There were times Mia wondered. Security, comfort – and most of all children – were appealing, but at 35 she still didn’t feel ready. Perhaps her anxiety at the state of the world was a conceit rather than a reason. Brad had certainly thought so.

‘Jean-Bernard is still on the ward,’ Agnes reported when she returned, ‘but his wife is expecting you tomorrow morning. It will take a few hours to get up there.’

The screen door banged and Kevin came in, scratching mosquito bites on his sun-bleached freckled arms.

‘I’ve fuelled the tinnie. We’ll head off by eight, if it’s OK with you.’

Mia was given a small bedroom inside the main building. Getting undressed, she admired the beautiful Melanesian patterns adorning the stand of a hand-carved crucifix. A humble cot with ironed sheets was calling and, sliding gratefully inside, she slept a wonderful dreamless sleep.

They said a communal prayer for her safe travels over breakfast, and after seeing the old tinnie on the trailer, Mia figured she might need it. The aluminium boat was comically small for such a long trip, and she hoped gruff Kevin would not regret his kindness. He introduced her to Keso, a shy older man with two missing front teeth, who was travelling with them.

Clasping her hands, he said, ‘God bleth.’

They drove down to the closest launching point, an earthen ramp a few hundred metres from the wharf upon which a dozen or so men were fishing. On the still river, tendrils of mist drifted across its surface. A few canoes drifted in the distance. After reversing the trailer in, Kevin sat behind the wheel, not trusting the vehicle’s handbrake on the slippery mud. Mia helped Keso by unwinding the winch while he steadied the boat in knee-deep water. Then Kevin went and parked at the top of the ramp, spending several minutes attaching chains to the trailer and its wheels.

‘Righto,’ he said cheerfully, plonking a battered Akubra hat on his head. ‘Let’s be off, then.’

Mia was first in the boat, followed by Kevin, then Keso, who pushed them out into deeper water, before hopping in barefoot.

After yanking the pull cord a few times, Kevin got the outboard firing, and they motored out into the river. They were level with the wharf when the engine abruptly coughed and died. Kevin frowned and checked the settings. He tried the pull cord several times, to no avail.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he said, red-faced with exertion and perhaps embarrassment. Grabbing hold of one of the twenty-five-litre fuel tanks, he gave it a shake, and then did the same to the other. ‘Sweet Mary, Jesus and Joseph. The little cunt has stolen my fuel again!’

Mia might have laughed but for Keso’s mortified expression.