Astra lived an hour out of Mullumbimby, on land strewn with rotting trees. To get there from the main road you had to follow a series of winding dirt tracks, cross two small bridges, and then take the third left past a hidden encampment of derelict cars, goats, and half-built sheds reinforced with blue plastic tarpaulins. Further along this road there was a cream-brick farmhouse, set back among straight rows of palm trees, with a rectangular arena of dirty sand out the front. This was Astra’s closest neighbour. From where we stood now, we could see a woman on a horse taking very small steps. Some sort of dressage champion, apparently.

‘Just ignore her,’ Astra said. ‘She’s a fucking bitch.’

Inside, the house was neat, dark, loosely bohemian. We sat at the kitchen table, among cactuses and plants, and brass statues of Hindu gods who were bathing in the blood of demon decapitation. It was five in the afternoon. Astra had told me to come for dinner and had offered me the spare bedroom, which I had accepted.

‘So,’ she said, folding her hands in her lap. We looked at each other in silence for a moment. In the dimness, it was as if we’d just stepped off the street into a cinema. The movie had already started, but we didn’t know what it was about yet.