The truck is a 1986 extended Dodge pickup and to those who believe the glamour of their ride correlates directly to the state of its disintegration – and I happen to be one of them – then this surely represents a very grand set of wheels indeed. First and foremost, it’s a wonderful colour. I’ve never before seen a car or truck that was butterscotch coloured. I’ve certainly never heard any car dealer say, ‘Why, yes, Mrs Coleman, you can have it in forest green, black, or could I perchance interest you in the butterscotch?’ Anywhere else in the world a toffee-apple truck might look a little out of place, but here, under the orange sun, against the ochre and red of the rock face, well, it just looks tastefully camouflaged.

Size-wise, the front cab seats five people and the flatbed at the back is long and wide enough to transport a small Boeing 747. This back section also comes with an optional shell, like a lid on a giant re-usable can of sardines, so if you wanted to, you could even sleep in it. Above the Arizona plates Benjamín has fixed a spare tyre and wired an extra brake light through its centre.

Sitting up in the cab, yanking down on the clunky gears, brings on every Thelma and Louise fantasy I’ve ever indulged in, and I soon begin to visualize myself and the children, glowing and bronzed from regular outdoor activity, lying in the back, smoking roll-ups, covered in a great shaggy skin of a bear – possibly a bear that I have myself wrestled and overcome in an altogether separate fantasy – and staring dreamily at the heavens while meteorites flame across the night sky from Jupiter to Mars.

I clip Emmy and Jack behind stiff webbing seatbelts and after some unintelligible directions from Benjamín, we set off along the Temerosa road, a meandering dirt track of roiling dust and treacherous switchbacks. The truck is unwieldy to drive with a loss of control and marked rear-end sway every time it negotiates a corner, like a big-bottomed woman encountering a revolving door for the first time, but then Benjamín paid only $600 for it so anything over and above moving forwards and backwards has to be considered a bonus.

‘So is this our car?’ Jack says.

‘Yup. What do you think? Do you like it?’

Jack sniffs the worn upholstery disdainfully. ‘It smells.’

‘It smells like poo,’ Emmy says and giggles wildly at her nerve.

‘Why can’t we have our old car?’ Jack demands.