The first thing she saw as they neared the encampment under the flyover was the flickering fire. This age-old site had been set aside for the Romanies when they travelled the length of Britain, supplying ponies for the coal-pits. And today they still behaved as if the new flyover—which trapped the woodsmoke beneath it and covered everything with soot—did not exist. The spot was theirs by right; they hung on with strong nails.

Phyllis had never known of its existence, though she must have sped over it countless times. Yet when they stood on the threshold of the site with its smoke, dogs, haphazardly parked vehicles and the general debris of life in semi-transit, it didn’t feel alien to her.

A shoeless child sidled up to them and slipped a small grubby hand into Zeno’s to lead them into the camp. Phyllis stayed abreast of him, breathing the smoky air and looking about her. The child passed them on to a middle-aged woman and dropped back a few paces, to be joined by other small ones who followed the outsiders from a distance.

There was order within the seemingly random configuration of cars and trailers, which became apparent as they were escorted deeper into the encampment. They finally arrived in front of a hand-painted caravan, the type traditionally associated with wayfarers, carved with the care of a bygone age, witness to an aesthetic of necessity long since discarded. Phyllis approached the caravan at eye-level, surprised to see it perched on a trailer.

They waited while their guide climbed aboard and entered the caravan through a door between the horse’s shafts. A short moment later, the top section of the door opened and they were summoned.

The person who greeted them from the candlelight sat among her possessions, which included a cream cockatoo who displayed a pearly comb when they entered and said, “Hello travellers.” The dukkerina smiled, revealing a sliver of gold set between her middle front teeth.

“He’s very old, like me, and he likes visitors,” she said in a crackly voice. “He will talk to you if he likes your voice—won’t you, Manushie? Come, sit and have something to drink.”

She sat, propped by cushions, at the far end of the caravan on a bench built into three sides of the oblong interior. In front of her the table was set for tea with a padded tea-cosy and three cups. Zeno came through the split door and went to sit down straight away, making his greetings to the elder. Phyllis hung back and made friends with the parrot, whose cage hung near the door. Her voice apparently passed muster, for Manushie was soon showing off his songs and vocabulary.

Zeno introduced his new friend, and asked if the old woman had anything to tell them. She produced a bowl of wax from a shelf above her head, and a small primus stove from beneath the bench. She lit the stove, which smelled of methylated spirit and burned with a blue flame.