He waited for me to say what about but I didn’t feel like telling him. I didn’t like to talk about my mother because it forced me to think of how she’d abandoned me. Mrs Bradley always told me I shouldn’t see it like that. She said that all my mother had wanted was to do her best by me. She was probably right, but that didn’t stop it from hurting.

Lucien led me to a bench set a little back from the path.

‘You find it painful to think about your mother?’

How did he know that?

‘I was born free,’ I said. It was a reflex action but Lucien didn’t seem impressed by it.

‘You told me that before,’ he said.

I didn’t like his tone.

‘You were a slave, then?’ I threw back at him.

‘I was.’

The way he said it, so matter of fact, took the wind out of me. He could see that.

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Zillah.’

Wasn’t it? How could it not be?

‘I … My … my mother was a slave.’ There. It was out. I’d never told anyone before, never said it aloud.

Lucien nodded, as if this wasn’t news at all. ‘She came from Barbados, you said.’

‘She did, and she worked in a house not far from here.’ It was my voice but it sounded like someone else speaking and from far away. A slammed door, a walk up New Oxford Street, half-running, looking back over our shoulders, and my gloved hand in hers, clammy from being held too long.

‘You lived nearby?’

‘I grew up in St Giles. I’ve … I’ve lived there most of my life.’

Not with my mother, though. When I was seven years old, she’d taken me to the house of her friend Mrs Bradley and left me there. I hadn’t seen my mother since. Didn’t even know whether or not she was alive. I wasn’t enjoying this conversation. I’d lost control of the thread and I preferred it when I was the one asking all the questions.

‘Tell me about Sierra Leone,’ I said.

‘It’s a country on the west coast of Africa. The capital is Freetown.’

Freetown. I liked the sound of that.

‘I hear that’s where the government want to send the Black Poor,’ I said, not wanting to let on that I’d seen him giving out the handbills.

‘Not just the poor. It’s open to anyone who wishes to go. I have been distributing information on behalf of a philanthropic committee, with some other concerned people. Had I known you might be interested, I would have brought one with me.’

He spoke faster than in our previous conversations, his face more animated. He was excited about this scheme, so what was I missing?