‘At best a re-education camp. The worst I don’t want to think about.’

He sits down as if the strain of remembering has exhausted him.

‘It’s all I know, Mikey, all I know.’

I say nothing and try not to think about the worst. And then when I look at Donovan I see in this moment of surrender to his own frailty the cold wind that is coming steadily towards him, blowing through his existence on the earth, turning every atom that once formed who he was into dust. And there is an inescapable sadness about that, as there is about any human loss.

Melissa reappears and with her stands a young man, dark-haired, slender, wearing a plain blue cotton shirt with sunglasses clipped into the breast pocket, jeans and Converse. Over one shoulder is slung a sports bag so he looks as if he is just on the way to the gym. He comes towards me with an outstretched hand and calls me sir, thanks me. No names are exchanged – he is evidently well-versed in the etiquette of the situation.

‘You’re welcome,’ I say, reciprocating the conventions of good manners while simultaneously wondering if this is the person who will start my life down unexpected paths. I have committed, however, to a course of action and, for better or worse, I won’t go back on it. But there is something I have to be sure of, so I look him in the eye, struck once more by his youthfulness and a kind of fresh-faced innocence – or is it naivety? – as if the world has not yet left its stain, and ask, ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ he answers and then there is nothing more to be said except to take my leave.

Melissa hugs me for the second time and I let my hand rest on the coarse splayed swathe of her hair before she kisses me on the cheek and steps away. Donovan eases himself out of his chair and comes slowly towards me. He holds out his hand and just for a second I hesitate, then shake it.

‘You’re a good man. A good man,’ he says.

‘I try,’ I say. ‘We all try.’ But it sounds hopelessly feeble, not even close to what I want my final words to him to be.

We head out to the SUV and stow our bags in the back. I don’t direct him but my passenger opens the rear door and lies down in the space behind the front seats. It is obviously his accustomed position. I say nothing, lower my window and look for the last time at Donovan and Melissa as they stand shoulder to shoulder on the veranda, then spray water on the windshield to try and clean the stipple of dead insects and dust spots. Donovan raises his skinny arm in farewell but no further words are spoken and I set off, glancing finally at one of the poles they have erected, see how the light seems drawn to it and plays in the mosaic of blue tiles and the white bleached bones.