‘So she still has it.’ Martha keeps her voice even, not letting him see how angry she is. Rika keeps the cloth, lets herself be photographed beside it, and yet for thirty years has ignored letters, closing off the past as if it can be banished by the force of her refusal. ‘When was it taken?’ she asks.

‘Recently. For an exhibition.’

‘Does she talk to you about what happened?’

‘No. Never.’ He shakes his head, sighs. ‘Leonard tells me what he knows, but he wasn’t there for most of it. And she won’t talk about any of it. Nothing.’

He thinks of the row they had before he left London. Not a row exactly, Rika is too controlled for that. Better if it had been. She said she’d never interfere with him returning, but it didn’t mean she should dredge up a past long gone.

‘She gives me access to the archive,’ he says. ‘It’s all there, all the photos, but she won’t tell me what they mean. She seems to think they’re enough on their own. But they’re not.’

Martha hears the frustration in his voice and she leans across, puts her hand on his. ‘What is it you want to know?’

‘Everything. What burst you all apart.’

‘It’s thirty years ago,’ Martha says. Her heart feels tight. There’s a part of her that wants to say to Jericho, Let us bear the burden of the past, it should not be yours. He may be thirty-six and think of himself as getting old, but she knows he’s too young to realise how fast the rest will go, the accelerating decades, and she wants to say to him, Don’t look back. Be brave, go up there, do what you must, but when you leave, be sure you’re poised for the future. Then she thinks of her own departure, remembers the faces of her Papuan friends. It’s all very well for you guys. You can leave. That’s the least that was said. She should remember, betrayal cuts many ways.

She sits there, silent, looking at Jericho, remembering. The gift child, they called him on the mountain.

A waiter comes, clears their plates. They smile at him, turn their faces into those of people enjoying the pleasures of Sydney. Over at the Quay, ferries are easing in and out; the life of the city goes on, as it does, every day. The man sprayed silver continues to stand like a statue, the jugglers continue to juggle, and the didgeridoo plays to the tourists.

Martha looks at Jericho and understands it will be a hard return.

BOOK ONE

1968–73

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

…

Is it right to be watching strangers in a play

In this strangest of theatres?

Elizabeth Bishop,
‘Questions of Travel’, 1956