The wind had stopped. Outside, another car drove slowly past. Wana stood up and went to the door.

‘And you?’ Rika asked. Aaron, too, had lost his mother young. He’d still been at the primary school and had heard the drums from the canoe.

‘The crying carried over the water,’ he said. ‘She’d been well when we left soon after dawn, and by noon she’d collapsed by a stream she’d known all her life.’

‘Was it a snake?’

‘No, her skin was intact.’

‘There was no doctor?’

‘There’s an aid post at the airstrip, near the school. No one went when it was sorcery.’

‘Was it?’

‘I know enough to say it wasn’t, but somewhere inside I think it was.’

‘Why wouldn’t it be possible?’ Rika asked. ‘Under the surface the currents are strong.’

‘There was a root of ginger on the rocks by her canoe,’ he said.

‘And Jacob?’ Rika asked. ‘Was he there?’

‘He was with me in the canoe when we came back from school. I saw that there was magic. Even then he didn’t believe it.’

Another pause. Rika watched the blue curl of his cigarette smoke. ‘Do you think of her often?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes,’ he said.

‘I try not to, but it’s like a skin. A part of me.’

‘A double skin. That’s what we call a tattoo.’

She smiled. Everything about her felt doubted; he surely could read her skin.

He reached across and took her hand, lifted it to his face. A soft kiss. One soft kiss.

‘When will you be back?’ she asked.

‘At the end of next week.’

‘And Jacob?’

‘He’ll stay longer.’

‘Is it okay? Between you two?’ She knew that it wasn’t.

‘It has to be,’ he said. ‘We’re the only two who are educated for the future. We have to agree.’

‘You go tomorrow?’

He nodded.

‘So soon.’

‘You’ll be here when I return?’

Her eyes didn’t waver. A smile. A slight nod of the head.

ONE MORNING WHILE AARON WAS AWAY, RIKA RAN UP THE STAIRS from the newsagent with an Australian tabloid newspaper. She put it on Gina’s desk with a flourish and opened it to the bikini girl. ‘I’ve just seen a Highlander chased out for looking at this,’ she said, jabbing her finger at the grainy picture. ‘I told the man at the counter that it wasn’t illegal to look at a newspaper, and he called me a coon lover, said he knew all about me, filthy coon lover, I should go back where I came from.’ She was flushed and breathless. ‘Coon. I’ve never heard that word.’

‘It’s like nigger,’ Gina said. ‘They use it in Australia.’

‘We should report him.’

‘He’s an old-timer. He’ll be gone soon.’

‘That’s no reason. We must report him.’

‘Who to?’ Gina asked.

‘The police.’

Gina shook her head. ‘They won’t take you seriously. Especially since the demonstation. You were in the paper, remember. They’ll be on his side and on your back for ever. It’s not worth it. Things are changing, and they will more.’