‘So, Jericho,’ Martha says when they’re settled at the table with the menus. ‘You’re going back.’

He nods, a quizzical expression that says, Yes, he’s going back, but he’s not at all sure.

‘A big decision.’

‘It’s thirty years now,’ he says. ‘A good round number.’ Not much of an answer, but it’s a start.

‘Thirty years,’ Martha says. ‘I suppose it is.’ Thirty years since independence. She remembers the celebrations, the dancing and the music. And the rain, the mud. Independence. What a fine word that is, and something stirs in a dark region of her memory, something sad and raw. She doesn’t expect the raw, not after all this time.

‘I’ve got leave from the gallery,’ Jericho says. ‘A year away from London.’ He makes a face that says, Help! A year! Will I last that long? ‘Did you know,’ he says, ‘that they’ve closed the airstrip on the mountain? I’ll have to walk in.’

‘Where from?’

‘The road that goes up to Kokoda. I’ve looked it up on the map. There’s a side road part of the way, but it’s still a long walk just to get to the river.’ The river at the base of the mountain.

Martha knows that road. Dust when it’s dry, cut by flooding gullies when it’s wet. ‘How fit are you?’ she asks. He’s not tall, but his legs are well muscled. Legs born for a mountain that is steep and ridged, with many peaks.

‘I’ve been training at the gym,’ he says. ‘And at weekends I walk for hours. London’s so flat, it’s probably been a complete waste of time.’ He laughs. ‘At Easter I went to Wales with Leonard. We did a lot of walking, but nothing compared to the mountain. His advice is not to think about it too much and when the time comes to just do it!’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Martha says. She never went up, but everyone who did came back without an ounce of fat, and Jericho doesn’t look as if he has much to spare. He’s lean, small-boned, with the soft, coppery skin of his Papuan mother and the long face of his English father. The black curls of his hair are as thick as they were when he was a child.

The food arrives. Small portions on large plates. They should have crossed the road at the back of the museum and gone to a café. She knows he’s been with the curators all morning, as his gallery in London is borrowing from their holdings for a show in two years’ time. Even so.

‘How’s Rika?’ she asks. It’s a question she can’t not ask, and fears will take her where she doesn’t want to go.

‘She’s in New York.’

‘I know. But that’s about all I know.’

Jericho takes a photo from the satchel of papers he has with him. ‘I’m taking it up to the mountain,’ he says. ‘To show them.’

As he hands it across, Martha feels a sharp stab of betrayal. Rika is standing against a white wall beside the ground-spider bark-cloth. Its many legs stretch above her, white on a dark background, long and thin, like the rays of the moon.