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he’d mind turning down the air conditioner.
    He insisted the AC was automatic and out of his control, but he could advise us on where to find beaches with clear, clean water.
    â€˜The best beach is Playa de los Muertos, which means “Beach of the Dead”. It is only five kilometres south of town. You will have walk down the mountain for twenty minutes. There is no access by road.’
    Rose leaned forward and tapped his shoulder. ‘We are here because I have a bone disease and can’t walk.’ She frowned at the plastic rosary hanging from his mirror. Rose is a committed atheist, all the more so since my father had a religious conversion.
    Her lips had turned blue due to the extreme weather inside the car. ‘As for the “Beach of the Dead”’ – she shivered as she spoke – ‘I’m not quite there yet, though I can see it would be more appealing to swim in clear water than to burn in the furnace of hell, for which all the trees in the world will have to be felled and every mountain stripped for coal.’ Her Yorkshire accent had suddenly become fierce, which it always does when she’s enjoying an argument.
    The driver’s attention was on a fly that had landed on his steering wheel. ‘Perhaps you will need to book my taxi for your return journey?’
    â€˜It depends on the temperature in your automobile.’ Her thin, bluelips stretched into something resembling a smile as the taxi became warmer.
    We were no longer stranded in a Russian winter so much as a Swedish one.
    I opened the window. The valley was covered in white plastic, just as the student in the injury hut had described. The desert farms were devouring the land like a dull, sickly skin. The hot wind blew my hair across my eyes while Rose rested her head on my shoulder, which was still smarting from the jellyfish sting. I dared not move to a less painful position because I knew she was scared and that I had to pretend not to be. She had no God to plead to for mercy or luck. It would be true to say she depended instead on human kindness and painkillers.

    As the driver steered his cab into the palm-fringed grounds of the Gómez Clinic, we glimpsed the gardens that had been described in the brochure as ‘a mini-oasis of great ecological importance’. Two wild pigeons lay tucked into each other under the mimosa trees.
    The clinic itself was carved into the scorched mountains. Built from cream-coloured marble in the shape of a dome, it resembled a massive, upside-down cup. I had studied it on Google many times, but the digital page did not convey how calming and comforting it felt to stand next to it in real time. The entrance, in contrast, was entirely made from glass. Thorny bushes with flowering purple blooms and low, tangled, silver cacti were planted abundantly around the curve of the dome, leaving the gravel entrance clear for the taxi to park next to a small, stationary shuttle bus.
    It took fourteen minutes to walk with Rose from the car to the glass doors. They seemed to anticipate our arrival, opening silently for us, as if gratifying our wish to enter without either of us having to make the request.
    I gazed at the deep blue Mediterranean below the mountain and felt at peace.
    When the receptionist called out for Señora Papastergiadis, I took Rose’s arm and we limped together across the marble floor towards the desk. Yes, we are limping together. I am twenty-five and I am limping with my mother to keep in step with her. My legs are her legs. That is how we find a convivial pace to move forwards. It is how adults walk with young children who have graduated from crawling and how adult children walk with their parents when they need an arm to lean on. Earlier that morning, my mother had walked on her own to the local Spar to buy herself some hairpins. She had not even taken a walking stick to lean on. I no longer wanted to think about that.
    The receptionist directed me