‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Take no notice – this happens every day. I say to my husband, “Three times a day!” But… look. This is Nikko and Roselle, together – see how he holds her? He loves everyone so much, and he says to me, “Mummy…”’

For a moment, she couldn’t continue.

Michael put his arm around her, and she leaned against him.

‘Wait,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘There’s a signal. Wait – you want to speak to them?’

She wiped her eyes, laughing.

‘My sister will be angry, but I don’t care. Okay? They are eating now. What’s the time?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s twelve o’clock, just gone, so seven in the Philippines. You want to meet them? Speak to them?’

‘I don’t understand—’

‘We have a signal, Michael. You don’t use computers?’

She had opened the tablet’s little bag again, and was searching for something.

‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘All the time.’

‘For calling your friends?’

‘No. You’re calling them now? Maria…’

‘Hush. Wait.’

‘We’re on a mountain.’

‘So what? You have a signal on a mountain, always. The best.’

She had a plastic clip, and he watched her fingers as they inserted its tiny cable into some hidden socket or port. Then she was closing windows on the screen and opening new ones. She called up a grid of numbers somehow, and tapped them until they spun and expanded – they were like petals, which came together and resolved into an image of a little house. She was signing into something.

‘They will think you are a scary man,’ she said. ‘Joking.’

Cartoon people appeared, waddling across the screen: truncated bodies with cartoon eyes that blinked together. Then the tablet was alive in every sense: it was buzzing and chirping, and he saw that she was completely serious, and making a connection across those thousands of miles. You really could stand in the middle of a wilderness, and reach out to another continent. She was doing it, and presumably somewhere in Manila a phone or another tablet was ringing and shuddering, and someone was walking towards it.

‘Is this expensive?’ said Michael.

‘No,’ said Maria. ‘I mean, yes. Very.’

Her sister’s phone rang soon after seven in the evening, Manila time. The satellites took the signal, bouncing it around the curve of the world until a face appeared on the screen, just a little concerned.

‘Maria?’ said a voice. It was so far away: so thin, and so distant.

‘Maria… Ok-ka lang? Are you okay?’

31

It was her sister, and the next moment Max was beside her.