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London. Oh, Flora, I
would so like my future to be here.”
    “Well, there is Croydon Girls’ High School or Blackheath, but they are long distances out of town. I will make some enquiries. There are sure to be several excellent girls’
schools in the city centre, though it may mean that you will need a tutor until we find the right one for you. Leave it with me.”
    “Thank you. I will be closer to my roots and relatives. Well, to my mother…”
    “Is it your wish to return to your birthplace and live with her?”
    I remained silent. How many times recently have I asked myself this question? Of course, I know that I cannot stay on indefinitely with Flora… But how can I go back? I know so little of
my mother’s way of life now; I have become estranged from my past. The fact is, I belong nowhere.
    “I don’t think so,” I answered eventually, “though I long to see her again, to have news of her.”
    “Have you visited her while you’ve been in town?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Then why don’t we go together? Tomorrow morning, directly after breakfast, we’ll take the Fiat and…”
    I hesitated, remembering my vow. Flora mistook my hesitation for an unwillingness to include her.
    “How thoughtless of me! No, you must go alone. I won’t intrude on your life. I only want to assist you as my grandmother has done. When you are ready, let me know what you have
decided and I will do everything I can to help you. In the meantime, you are welcome to stay here for as long as you please.”
    I nodded and smiled at the touch of her hand on mine.
    Flora is splendid, but we are so different. Her world is exciting and international, but it is not my way forward. I must make my home where my heart is, where I feel my commitments lie. But
first I must learn whatever news there might be of my mother.
    26th May 1909
    I don’t know where to begin to express what I am feeling tonight and all that I have witnessed during the course of this day.
    After breakfast, I walked to the southern end of Holborn and from there found a bus that was heading east out of the city centre. I chose a seat by the window so that I could peer out at all the
London streetcars and the thoroughfares and the people bustling by. Many of the main roads have been furnished with electric lights now, but there are gas lamps down the narrower side-streets. I
needed distraction. I was making my way to the district of my old home in search of my mother and my heart was beating fast with the anticipation of what lay ahead.
    The change as we approached the poorer regions of London was obvious to anyone with half an eye. The buildings grew uglier. Even the sky seemed darker as blocks of flats, cheaply constructed and
over-populated, closed out the light. The pavements were a sea of concerned faces. We drove by an open market, where children and grown-ups alike were rooting hungrily through garbage piles,
salvaging vegetables and fruits and stuffing them directly into their mouths.
    Once I stepped off the bus, I meandered for a while up and down the cobbled lanes, lost in the stream of shabby people. I was scared of going to my address, scared of what I would or would not
find there. I could not say if, during that walk, I more greatly desired to find my mother or not.
    I remember my earlier life as a time of endless hardships. I have grown used to another standard of living and it has softened me. But the trick these past four years has played on my memory was
a greater deception than I had bargained for. Today I came face to face with much that I had wiped out. I had forgotten the day-to-day struggles of the thousands living and starving in such
nook-and-cranny quarters. Crowds everywhere. Sad, pinched faces with desperate or drunken eyes. All of them facing destitution. You cannot get away from folk in this part of London town. A heaving
mass of humanity struggling to make it through one day to the next.
    I could not help but see the streets, the