At the house they found Aaron and Rika drinking coffee on the veranda. Pete was there, and so were Laedi and the girls. But not Martha. Neighbours were shaking Aaron’s hand as if self-government was his personal achievement, along with the order on the streets.

‘How’s the mood in Popondetta?’ Aaron asked Tobias, moving along the bench to make room for him. ‘It was hostile when I was last there, and we haven’t had good reports.’

‘Mixed and confused,’ Tobias said. ‘Frightened. They think people will come over from Moresby and take their land.’

‘Not the Highlanders?’

‘Highlanders or coastals, it doesn’t matter. It’s Moresby they hear about, and the pressure on land here. Some people think it’ll be a free-for-all, a time of no more law. They’re staking out which house will be theirs, threatening to kill anyone they have a grudge against. It’s like here – a lot of people have gone to the villages.’

Meanwhile, up the hill, Martha was still smarting. Everything about the reception had had a lowering effect. Even Bili was in a state of despondence. She’d woken early, run up the hill to her chickens, finding them as she’d left them, and sat on the ground looking down at the roofs and gardens of Hohola. They looked exactly as they had the day before. ‘What’s the point,’ she moaned, ‘if independence comes and nothing changes?’ Daisy was in Laedi’s bed as usual and didn’t get out until Wilkie came into the yard with a note from Rika. I’m making banana bread. Come down.

‘I’m buggered if I’m going,’ Martha said. ‘Not after last night.’

‘She’s making amends,’ Pete said.

‘Don’t be sour,’ Laedi said. ‘She didn’t mean it.’

But Martha knew that she had meant it, and that morning she was not in a forgiving vein.

‘Have you seen anyone from the mountain?’ Rika asked Tobias, talking over the head of Bili, who had squeezed in between them. ‘Janape? Have you seen her child?’

She knew of the child’s existence from a geologist who’d been up there a month or so before. She’d sent in supplies with him, a small gesture of remembrance, and he’d come back with photos – awful, inept photos, but enough to see that Lilla had grown into a young woman, and that a small figure was leaning against Janape, surely her child. The geologist, who went through the villages quickly and on up the mountain to take his readings, could give her no details. When Rika had pointed to Janape in the photo he seemed unsure of who she was. A blur of women.

‘Who’s the father of Janape’s child?’ she asked Tobias.

Tobias looked uneasy. ‘Maybe you should bring him here,’ he said. ‘Send him to school. He’s five soon.’

‘Five! Is that possible?’ She was calculating on her fingers. ‘Is that what Janape wants?’

‘She came down to Popondetta. Brought him with her.’

‘Was she ill?’

‘No. She wanted to ask me.’

‘Ask you what?’

‘About the child going to school.’