Negotiating the stairs up to his flat fifteen minutes later, clutching that day’s junk mail from his post box, proved another ordeal. After some experimentation, Lucas managed it step by step, moving his good leg first and then quickly bringing the sore one to join it, while clinging for dear life to the banister. Maybe his injured state would evoke compassion from the Monday panel, he mused gloomily and without conviction, fetching painkillers from his bathroom cupboard as soon as he had made it into the flat and swallowing three down with a beer while riffling through the post. Pizza delivery, Indian takeaway, an estate agent and… a postcard. Of the Iguazu Falls.

Lucas held the card by its edges, like a photograph he was afraid of smearing with clumsy fingers. It was a print of a photograph, showing the epic scale of the famously mighty cascades of water, streaked with the red of the South American earth as they poured from the outcrops fringing the three countries they straddled. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay. What a place. Lucas scrutinised every detail, his heart thudding. Deemed worthy of contact at last. The joy was like heat, until laced suddenly with a chill of terror at the notion of Dylan, hapless, devil-may-care eejit extraordinaire, standing anywhere near such gargantuan torrents. He’d find a ledge, go for a selfie and slip. Or drop his phone and fall in trying to fish it out.

Lucas slowly turned the card over to read the message, fearful of what he might find.

Hey Dad, amazing or what. D.

More heat coursed through him. No question mark, but who cared? ‘Bloody boy,’ he shouted at the ceiling, taking a celebratory swig of beer and then heaving himself up from the sofa, looking round for a good place to put the card. He chose the middle of the mantelpiece in the end, propped up against a slim, blue vase that had always lived there, but which he never got around to filling with flowers.

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