And as if Obi has grasped the metaphor of digging down, he and Napo take him into the forest, along a spur where only men can walk, until they reach a high cliff that leans in, blocking the sky. At its base, there is a large hole dug deep into the ground. The ujavue, where long ago initiations took place. The nest where boys went to become men. Jericho has imagined somewhere snug, cosy, and here is a dark, damp hole. There are rocks and tree roots at the bottom, the bones of animals that have fallen in. ‘Long ago,’ Obi says. ‘Before we were born. The chief was a small child when the ujavue finished.’ His voice is apologetic. ‘Old practice from before. Long ago, we stop.’

Jericho knows of the ujavue from Leonard; he’s made a story of it, which he’s told many times in London. The director of the gallery where he works told it at his farewell party. ‘So Jericho’s going off, back to his roots, literally it seems, for where he came from young men are taken into the forest to live in nests under the ground for a year. And when they emerge, the youngest perches on the shoulder of the eldest and pecks his way through the roof. Boys hatched as men! It could be an installation. They go in soft-skinned and come out tattooed warriors.’ The director paused for the laughter. ‘We’re sending a man, a fine man, an excellent curator, and we hope that when he’s hatched he’ll return to us.’ Standing there in the forest, Jericho remembers it all, the applause, the clink of glasses, the girl he took home that night, her hand on his arse, her posh voice shouting over the party roar. A-maz-ing.

He looks down into the ground and everything sinks. The ancient sediment. The heavy veil. His ponderous metaphors. The muscles in his stomach. All these years, he’s imagined a nest, a warm cocoon, and the forest soft and feathery overhead, not this grim darkness and the cliff rising up. No sunlight, so that the bodies of the boys would soften for the tattoo.

‘How could boys live down there all that time?’

‘This is an old hole,’ Obi says. ‘On top, a roof. Inside, plenty of leaves. The chiefs camp on top, they build a small house, they make a fire.’

‘And food?’

‘The women leave it.’ Napo gestures, back behind them.

That night, when he returns to his house after a meal on Boja’s platform, after the other men are asleep, Jericho surreptitiously opens the bottle of rum secreted at the bottom of his pack and takes a swig.

He is on the mountain.

IT IS AFTERNOON AND LILLA IS STANDING AT THE STEPS TO JERICHO’S platform, calling up to him through the white feathers that fall across her forehead. Beside her is a young woman. He recognises her, clan-kin but not a sister, one of the girls from a family who lives at the other end of the village.