I suppose if I’m absolutely honest, Dean’s house is a bit of a shock. It’s as far away from my twee little home in St Albans as I can possibly imagine. Although it’s small, the rooms are neat and tidy, but ‘basic’ is the word that most readily springs to mind. The floors are bare stone and the walls bare brick. A garish Bruce Springsteen poster supplies the only relief, shouting out the legend Born in the USA, and I gather that’s Dean’s touch. There’s one living room that has two roughly carved wooden armchairs and a small Buddhist shrine in the corner. The bathroom contains a squat loo and a metal basin and I gather that water has to be brought from the communal well, as there’s a bucket with a rope attached to it in evidence but no taps. Open wooden stairs lead to the only bedroom, which contains a double platform for a bed covered by worn but clean sheets and a mosquito net. There’s a wonky cupboard, a raffia mat on the floor, a kerosene lamp and a stack of well-thumbed English-language paperbacks by the bed.

‘It’s nice,’ I say, and it makes me realise how spoiled I am. Electricity at the flick of a switch. Turn a tap and out comes water.

Dean blushes. ‘My other house is a forty-acre estate in the country.’

‘It’s great, really.’ I give him a hug.

‘It serves me well,’ he says. ‘Except in the winter when it’s the coldest place on earth.’

‘I’ll be able to picture you here when I go home.’

He places a finger to my lips. ‘No talk of that now,’ he insists. ‘We’ve got a party to go to.’

When we emerge from the house into the bright sunshine once more, the women are in the process of draping strings of marigold flowers from house to house—a sort of natural bunting. Giggling children place garlands of marigolds round our necks as we make our way to the centre of the village. A makeshift trestle table pulled from the only café is being loaded with food and drink—dishes of dhal bhaat, platters of boiled rice studded with morsels of chicken and yak beef, momos, little parcels of pasta filled with meat and vegetables, spicy snacks of jelebis and laddus. Jugs of the robust distilled beer, chhang, and the local hooch, rakshi, are being passed round and someone hands Dean and me two metal cups half-filled with the brew. I can feel a hangover coming on just smelling it. Last time I got drunk on this it got me into a lot of trouble! For which I’m now very grateful. I look across at Dean and grin happily.