The dancers came to a stop outside Noah’s house, and the old man climbed onto the steps, raised his hands to speak. ‘He welcomes us,’ Rika said. ‘Aaron, the hope of their clan. Aaron, who will lead us into the future.’ Martha could tell by her voice that she’d heard it before and didn’t entirely like it.

‘Tomorrow,’ Noah said. ‘Tomorrow he will speak. Tonight we dance.’

There was another roar of rejoicing, and the drums began again, feet beating the ground. Young women brought out pineapples, and from behind the house a young man appeared with a Coleman lamp, which he carefully hung from the rafters.

‘That’s new,’ Aaron said.

‘Jacob bring it,’ came the reply. And then a rush of language, and Rika translating, consulting a young woman who had taken her hand, standing close beside her. Sister mine.

‘Jacob’s been here talking to afa Noah,’ she said. ‘A big talk. He gave him this lamp. He’s up at the top village, his village, he went up there this morning. Boxes of kago for the vasái. Outdoing Aaron, as usual.’

Aaron’s boxes were laid out on the grass in front of the guesthouse, where they were to sleep, across the grass from afa Noah. Built up off the ground, with newly plaited walls and wide eaves, the house was decked with herbs and hibiscus flowers. They would sleep well there, on woven pandanus mats with the windows propped open to the saltwater breeze.

The next morning they woke to the noise of birds. Outside the window the sky was a soft orange, and when Martha came out onto the grass in the centre of the village, she found herself in a golden world.

‘It’s always like this early,’ Rika said, coming down the steps, yawning. At the cookhouse there was a fire already, and she went over to the women, took a knife, squatted down and joined them peeling sweet potato for breakfast.

‘Can I help?’ Martha asked, but no, she was a visitor, there was to be no work for her. A young girl, no more than sixteen, took her hand.

‘I show you the village,’ she said. ‘I am the sister of Wilkie, the boy at school in Port Moresby.’

‘A good boy,’ Martha said. ‘He works hard.’

‘I work hard,’ she said. ‘Hard, hard. In Moresby I will work very hard. You’ll see.’

Her name was Angel, and she looked like an angel, with a halo of glossy curls. She’d finished the last year of school at the government station, just enough to show her what lay beyond, but not enough to equip her for the hopes that had come upon her: a brazen angel dreaming of escape from the village she was walking Martha through.

‘When the boat comes to take you,’ she said, ‘you can take me, yes?’

‘What about your mother?’

Her lovely face fell like a clown’s.

‘Come,’ Martha said. ‘You show me the village, and later we will talk to Aaron.’