But it is a lie. He makes as much as he can of anything she gives. He takes her to her bed, and while she lies still, he traces every vein in her body, every crease, every dip, every rise; he lets his fingers move gently, and when she does not stop him, he feels her soft and moist and open, the mysterious, miraculous stirring under his fingers, and he feels the pulse of her, the taste of her as she comes. When the tears seep between her closed lids, he tastes them too. She raises her mouth, taste on taste, and her hand guides him into her.

‘Are you sure?’ he murmurs. ‘It’s not an exchange.’

‘I’m sure,’ she says.

Afterwards he thinks, sure of what? That one exchange? Of him? He has the sense not to ask.

ANCESTOR GIFT

THE DAY COMES FOR MEG TO DRIVE JERICHO TO the end of the road.

They leave the school early, before classes begin. Boys are milling around, peering at the kago that has been squeezed into the back of the station wagon: kerosene, rice, tinned meat; blankets and wet-weather gear; buckets, tarpaulin, rope; torches, nails, batteries, tobacco; as many Time magazines as Jericho could lay his hands on – a request from Obi – and a bottle of rum for emergencies; a box of medicines from Meg.

‘That’ll set you up,’ Milton says as Jericho secretes the rum at the bottom of his pack. And then, through the window, his voice morose: ‘If it gets too hard, you can come back early.’ He waves the book in his hand as Meg coaxes the car into life.

At the end of the school road, she turns inland, towards Kokoda. She leans forward as she drives, rarely out of third gear, easing the car over gullies and creeks where rain has washed the road away, up onto the verge to avoid the vans and utilities that come hurtling towards her, their human cargo clinging on at the back. She leans out of the window, shouts at the exhaust fumes that blow across the road. ‘Too fast! You want to die yet?’

Their progress is slow. They are flagged down at villages, sometimes for nothing more than to say hello, once to wait while a child is sent for a pineapple. Another time, it’s to see a woman with a scrunched and fevered baby, then an old man wheezing pitifully. Meg says she’ll pick them up on her way back. ‘You be ready now.’ She gives the mother a cloth to sponge the baby, cool the fever.

‘Will it be okay?’ Jericho asks. ‘Should we go first to the hospital?’

‘I’ll be back soon enough,’ she says. ‘You have a long walk, remember.’

‘What if the baby dies?’

‘Babies die all the time.’

He is about to protest when she says, ‘Don’t worry. This one won’t.’

On they drive, until they turn to the east, following a small creek through a village, along the edge of a garden. The road dwindles to a track, then peters out into a narrow path. Meg stops the car; the engine gives its usual shudder and hisses quietly. There’s a moment of silence before they hear the crash and whoop of people running through the trees towards them: Jericho’s kin from the mountain coming to meet him, with Obi in the lead.