There was a yell from the top of the slope. The driver – shouting that I was a puta and that they’d find me. A handful of stones came raining down amongst the trees. I didn’t make a sound, not even when one of them caught me on the leg. Finally, he swore to himself and hurried back towards the shack. I didn’t wait around to see whether he’d return.

It makes no difference what I did or said to get myself away from that place. Just as it matters not at all whether the men I eventually persuaded to pick me up by the roadside were carrying tomatoes or grapes or eggs on the back of their van. What matters is that it happened, that they took me as far as their destination.

Gibraltar.

I had heard of the place from Ifrahim’s tales; a rock in the ocean, a great lion rearing and turned to stone. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a trick of the afternoon heat. But we drew closer and I knew that it was real: a mountain at the edge of the sea.

And the sea … I had never seen it before. Can you imagine that? The only water I knew was that of the Guadalquivir river, sluggish and brown and clogged with reeds and run-off from the city. I had seen pictures of the sea, on postcards painted in garish blues, but I didn’t think they were real, just as lips are never truly carmine.

I was wrong. As we emerged from the foothills, I heard a cry above the truck and looked up. A great white bird had built her nest at the top of a pole. Elegantly, she stepped from the edge and opened her wings. I followed the path of her flight, her legs trailing, and suddenly my eyes were flooded with blue.

It hit me like flash powder: vast blue, potent blue. Even now, I find the sensation hard to describe. If colour were a taste, the sky would be powdered sugar, but the sea – that would be molasses.

I never believed in love at first sight. Fascination, yes, lust, certainly. I saw those things many times at the inn. But the moment I saw the sea, I was lost. It was love, and I never wanted to stop looking. Even today, I gaze upon it every morning like a new lover.

But of course, on that day it soon dropped from my view, replaced by a rail track and shabby houses and the start of a town. I fidgeted, wanting to keep it in my sight.

‘What’s the matter, sister?’ I remember one of the men taunting. ‘Lice biting?’

I didn’t care. I didn’t want to think about anything except the sea. Finally, the van began to slow, Gibraltar looming monstrous beyond a sandy wasteland and a fence, guarded by …