Umpf! One dull thud of a cowhide drum.

That’s how I know they are there, behind me. I feel it like a deep bump in the chest. For a moment there is a quietness, like the tiny sound of a burnt-out light bulb shaken, the seep of movement within glass, and then the aching quiver of the first bars, the purple scent of what it is to be alone on a mountain at daybreak, when the mist rises and the condor takes flight.

As I turn, they leap into the rhythm, the pound of the cowhide drum. They are swashbuckling, these men, in their embroidered shirts and woven waistcoats and bounding, bright woollen stockings. They tickle trills on a charango, press their lips smooth on their pipes. The birds in the aviary behind them fade and deflate.

The one with the shaggy hair looks like you. He raises one eyebrow at me, bites his bottom lip in that way that you do. He circles his hips and stamps hard. And for a moment it’s all a gift for me – the quichua lyrics and the shaking melody, the pipes and the charango and the socks, the wood smoke and the dented fedora – because you are here; as here as you’ll ever be.

‘It’s really smelly, Mummy!’ Frank runs out of the men’s. ‘It is! It smells disgusting in there! Honest! It does! Come and smell!’

‘I think I’ll give that one a miss, thanks, Frank.’

I curl my arm around his skinny shoulders and we stroll together into what’s left of a real afternoon.

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