Letter from Brazil: Letting a little light in

There’s a man that comes by this part of town some evenings. Leathery skin. Bristly grey hair. Gravelly voice.

You get the feeling he’s aged faster than the calendar should allow, but such is the way of some lives. Usually he just roots about in bins looking for bottles and cans to exchange for a few coins so he can get by a little while longer, but last week he was looking for something else.

As the temperatures dip at night to the mid-teens — it’s not the cold but the drop off that makes you remember winter claws everywhere — he asked if there was a spare jumper about.