In fact, marrying Leonard had meant a year in Oxford, which in terms of sun wasn’t an improvement, but the year had passed and now, at last, here they were in Papua, at the end of a long journey. But instead of a mountain covered in rainforest and inhabited by artists, they were in a dry valley outside an awkward house in a row of awkward houses, expected to climb the steps and into a party of people gathered in welcome. Red-faced men were calling out from the veranda with beer bottles in their hands. They were wearing beige shorts, garments Rika had never before seen on grown men. The women, all but the youngest, were dressed in the slacks of Australian fashion. Slacks, in this heat. Rika was in an indigo shift, and her fringe fell over her eyes as she looked down at her own pale legs. Leonard put an encouraging hand on her shoulder and again she hesitated, turning to look into the dark.

It was a still night. The moon, just past the full, gave the hills a silvery quality. She’d seen them from the plane; they’d looked like waves coming into shore. Behind them lay the dark bulk of mountains; beyond that, on the other side of the island – Leonard had shown her on the map – was the mountain she’d come to think of as theirs.

From the plane she’d also seen villages curved along beaches, canoes pulled up on the sand; blue water, blue skies, just as she’d imagined. Beside the houses were trees with spreading branches, and along a sandy track a line of trees with flame-red leaves. Leaves or petals, she didn’t know – she’d never seen such a tree, even in the Botanical Gardens at Leiden.

‘It looks like paradise down there,’ she said to Leonard.

‘But not Port Moresby, I’m told,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed.’

By the time they landed, clouds had come in over the mountains, the sky had lost its blue and hung low and heavy. When they’d crossed the tarmac to the hangar that served as a terminal, Rika was streaming with moisture. All around her people jostled, selling watermelon and carved masks, touting for business, calling out in singing voices. While Leonard lit his pipe and watched for the trunk with his film equipment, she waded into the crowd, pushing past the Australians who’d been on the plane and were now standing in groups, mopping their foreheads and calling across to the porters. She went on, into the colour and the smells, into this strange world where even air and trees had changed their nature. She lifted her camera to a tall woman with tattoo lines radiating across her face, a cigarette tucked into the bush of her hair. Rika smiled. The woman did not. She held Rika’s gaze until she’d returned the Leica to her basket. The woman nodded, a ghost of a smile, and turned into the crowd.