We sort of didn’t know how to get there, but we sort of did, and then we missed the first bus stop, but the next one was the right one anyway. Down Whitecross Street narrow and dim, and then the Barbican in front of us, and, to the left, the crazy electric hive with its irregular windows lit up here and there by late-night office bees.

Seu Jorge came out to whoops and cheers: long and skinny, jeans and a T-shirt, jaunty dreads. He plays like blood and skin, like kisses fast and kisses soft, like the darkness of night, and I don’t know the words, but all you want to say anyway is Yes, please, more. There was something in his hands that reminded me of a boy I know.

There were tambourines and drums and a clicky thing and a pully-moany thing and a rattly thing and more thumping things, and we danced and danced, and they danced, too. They had the night sky come out for “Fiore de la città”—a guitar, a voice, and pinpoints of light against the black.

I was slouching in the tube back towards Kings Cross when the midnight hunger came upon us. On Euston, Chop Chop Noodle Bar was still lit up like immigrant work ethic. One number fifty-five and one number eighty-six later, I said: “Walk me to my bus?”, so he did. The 91 came rumbling down the road just in time for a kiss on the cheek and a wave good-bye.