A lifetime ago in a faraway land, I had these lovely neighbours from Brazil. She was an incredibly beautiful ballerina, and he was a sound engineer with a face made for radio. Using a mishmash of English, Portuguese and French, we became great friends, bonding over our love of music.  

There’s an album by Pat Metheny called Still Life, Talking, one of my all-time favourites. One night, I put it on the turntable, and he got very animated. Turns out, he had worked with Pat Metheny and knew the secret behind the mysterious pop on track one which had long wrecked the heads of die-hard fans. This was the early 1990’s before the internet was a thing and Google took the mystery out of life. As the moment on the track arrived – at precisely 2 minutes and 55 seconds, we all, in unison, did a finger pop to match the pop on the track.  

When the time came for them to move back to Rio, we had a party and he tried, one last time, to get us to party party. Finally realising it was never going to happen, he whispered to me that he would leave me a little gift before he left.  

Next morning, upon opening my apartment door, I was greeted with the sight of a mattress propped up against the wall, with a note saying, “We made a baby on this bed, I now gift it to you.” Ugh. I’ve had other unwanted gifts over the years, but this one remains my favourite.