeezed her shoulder to say sorry.

‘He’s unsettled me is all.’

‘Then tell the boys to kick him out,’ Ellen said.

‘I couldn’t.’