Napo’s face has gone still. He speaks to Obi in the mountain language Jericho no longer understands, and Obi’s face takes on the same immobility. Jericho doesn’t know why it is Napo making the request, not Obi; maybe because he’s the elder of the two, and the son of a chief. He doesn’t know how to ask, but he knows from the low rumble in his gut that he has got this exchange wrong.

‘All what is going on?’ Meg says, bringing sweet potato to the table. Milton’s grey head has sunk down into his chest, Chinua Achebe on his lap ready for his matriculation class.

‘Jericho,’ he says. ‘He must go to Moresby for Bili’s case.’

‘So?’ Meg says.

‘They want me to go to the mountain,’ Jericho says. ‘Today maybe.’

‘Today,’ Meg says to Napo. ‘No good today. How is he to buy fish and rice, kerosene to take to the chiefs? Gifts. He cannot return without gifts. Much work to be done. Do you have a house for him? Are you ready? Obi, you know there is much preparation to do.’

‘He is here today,’ Obi says. ‘First we take the PMV to town. He can buy kerosene there.’

Something in Napo’s face has tightened. ‘He goes to Moresby,’ he says to Meg.

‘He goes to Moresby. He can come back. The planes, they fly every day. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

And then to Jericho, ‘So, you set up the date. You tell them when you will arrive. You say which day you come back. I will drive you to the end of the road. They will meet you. Okay?’

‘One month,’ Jericho says, plucking a date out of the air, and once it’s said, he knows it can’t be unsaid. One month.

Milton is looking into his lap as if he can read the words through the covers.

‘Okay,’ Napo says. He is smiling. ‘Very good. All the same. We tell the chiefs. One month. We will wait for you. The end of the road.’

‘Good one,’ Meg says. ‘Okay, Jericho. It’s up to you now.’

That afternoon Milton has no classes to teach. He comes across from the school with a letter for Jericho.

‘This came,’ he says. It’s from Bili, addressed care of Milton at the school.

‘Just because you said you would,’ she writes, ‘don’t think you have to come back for the case. Better you get things settled. No expectations here. Bili.’

‘Bad news?’ Milton asks, watching him read.

‘She says not to bother to come for the case.’

‘She’s proud. Always was. She’s hardly going to ask you to come.’

‘She didn’t need to tell me not to.’

‘Probably means she wants you to. Getting in first, in case you don’t. She was like that as a child. Ferocious when she was fighting for someone else. When it came to her, she’d refuse help. On her own, shoulders back, didn’t matter what happened.’

Jericho sighs. Oh, Bili. Why do you have to make it so hard?