Before I learnt the language of map-making, the word cadastre sounded like a timbre or a cadence. It was a momentous drum, a hollow ratatat. Bone, fire, dirt, stone. Like a shout, a ring, a knock, a blow. But when I learned maps, I discovered cadastre meant the legal boundary. There was no sound to it at all, only lines. The lines are normally black, but I have a range of colours and hatchings to choose from. Anyone wanting a map just needs to tell me which features they want.

A map can show anything. It’s possible to make maps of black cockatoo sightings, of cropland, of underground cobalts or silvers. I can show all the creeks and rivers, with the sea as a great green mass. Or I can plot cockatoos and creeks on a map together, adding minor roads and tracks. This was the sort of map my neighbour Vasco once might have asked me to send her.

Help me remember something good, Vasco. Sadness is making me forgetful.