‘He managed one,’ Rika said, and returned to the more interesting story of Laedi’s mother, a girl from across the valley, who had hidden when white men first came to her village. The older women said they had penises just like their own men, only white, so the girls had better look out. They weren’t sky travellers or returning ancestors. Their shit smelled bad.

‘I thought Laedi went to school in Brisbane,’ Leonard said.

‘She did.’

‘And she told you this story?’ She knew that he meant this fanciful story.

‘Yes. Her and the other women. Her wantoks. You should hear them laugh. There’s one called Tamba, who lives with her.’

Leonard took her hand, kissed it. ‘You’ve found a friend,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad.’

It was evening, and they were sitting inside with the fan whirring overhead and the flyscreen closed against the mosquitoes. Leonard poured her a glass of wine – Australian, and not very good – which he’d found in the supermarket in town. With the map spread on the table, he showed her the rivers the gold miners had gone up, and the ridges the explorers had crossed, the lakes beside which the first planes had landed. He pointed to the towns, to the large centres of populations, and the coffee. And all the while Rika was thinking about Laedi’s mother with a name such as she’d never heard, Simbaikan, who went to live with Laedi’s father in a house with a tin roof that made a noise such as she’d never imagined when the rain thumped down on it.

‘Did her father marry her mother?’ Leonard asked.

‘He paid five pigs.’

‘That would be customary. Did he register the marriage?’

‘I should think so,’ Rika said.

‘Didn’t Laedi tell you?’

‘She said it was unusual.’ The women had laughed when she asked. No, Laedi had said, it wasn’t usual for a white man to marry a girl from the village. But something had cracked open in him when Laedi was born, and he’d signed the register with the patrol officer, the kiap; he’d raise his daughter like a lady.

‘Ah,’ said Leonard, lighting his pipe. ‘Lady. That’s where it comes from.’

‘Not Lady, not an English lady,’ Rika said. ‘An Australian Laedi. Long vowels.’

‘What did she want to know about you?’ Leonard asked.

‘She wanted to know about Jacob and going to the swamp. She wanted to know what Jacob wanted.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I told her he wanted to know if the university was real.’

Laedi had pursed her lips. ‘Was that all?’ she’d said.