What was she doing in this clanking van? Had they been kidnapped? Why was she crushed in the back with strangers and the smell of stale bottoms? This was not how England should be, surely? It should be a beautiful carriage and horses like the picture on the tin of chocolates that Stan brought as a gift to Auntie Betty, her guardian. There was a pretty house with a golden grass roof. Roses tumbling from the walls and a blue, blue sky. She had read many school books with castles and great stone palaces in them, wide parks with tall trees, but nothing like this. Outside it was all grey and sooty, no moonlight on this wet afternoon. Gaslamps flickered like troubled spirits. For all she was brought up as a Christian girl, she believed her grandmother when it came to honouring the nyats, those guardian spirits of house and home. She whispered, ‘Kador, kador,’ so as not to incite their anger. It was bad enough to be sharing this van with the imposter who claimed Mister Stan was the father of her child.
