At home – home, how easily that word comes – in London, he has to lie down for a blood test, otherwise he faints.

‘Do you want Nelly to come to you tonight?’ Obi asks when he stands up late one evening to return to his house. Jericho is shocked, though he’s been told that’s how it happens.

‘Be careful,’ Simeon warned.

‘I thought you wanted me to marry a mountain girl,’ Jericho replied.

‘Nah! You don’t have the sense. But if you try one out, be careful. They’ll want your balls.’

After the offer of Nelly, Jericho is cautious. He sees her blush when he looks at her. He can’t deny that the thought of her sweetens the nights. They are long – twelve hours – time bifurcated between light and dark. Kerosene is heavy to carry, there are few lamps and they cannot be lit for long. It’s impossible to read. He’s brought Conrad and Stevenson; both are wrong. He doesn’t want the ugly face of colonialism, he doesn’t want Pacific dreams. Not now. Not here. After dark, he listens to the talk amongst the men before they fall asleep: adventures in town, prowess in hunting, conquests in love. Though he has learned how to joke with them, after the offer of Nelly he finds himself edgy and critical. When the talk returns to the smouldering feud with the low village, he snaps. ‘Why don’t you have a feast and make up?’ he says. ‘Why have a fight with your own clans? It’d make you stronger against the people down below.’

‘No good,’ Hector says. ‘Down below, they are angry. They gave up their cloth, joined the mission.’ He laughs, makes the droning sound of prayer, then lifts his arms and rolls his eyes in imitation of a preacher. ‘They think they win that way. Ha!’ He laughs again, slaps his hands in the air. ‘They upset the ancestors and now you come. Ancestor gift. Yeah!’ He puts up his hand for a high five, but Jericho isn’t playing.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m not an ancestor gift. Just a man, all the same as you.’

Obi has put up a warning hand. He has a bible and leads the prayers on Sunday. Whatever it is he says to Hector – too fast for Jericho to understand – Hector does not reply.

‘So why did you people up here keep your custom? Your art?’ Jericho asks. He might as well stay serious.

‘It was necessary for the mountain,’ Obi says. ‘The chiefs heard it from the ancestors. Then Leonard came.’

‘Did the ancestors say Leonard would come?’

‘We knew.’

‘What about Don?’

‘A trick. He was a trick.’

‘How do you know Leonard wasn’t a trick too?’

‘Because of you. Because he gave us you.’

‘I thought you gave me to him.’

‘We did. The chiefs did. We gave you to Leonard so you grow on his land, in his place. We wait for you to return.’

‘And if I didn’t?’