‘Sure,’ he says back to me, in the same unconvincing way I know I said it to him. I have started two degrees before and pulled out of both, one early, one late. But that was the nineties, long ago. ‘This could still be an option though.’

‘I think we already have bento grass in America.’

‘I bet if you work with Jo-Jo, you can land it cheaper.’

‘I bet.’

He takes another drink, gets the sun in his eyes, frowns. When Simon frowns, his mouth makes an inverted U, an actual frown shape, unlike most people, whose mouths just go flat and pencilled in and unforgiving. For a second or two, he’s a frown emoji, if someone came up with an emoji set called Middle-Aged and Crumbling.

‘It’s good to talk,’ he says. He looks around, in the direction of the equestrian centre, as if someone has called out to him. There’s no-one there. ‘There’s a lot to talk about.’

He’s on the brink of saying more when a text pings through to my phone. The name ‘Colleen’ comes up on screen.

‘Sure. It’s been a while. I’d better check this. Lacy’s mom. Mum.’

It’s a poop emoji.

‘I’d better . . .’ I point at the phone, start thumbing my reply.

Thanks, Colleen. If I can take this to mean all is regular down there, I’m happy for you. Alternatively, Cedar, please don’t use Grandma’s phone unless you have permission and she’s there beside you.

Two poops fly back in response.

I send him a toilet paper emoji. Now give her back her phone.

Cedar is in LA with Colleen and Wade. They took their first grandchild there on a theme-park binge when she turned eight, forgetting that one time is a precedent with eight-year-olds. It’s now a ritual every grandchild counts down to, plans for, mapping out their days at Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal Studios, sleepless in anticipation of dragging Colleen and Wade, older with each trip, on this punishing regime of shuttle buses, endless queues, overpriced fries and unrelenting California sun.

At the entrance to the cleared area, a woman has arrived, with a boy who is holding a kite. They’re grandmother and grandson, from the look of it. She recognises Simon, and waves.

He waves back and calls out, ‘Not a lot of wind today.’

She shrugs, points to the boy and says something I can’t quite make out.

‘Neighbour,’ he says to me. ‘A couple of houses along.’ He checks his watch. ‘Breakfast.’

While the house is four storeys, that fact overstates its grandness, as its footprint is small. Compact, as we say in the realty trade. A compact footprint. Modest, intimate. But the house is not those things, as the cumulative effect of the four storeys is a large enough place after all. Its layout defies Alaskan realty descriptors, perhaps most regular realty descriptors. It’s one of a thicket of similar vertical houses arranged as if they were all dropped here, in odd clumps and at odd angles to each other, with narrow driveways threaded between their corners.