On our second night in Seville we got lost. We’d been to a flamenco concert, my first, a little way out from the centre. Eight musicians sat in a horseshoe on a plain stage. Deep plaintive wails of the campo pierced a surface of jangling guitars. Men in the crowd murmured ‘Olé’ to applaud moments of virtuosity.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I said as we walked out of the theatre. I was emboldened by the soulful music and wanted to see more of the town. In hindsight I was also emboldened by the Spanish-portioned bucket of ‘gintonic’ I had drunk at English-tourist speed during the interval.
Soon we were walking down a long, straight, very dark road. Earlier we had passed massed teenagers, who sat around their scooters, gulping bottles of pre-club calimocho. But soon they had thinned out and now we searched in vain for landmarks.
‘I think I can see a space rocket,’ said my friend.
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