But with the hindsight that comes with passing time, Stanley’s triumphant departure began to seem foolhardy, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. She was never far from his mind. He began to dream of those silky breasts that spilled out of her negligee and pushed up against him in the morning, nudging him awake. Did you just offer me a cup of tea, love?

When he bought another hunk of bread and another chunk of cheese from another mini-market in another strange city, he salivated over her effortlessly and deliciously stir-fried peppers, onions, mushrooms and strips of beef, sprinkled with soy sauce and served on a plate of moist noodles.

When he brushed his teeth at night and looked in another bleak mirror, in another bleak bathroom, in another bleak hostel in another bleak part of another strange city, he saw congealed shaving foam on his jawline – stuck there all day because she wasn’t around to affectionately wipe it off with a wet finger.

And the silence, which he had so welcomed at first, was getting noisier every day.

Jessie, Jessie, Jessie. Wherefore art thou, Jessie?

He traipsed to Cordoba, where he discovered that the Moors had ruled Spain for eight hundred years. In Cordoba alone there had been hundreds of shops, street lights, libraries, air conditioning, central heating, hot and cold water piped into houses and sophisticated advances in medicine and science. It made him want to storm up to his history teacher, grab him by the lapels and demand, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the Moors, Mr Cartwright? Why not, eh, why not?’

As he explored the past, he became aware that the past was exploring him too, in its own spooky way. Life on earth was just the beginning, he now understood. He craved another visitation. Like an addict, he needed his fix.

In Granada he went to visit the Alhambra – Al Qal’a al-Hamra. He wandered around its reconstructed palaces, its lavish landscaped gardens, its courtyards, its lily ponds.

He saw it floodlit at night.

He wanted to reach up

snap off an iced turret

feel a little bit of history melt in his mouth.

Stanley strolled over to a bench facing the sea and closed his eyes. The sea wind tickled his eyelashes and brushed his lips. He licked the salt from them, liking the taste. It was a wind that had swept all the way up from Africa, gathering energy and ferocity, passing through swamp and jungle, mountain and valley, over desert and savannah, until it finally arrived at the beaches of Morocco and tore across the strait.

When someone began to speak into his right ear, though there was no sensation of a body beside him, Stanley grinned.

About time, he thought. About time.

The voice was sibilant wind.