The year is 2000. Ikuko Kanazawa, a 23-year-old Japanese girl, is unsure about the prospect of marrying her boyfriend, Hiroshi. She wants more experience of travel and goes to England, to improve her English, promising Hiroshi she’ll marry him when she returns. Life abroad is daunting at first, as she notes in her diary, but she settles into the new routine. At the student hostel, she goes to the photography club, where she meets Zambian photographer, Bernard Chiluba, whose work she admires. Later, she has a chance encounter with Bernard, who shows her round the city. There is a mutual attraction. Bernard realises she plans to marry, but Ikuko is now unsettled – he is so different from Hiroshi. Soon, Lucretia, a fellow student, suspects they are more than friends. Ikuko goes on a photo club trip to the countryside with Bernard. While returning, a van crashes into the minibus. The driver is hurt but Bernard saves Ikuko from injury. Back at the hostel, after the traumatic events, Ikuko is upset. Bernard comforts her, and they end up spending the night together. In the morning, they have to talk. Neither regrets what has happened, but Bernard reveals he is a single parent, with two children, and Ikuko tells him about Hiroshi. Ikuko is confused about the future, and later confesses all to Hiroshi, who is hurt. Bernard has to leave for Zambia – his children have been abandoned by his estranged wife. Meanwhile, Ikuko, disillusioned with study, returns to Japan. Three months pass till she hears from Bernard. Their letters to each other had gone astray. She gladly accepts his offer to visit Zambia. There, she adapts to life in rural Africa, keeping house and looking after the girls. Although in love with Bernard, she fails to adjust completely to the new life and culture and eventually returns to Japan. The action shifts to 2050. Workers at the Red Sea marine research centre await the arrival of eminent scientist, Joyce Mutanga. She lives in Australia but was born in Africa. Her reputation precedes
her – cold, remote and selfish, as Taka, a Japanese researcher, remembers. Joyce’s presentation is brilliant, but she makes no effort to socialise. Instead, she goes swimming alone, but steps on a venomous stonefish. Her screams are heard by Taka and colleagues, who save her life. In hospital, memories of childhood surface in Joyce’s mind. Taka visits and notices the change in her – now she seems weak and vulnerable. The accident seems to have given Joyce a new outlook on life and she asks Taka to return. She recovers rapidly; Taka takes her for a swim, helping her overcome a post-accident fear of water. The swim ends in romance. Later, they talk; she confides in him about her childhood, which she has never really told anyone before – how life was happy with her grandfather in Zambia, then she was uprooted to Australia by her mother. There, the sea became a safe haven from the world outside. Later, she focused on work and study rather than people. A letter arrives from her recently deceased grandfather, Bernard Chiluba, who has left all his possessions to her. Meanwhile, Taka visits his grandmother in Japan. She is intrigued by the idea of a Zambian marine scientist and insists on watching the presentation and learning all about her. She is upset when she hears that Joyce has returned to Zambia to visit her late grandfather’s house and mutters ‘I’m sorry about Bernard.’ Taka is confused, but his grandmother gives him her old diary, which she kept fifty years ago. He notices the name on the cover is ‘Ikuko Kanazawa’, his grandmother’s maiden name. In Zambia, Joyce sorts through her grandfather’s things, discovering pictures of him as a young man in England, with a Japanese girl. Also, pictures of the same girl at the family home in Zambia but she knows nothing more about her. The story ends with Joyce inviting Taka to Zambia. She has the photos to show him, while he has the diary to show her. They do not realise yet, but their grandparents were lovers fifty years ago. Joyce looks forward to sharing a new life with Taka.