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Like characters in a poem, the little old lady and her little old dog stop to pass part of the short time that remains. The lady remembers my mother from when they were girls beneath the blazing northern sky. They shared their first cigarette together, she tells me, and although even then – contrary to what people now suppose – everyone knew what smoking would do to you in the end, it mattered less when the world was shaking to its knees as you muttered your bedtime prayers. The dog tells me it was better in the mountains, where there was a sense of stability, and I realise that he’s even older than the lady, and quite possibly as old as the mountains he recalls so fondly. He remembers my mother from slightly later and tells me about that awkward sailor kneeling before her at the side of the lake, and how he was so happy for them that he raced down the jetty and plunged into the cold and dazzling water. It’s a dog thing, he shrugs, and the little old lady smiles at him, then at me, and then at the whole wide world from here to the mountains.