Simeon is at his desk tapping his feet, listening to music as he marks the essays that are piled on his desk and on the floor beside him. He takes off the headphones. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Not well.’

‘Bili?’

‘She’s kicked me out.’

‘Why?’

‘I asked her to come back to London with me.’

‘Man,’ Simeon says. ‘Bad move.’

Jericho sees the full scope of the disaster looking back at him in the mirror of Simeon’s steady eyes, and immediately feels better.

Two days later, Jericho goes to see him again. This time he disregards the file Bili has left for him with her scrawled instructions. He puts his head round her door and says he’s going out to the university, lingering just long enough to see surprise break through the mask of her face. There is a slight swing – a very slight swing – in his step as he walks down the hill. He takes the PMV, walks across the campus to Simeon’s building, and climbs the stairs to his top-floor office.

When he tells Simeon about the books Laedi has given him, he says, ‘Read us. What are you reading that stuff for? Read our writers.’

He goes to his shelves, and another pile of books lands in front of Jericho.

‘When did you say you were brought to Moresby? Before independence? Read what was being written then. It was a wild time.’

‘Rika was here then. At the university. She knew Milton.’

‘Who’s Rika?’

‘The woman who took me.’

‘Adopted you?’

‘Sort of.’

‘She knew Milton?’ Simeon is impressed. ‘Well, read him,’ he says. ‘He’s the best. It took him a while to get over what happened to him in Melbourne, but once he did, he was the best. Read him on being displaced, between one world and another. Just what you need.’

‘At least he wasn’t mixed race. Half-caste.’

‘Hapkas. It’s a great word. My kids use it all the time. They call themselves hapkas. I’m from the Sepik, their mother’s from Milne Bay. It’s a point of pride. Makes them interesting.’

‘Not so interesting in my case.’

‘Haven’t you heard of hybridity?’ Simeon says. ‘Brother, you’ve got it bad for Bili, that’s all. You should get out of her office – she won’t come round while you’re like this. She’s proud.’ He shakes his head and lets out his breath as if he’s contemplating a rescue mission. ‘Highland women, they’re tough. Get out of town, go over to the mountain, find yourself a good woman there.’

‘I can’t go to the mountain. Not yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m not ready.’

Simeon looks at him, eyebrows raised in question.

Jericho is caught off guard, and does not want to admit to the inertia that has descended on him. ‘For a start,’ he says, trying to keep the gloom from his voice, ‘they don’t know I’m here. I didn’t let Leonard tell them. And now, well, all this with Bili. I don’t know where to start.’