‘Did they work as hard as Rika says?’ Jericho asks. ‘Hard enough to kill Aaron?’

‘He drowned,’ Bili said. ‘It was an accident.’

‘It could have been a heart attack.’

‘Sorcery, more like.’

‘You don’t believe in it.’

‘I don’t. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.’

He takes a deep breath, prepares himself for the argument that’s brewing, but Laedi puts a stop to it. She gives Bili a warning look and sends her to the kitchen for more beer.

Laedi’s house is full of people staying for the celebrations. Too many faces, he can’t get their wide web of connection sorted out – it’s enough to know they are her relatives from the Highlands. She sends the fares, she buys the food, and they fill the kitchen, thick with the smell of cooking. Tamba is there - he remembers her, of course he remembers; the soft touch of her hand, her wide lap, her comforting presence, lying beside him when he couldn’t sleep. Tamba and Bili. He’d sleep between them, and in the morning Tamba would prepare cold yam and lemon water. Now she fusses over him, ‘Ah, Jericho, so big, so strong, you came back to us.’ She brews Highland coffee for him, not the Italian coffee Laedi buys from Australia.

With Laedi’s relatives, there’s no room in the house for the young men from the mountain, Jericho’s wantoks, who have walked over the Kokoda Track with their peanuts to sell. Young Albert is offended that there’s nowhere for them in this reward of a house. He is sulky. Jericho doesn’t know how to remedy the offence, apology adding to his woes. He has no idea how many are coming, or why. He doesn’t know whether the peanuts and the celebrations are enough to bring them. Or whether it’s him, the investment, they are making the long trek to inspect.

‘It’s not so far,’ Young Albert says. ‘Australian tourists, they make big work.’ He mimes them gasping for breath, struggling along the track under the weight of their packs. ‘For us, it’s like a road. The ones coming, they do it often.’

‘How often?’

‘Some time. Some time.’

‘What shall I do?’ Jericho feels his voice thin and pleading. ‘Where will they stay?’

‘They stay at the settlement. Wantoks there.’ Young Albert grins. ‘It’s okay. We’ll go to the market, buy fish and beer.’