Her skin is darker than his, years in the sun drawing her closer to the place; he’s paled with its absence. ‘I’m New Guinea all through,’ she says. ‘Don’t you see? Look. What do you see in this face? Tell me.’ She comes up close. Close enough to kiss.

‘Papuan. English. They’re just words. We’re people.’

Her face withdraws. ‘Ha!’ she says. ‘Strip away the art historian, roll back the tape, cancel the Courtauld, cancel your expensive education. Cancel everything, return to the child on the mountain, and what would you be now, with no father and no rights to land, nowhere to garden? You’d be in Popondetta, if you were lucky. Working in the hotel. If you were lucky. A kina an hour. If you weren’t dead. Papuan. English. Huh.’ She goes inside, sits at her laptop again.

‘I’d be the same person,’ he says, following her in.

‘You would not. For a start you’d have been raised in a clan. Made by a clan.’

‘You weren’t raised in a clan. I had five years. You had nothing. And look at your father. How useless is he? Remember that time you came to Oxford and he was never on time to pick you up? He forgot, remember? Leonard had to ring him. He’s not Melanesian, but he believes in commitment and connection.’

‘You’re getting personal.’ Her shoulders are up. Mention of Don touches a bad nerve in her.

‘It is personal.’

He stands there, forlorn, abandoned, alone. She’s pulled her hair back into its knot. Her face is stern, her nose an angry beak. Her eyes are narrowed, looking only at the screen. He feels as if he’s been talking all night, all his life, talking and talking, persuading, convincing, making one thing into another, always outside, no matter where he is. Here. There. Nowhere.

‘Go,’ she says. ‘Go back to Laedi’s. I’ve got court in the morning.’

‘It’s only a mention.’

‘Go!’ she shouts.

On heavy, leaden feet, Jericho walks out of the flat, closes the door, softly – at least he manages that – and walks down the stairs. He wants the taste of salt on his lips, but is afraid to walk the beach in the dark. He asks the security guard, who is smoking with the guard from the block next door, to get him a taxi. While he waits he looks up at the adjacent block, all harsh edges, blank walls; from that angle you don’t see the glass balconies that disguise its ugliness. Jacob owns it, Bili says. He must be making a lot of money. The taxi comes slowly up the ramp, low on its suspension. Jericho sinks into its sagging seat and returns to Laedi, through another security gate, past another guard, into the house.

Laedi is still at her desk, with a glass of whisky and papers from her department. She’s a minister in Somare’s coalition. Her electorate is in the Highlands, for the town near the plantation where she was born. She’s got a strong following outside, which gives her a certain power in cabinet, though as a woman she’s limited to the department of community development.