‘I’ll do the orders. I’ll see to the customers,’ I said. ‘Sit there. Start again. Five minutes. That’s all.’ I pressed ‘record’ and took over making the teas.

‘There were people waiting for us in the bonfire air, adults and two narrow boys, a bubble bubble of words fluctuating, with a sickening scent of flowers. People were moving apart, coming together, not real. Kind of luminous. There, and not there, like cloud people dropping and fading. I was borne along by arms and shoulders, feet not touching the ground, then sitting, held up, being fanned by large leaves, sipping lime.

‘Paa had his arm across the shoulders of Chappy. He and our daughters were seated cross-legged, opposite me. Daphne and Binnie were glancing sidelong at their father, who was the same wisp, the same ghost he was the first time I saw him. I don’t remember anything else about that day except that I woke in a little house that had been prepared for us. It was smaller than the first house Chappy and I built at home in New Zealand. It was without a stove or fireplace. Chappy had already gone to work in the city. Daphne and Binnie were out somewhere with Aki and the family.

‘Once up, I felt myself floating about in the heat on swollen feet, washing, dressing, eating, drinking, trying to talk but wanting to sleep. I can’t sit here speaking into this thing all day, Grandson. If you can’t take notes you’ll just have to remember.’

Oriwia had come to Hawai‘i with the intention that she and Chappy would return home together, but though Chappy listened with interest to what she had to say about the businesses she had developed, and with delight when she described the house to him, it was soon evident that he didn’t see himself as part of it. She was undeterred at first and questioned him about his doubts. They were husband and wife, after all.

‘I can’t be a stowaway any more,’ he said, ‘or a runaway, or an illegal alien. Can’t be an outcast, bringing shame on you and the family in a country where Japan is not loved.’

Oriwia wouldn’t take what he said seriously. She’d be able to persuade him. Maybe he’d had some bad experiences as a fugitive that he hadn’t told her about. But love would surmount all. She told him this.

‘I have to be a true citizen with a name and work,’ he said.

When Chappy was taken as a prisoner to Somes Island, he had given the Japanese name that his grandmother had told him to use. This was the name he was known by in Tokyo as well.