Wilkie has an elder’s pendant over his sports shirt. He has canoed up to see Jericho, as they’d arranged. He tells him they’ve cleared a space around the grave, cut back the bush that has grown around it. A new cross has been made and the grave marked with clam shells. They will sleep in Wilkie’s guesthouse, where there are six beds, each with a mattress and windows that open to the fjords. He’s come to buy coffee and milk from the trade store, rice to go with the fish and cray they will cook for the feast to honour Laedi, who is a minister now, he says as if maybe Jericho didn’t know. The feast to remember Aaron. He gives Jericho a copy of the agenda he’s drawn up for their meeting, everything set out for the ceremony at the village.

Among the boys from the string band is one with an air of confidence that borders on arrogance. He’s wearing a sharp black T-shirt with the name of an Australian band. He is Jacob’s son, Lance. ‘His lastborn,’ Wilkie says.

The smile Lance gives might be the smile of a prince, and Wilkie says something sharp to him in their language. The boy recomposes his face and retreats with the band, back to the trees, where they start playing. They will play, Wilkie says, to welcome Laedi when she comes off the plane. The councillor will give a speech, for Leonard too, he says, Jericho’s father, long known to his village, but not yet seen, except by Wilkie, long ago when he was in Moresby for school.

‘Big trouble, that boy,’ Milton says to Martha as they watch Lance with his guitar and his fine voice. ‘He was expelled from his school in Brisbane for dealing drugs. Jacob isn’t letting him back to Moresby until he’s learned humility and the ways of the village. He’s here without money, working in the gardens, learning to be a man.’ By the look of him, it could take some time. Lance’s hip movements have become exaggerated with the arrival of a group of girls. ‘Just like his father, eh?’ Milton says, smiling at Martha. ‘Remember?’

Yes, she remembers. She’s not sure what Milton is remembering, and she doesn’t ask.

When the sun is hot overhead and they go back into the resort, back to the wicker chairs and the fans, Martha is reconciled to the interrupted face of another day. So it comes as a surprise when Jericho appears with his goggles later in the afternoon and asks Martha if she’d like to go down to the wharf for a swim. It’s a good time of day to swim, he says, and if she doesn’t have goggles, which she doesn’t, they can borrow a mask and snorkel from Jim. ‘I’ll take you along the edge of the reef,’ he says.

Swimming in these fjords had not been among her considerations. That was not a past to be reawakened. A refusal is on its way up from her belly, when she realises that Jericho’s invitation is made only to her. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Why not?’