There aren’t many flights in the mornings. I didn’t hear the roar of turbines from the house, and the tarmac is clear. The fisherman on the block is the same one I remember from my walk to school: he’s older, sure, but he’s set up shop at the very same table, accompanied by a scale, surrounded by hens and chicks. A very thin old man in striped pyjama shorts and old sandals walks on the pavement along the highway, moving like a turtle with a cane. He’s got a plastic bag from the chemist’s in one hand. ‘Los que soñamos somos más’, say the red letters on his t-shirt – there are more of us dreamers – and below it is the image of a ballot stamped with a number to punch. I cross over from the pavement by the airport wall, where a school yard is visible from the street. The kids are at break. I notice scattered details: bottles, beer cans, the skeleton of a washing machine, a couple of tyres. Two boys play with the remnants of a broken tricycle. I’m trembling. I won’t think, I’ll keep my heart shut tight until I’ve made it to Spratt Bight Beach, when I’ve passed the fisherman’s wharf and the end of the runway.

And here I am. Treading the sky must be like this, touching your feet to the softest, whitest sand in Spratt Bight Beach, a bay of countless little fish. I take long strides, sandals in hand, looking out at the shore that extends to my right and still feels long and broad, even though everything else about the town centre looks tiny to me. It’s seaweed season, black heaps of it amassing on the shore. I spread my blanket on the sand and half-hide my bag under my shawl so I can get into the water, eager now. The colours are the same as they were years ago, the depths haven’t changed, the seaweed banks don’t seem to have moved an inch, the sun flashes brilliantly onto the same strips of turquoise, sapphire and lapis lazuli. I’m hypnotised by a rediscovered treasure.