‘You seem to have changed a lot,’ I venture, suddenly unsure of what I should call him, and he looks at me as if aware of my presence for the first time.

‘The whole world is changing, Mikey – everything in the universe is changing and so we need to change if we’re to go on living. But how do you think I’ve changed?’

I don’t know what to say. It isn’t even possible to make some bland reference to the physical changes I’ve seen without stumbling into insensitivity and potential mutual embarrassment. But I’m a diplomat by instinct as well as career so I simply say, ‘In your thinking about things.’

‘My thinking about things? Well here’s the thing, Mikey – I once was someone who didn’t think. Everything that was in my head and came out of my mouth had been put there by Uncle Sam, by the secret, mind-destroying motherfuckers who don’t want anyone ever to think for themselves. Because the first time a man starts to think for himself his only desire will be to drive a stake through their black hearts.’

The conversation peters out again and the intervals of silence stretch longer. I try to fill the gaps with small talk but he barely responds and sometimes when he looks at me it is as if he’s struggling to recognise me. It’s a relief when Melissa eventually summons us. We eat the simple meal she has prepared, preceded by his rambling grace expressing the hope the world will heal itself. Then the beers turn into whiskies and the three of us go outside with our glasses and sit on the veranda. After a few seconds Melissa goes inside and when she returns it’s with a rifle that she leans against Donovan’s chair.

‘Coyotes come out at night,’ he says, moving his hand along the barrel. ‘Coyotes howling at the moon. Always best to be prepared, Mikey.’

We sit and stare out as night approaches and lends the landscape the appearance of a solitary moonscape with an opalescent striated light, and I feel as if I have travelled to the very boundary of my known world and even perhaps to the edge of my known self. Then for some reason I remember Donovan once telling me what his father had said about the moon landing, and how it was a hell of a long way to go to know what loneliness feels like, and, even as I sit there with two others, I experience my own loneliness shifting towards me from the shadowed wilderness that stretches far beyond what my eyes can see. It is silent, too, apart from the white noise of the cicadas and the occasional shuffling and whinnying of the horses. Melissa says very little except to ask me some questions about my family and where I was born. Her long hair looks silvered deeper by the moon. I couldn’t say what age she is, although probably a little younger than Donovan, and her face has a calmness that contrasts with his frequent animation. After a while she goes inside again but later I glimpse her moving through the shadows towards the barn.