‘A FINE, I SEE,’ said Mrs MacWilliam as Paul approached her desk, overdue book held before him. ‘Though tell you what: if you can put it back for me yourself, and those over there on the trolley, I might just let you off. Deal?’
Homely by nature, and kindly-looking, she had a mess of greying hair that was always escaping its bun, while her features, which lacked sharpness anyway, tended to be smudged rather than defined by her make-up. Her smile was imprecise too; and her glasses, when not on her nose, were invariably to be found aslant the shelf of her ample bosom, held there by a fraying cord looped negligently about her neck. Yet, despite appearances, Mrs MacWilliam was a stickler for order when it came to her library. Each of the books she’d indicated to Paul to put away was neatly covered in sturdy plastic and bore a label in the centre of its spine, coloured and numbered according to subject matter. And as Paul began to return these books to the shelves which stretched from floor to ceiling across all four of the library’s walls – he’d accepted Mrs MacWilliam’s offer with alacrity, since his parents kept him on a pretty tight leash, money-wise – he thought again how safe the library always made him feel; how cocooned. Partly because it was so well-ordered; but also because its shelves muffled all trace of outside noise, even from the nearby kitchen. Only some of the smells got through, making its embrace – its musty, dusty, dimly lit embrace – infinitely soothing.
‘You are an obliging boy!’ said Mrs MacWilliam before he’d quite finished. ‘I wonder … Mrs Stanford and I have been thinking about getting ourselves a library monitor. It wouldn’t involve much. Just an extra pair of hands, really. Once or twice a week. Well?’
Paul had, he realised, put away upwards of fifteen books in half that many minutes. Just one remained, a novel (the colour of the label told him that) about flies, of all things. Hardly arduous, then, being a library monitor, and he did like it here. So why not? But, before he could say as much, he became aware of another presence in the room. The obsequious Slug, no less. Who must have slipped in quietly, while Mrs MacWilliam had been talking.
‘Well, dear?’ said Mrs MacWilliam.
‘What do you want?’ demanded Paul of the new arrival.
‘We’re waiting,’ said Slug. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’
‘Now, now, boys!’ came the inevitable if gentle reprimand. ‘This is the library.’
‘Come on!’ said Slug impatiently, beseeching Paul with magnified eyes. ‘He’ll get even crosser if we don’t go quick.’
‘If you’re not here to borrow a book, young man, then I suggest —’
‘Okay,’ hissed Paul. ‘Keep your hair on.’ And to Mrs MacWilliam, ‘Can I come back later to talk about it?’
‘Of course you can, dear.’ Mrs MacWilliam smiled. ‘Though don’t leave it too long, all right?’
‘Dear!’ remarked Slug with a sly grin as, moments later, they dashed across the playground. ‘She called you dear!’
‘So what?’ retorted Paul. ‘Just because no one talks nicely to you!’
The tuck shop, he noted gratefully, had closed its doors for the day and there were few observers about. Ditto for the playing fields, where – since games were over – the only potential watcher was a distant Pheko, bent low over his roller as he inched it across the pitch.
Ever since the weekend, when his parents’ questions had, in conjunction with the unexpected introduction of Mr du Toit into the equation, caused Paul to scrutinise his feelings more than he might have otherwise, his initial delight at being asked to join du Toit’s club had been compromised by a growing unease. Could you, he’d been forced to speculate, be mistaken in your own desires? Nor was his unease lessened by the summons from Slug. So okay, the moment of initiation – long hankered after – had presumably arrived. But why Slug, whom no one in their right mind wanted ever, under any circumstances, to be seen with?
‘There’s space,’ du Toit had said, ‘is all.’
Involving whom, though? Not Slug, it would seem, because if Slug had been sent to summon Paul he must currently be du Toit’s right-hand man. Wasn’t that how it worked?
So had Lombard been displaced in that case? And, if so, how? Why? When?
‘We’d better go round,’ panted the object of Paul’s reflections, pointing at the distant Pheko. ‘Or he’ll report us.’
The hut where du Toit held court was on the far side of the fields, in a long, narrow ditch that marked the boundary between the school grounds and the outside world. Here, in an irregular row, were half a dozen such huts, all built from scrap wood, sheets of corrugated iron, branches and whatever else the builders had been able to lay their hands on. Most were pretty basic and cramped – Paul had been inside one once. But some were larger and boasted superior features like a strip of old carpet, rudimentary windows, a hinged door. Du Toit’s was one of these and, as Paul and Slug slithered down the side of the ditch towards it, Paul noticed that against the door – an actual door with an actual doorknob wonkily attached to it – was propped a clipboard with a piece of paper on it and a chewed pencil dangling from one of its corners.
Still panting, Slug took up the clipboard and demanded, ‘Name?’
Paul looked at Slug in some amazement.
‘I need you to say it,’ wheezed Slug, tapping the clipboard. ‘It’s the rules.’
Ah! thought Paul. The rules.
‘Okay,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Paul Harvey.’
‘Is that your only name?’
‘Of course not.’
‘The rules say “in full”. I’ll show you if you like.’
‘Okay,’ said Paul again, although he didn’t like this one bit. ‘Paul Thomas Barnabas Harvey.’ The Barnabas was for his grandmother’s father, or so he’d once been told; he never used it himself, not even when first inscribing his diary. It was just too weird and might all too easily lead, he’d always feared, to teasing.
So why had he proffered it, then? Why hadn’t he stopped at Thomas? No one would have been any the wiser.
Meanwhile, Slug was knocking on the door – four distinct times – saying between each knock: (knock) ‘I …’ (knock) ‘… ask …’ (knock) ‘… permission.’ (knock).
The knocks had no immediate effect, however, other than causing the doorknob to wobble, and a few anxious moments passed before, finally, they heard an answering murmur from within.
‘Enter,’ said Slug, taking careful hold of the doorknob. ‘And duck, hey, or you’ll catch the support and the hut will collapse. It has happened.’
Paul did as instructed, with Slug following close behind, to be met by a pervasive smell of earthy decay and damp. Then he saw, taking gradual shape in the gloom – for du Toit’s hut didn’t have a window, just the door, which Slug had closed behind them – a clutch of shadowy forms: Horton, Strover, Labuschagne and Kintock. So! It was Lombard who’d been chucked out (clever, popular Lombard), putting Slug (wobbly, ridiculous, pitiful, bespectacled Slug) in the ascendant.
Whatever next!
The club members were all crouched at the feet of their captain, who himself was not on his haunches but sat on an upturned wooden crate. On his head was a plastic Roman helmet, part of some dressing-up set by the look of it, while behind him, against the wall of rusty corrugated iron, hung a shabby strip of carpet on which had been painted, in white, a series of interlocking rings, rather like the Olympic symbol, except here there were six rings, not five. One for each member of the club, presumably.
‘Greet the new boy!’ commanded du Toit, raising an imperious hand.
‘Welcome, Harvey!’ chanted the others. ‘Paul Thomas Barnabas Harvey: welcome.’
So this was why Slug had coerced him into revealing all of his names!
Du Toit then ordered his right-hand man to read the rules.
Slug had regained his breath by now and so, clipboard to hand, was able to recite them in a measured monotone, much like someone standing on the dais in Stanford’s maths class, reciting theorems.
| One: | The captain must be obeyed at all times. | |
| Two: | The captain must be referred to only by rank, never by name. | |
| Three: | Whenever he wishes, the captain may set club members tasks to perform so that the member can retain or improve his ranking within the club. | |
| Four: | Club members must not talk to non-club members about the club’s activities. | |
| Five: | Meetings are to be held at least once a week and in the club house. | |
| Six: | Members may only speak at meetings when invited to do so by the captain. |
There was more, but by now Paul had rather stopped listening. Rule number one had made the general point and anyway, what about his task, he was thinking, assuming he’d be set one? That trumped rules, which he reckoned he could swot up any time, like you did homework.
Slug finished his recital – as with the Biblical commandments, there were ten in all – and the captain now asked for something called the minutes: a round-up of recent activities, this turned out to be, some of which Slug talked about from notes attached to his clipboard, others of which various club members reported on. Labuschagne and Kintock, for instance, told of a joint task they’d been set – they did everything together, these two: giggled as one in class, had adjoining beds in the dormitory, hooks likewise for their towels in the shower room. And last week they’d also been the ones to applepie the juniors’ beds.
‘During morning break,’ explained Labuschagne. ‘That’s when we did it.’
‘Matron’s never around then – we had spans of time,’ added Kintock eagerly. ‘So we did the whole dormitory, not just Biccard’s, like you said.’
Clearly he was expecting du Toit to be impressed by this show of zeal. Instead of which, a chilling silence descended, broken at length by the captain leaning forward and saying, ‘If I want you to show initiative, Kintock, I’ll tell you in advance. Okay?’
Paul wondered whether Kintock might protest, the put-down had been that severe; but in the gloom it was impossible to read anyone’s expression with accuracy: eyes were simply pools of further darkness against areas of ghost-like glimmer. And besides, du Toit didn’t give him time.
‘Right, Murray,’ he was saying, using Slug’s surname. ‘Harvey comes in over Labuschagne and Kintock. Got that?’
Consulting his clipboard, Slug confirmed: ‘One: Murray. Two: Strover. Three: Horton. Four: Harvey. Five: Labuschagne. Six: Kintock.’
‘Number four,’ said du Toit, turning to Paul with a satisfied nod. ‘And if you do your first task okay, you’ll go even further. The only limit is yourself. Isn’t that right, everyone?’
‘Yes, captain!’ chorused the others.
‘What are we?’
‘Your club!’
‘What do we do?’
‘Work together!’
‘No one!’
‘And who do we follow?’
‘You, captain!’
As imperiously as before, du Toit held up his hand once more.
‘Club dismissed,’ he said. ‘All except Harvey.’
‘But you haven’t told him his task!’ objected Slug.
‘What?’
‘His task. You haven’t —’
‘Are you questioning me, Murray?’
‘No, captain, of course not. But usually you —’
‘So today things are different. That’s all. Okay?’
There was an awkward pause, at the tail-end of which Slug said meekly, ‘Yes, captain. Sorry, captain. It won’t happen again. Promise.’
Still crouching – within the confines of the hut, it was impossible to do otherwise – he then crept towards the door and pushed it open. The others all exited, dipping their heads in the direction of their captain as they went, while the chastened Slug ticked off their names on his list before finally exiting himself.
The door was pushed shut and Paul was alone in the gloom with his nemesis. A less than comfortable experience, he discovered. Desired maybe, but not exactly delightful.
Oh, he could just imagine what his parents might say!
‘Captain?’ His voice sounded strange, even to his own ears.
In a low tone, du Toit said, ‘I sent the others away because the task I have for you is secret. No one must know. Next time we’re in Spier’s study, if you see anything unusual, I want you to gap it. Okay? Then bring it to me. Got that?’
Or words to this effect because it’s more Paul’s utter surprise at being tasked with stealing something from Spier that lingers in the memory. He knew of course that du Toit didn’t care for Spier, that Spier was hard on du Toit. But to want something stolen from Spier’s study? What would that achieve?
It was all most odd – Lombard having been chucked out, Slug now being du Toit’s right-hand man, the nature of his task – all without precedent and liable, you might have thought, to give him pause as he emerged afterwards into the dying light of day. Except it didn’t. Rather, the sharp unease he’d been feeling earlier began gradually to evaporate as he made his slow way back to the main building and was gone completely – like magic, poof! – by the time he’d reached the playground. He could even have sworn that the boys gathering there to go into supper were regarding him with new respect.
And why not? After all, he had now been fully inducted into his new status. Hadn’t he?
Remembering again how glorious it felt, this sensation of walking tall for a change, I arrive, unambushed, at the outskirts of the town I’ve been aiming for. In the dark, I can just about make out a sign saying welcome; also, an almost unpronounceable and most unusual-sounding name. Unremembered too; not even faintly familiar. When last I’d looked in any detail at an atlas of the country – with MacWilliam in geography, most probably – towns like this had generally been Afrikaans by designation, never African.
If that’s the correct distinction to make. Because aren’t both choices, in their way, African? I should really say Sotho; or Tswana; or Zulu; or whatever language it is that’s been used to rename the town.
Mokimolle.
It sounds like a dip.
What hasn’t altered, though, is the ‘feel’ of the place. Its unmistakable type, evident even in the dark. The single main street with its tatty shops and commercial buildings, all grouped within a few blocks of each other. And, beyond this, a couple more blocks, but no more than a couple, of uniform bungalows, also tatty-looking, one of which must house my B&B. Then further veld, vastly more veld, and an abiding sense therefore that the town’s existence is vestigial.
‘So you’re from Sussex!’ says Giles, the B&B’s owner, as he signs me in. ‘I’ve been to Sussex. Brighton. I really liked Brighton. Though you have to laugh, hey, when they call it a beach. Those pebbles. I mean!’
I learn too that Giles lives with Lawrence, whom I will meet later – right now he’s cooking – and that they started their B&B after retiring early from stressful jobs in Gauteng.
‘Five years this October,’ explains Giles, ‘and we haven’t looked back. I used to like Jozie – sorry, I mean Johannesburg. That’s what we call it here. Best city in the world, I used to say, but the country’s changed, hey. It’s really changed.’ With plump hands, he smooths his billowy shirt, worn loose, I guess, in the hope of disguising his bulk, although if anything it encourages the eye towards it. ‘But you don’t want me gaaning aan about Jozie when what you must be craving is a hot shower, a stiff drink and, after, a delicious dinner. You’ll see: Lawrence is an ace chef. Come, let me show you your room.’
The B&B is in just the sort of bungalow I’d been expecting. Its interior, however, comes as quite a shock, for in terms of décor Giles and Lawrence are of my mother’s persuasion. They too favour chintz, Persian rugs, a plethora of ornaments, in their case with a camp twist – they’ve accessorised their chintz with any number of fussy, beribboned cushions, their curtains are extravagantly swagged and ruched, their ornaments, copper and brass mainly, glister; and where Peggy had favoured neutral paint tones for the walls they’ve plumped for racing green, some burgundy and a good deal of pink. Even in the room to which I’m now shown, swathes of a flowery fabric are looped about the bed; the paintings are of idealised English landscapes, meadows dotted with cows, sun-dappled streams, that sort of thing; while in the en-suite bathroom there are periodlooking tiles and taps, not to mention a bar or two of curlicued soap.
‘I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ says the beaming owner. ‘Because that’s our aim. To make our guests feel completely, but completely at home.’
Then out he sidles as I collapse with a groan on to the bed, closing my eyes against the faux European clutter hemming me in. What an irony, to have chosen this particular B&B! In the end, I have indeed been ambushed. Not by any section of the rainbow nation, though. It’s the ever-present past that’s crept up on me again.
No escaping, either, how quickly the next General Knowledge session came round, giving Paul little time in which to enjoy walking tall before he had somehow to confront and perform his task.
‘Nelson Mandela,’ Spier was saying. ‘Who’s heard of Nelson Mandela?’
‘I have, sir,’ said Paul, in happy possession for once of an answer. ‘Wasn’t he arrested recently in Natal?’
Spier was equally delighted.
‘Well, well!’ he said. ‘Does this mean you’ve actually been reading the papers for a change? You and who else? Or is it just that your parents discuss things at home? How many of you discuss politics at home? Hands up!’
No one obliged, of course – they never did respond to challenges of this nature – causing Spier, who was lounging against his untidy desk as usual, to look searchingly at each of them in turn.
‘Because I’ve been thinking,’ he continued, brown eyes pensive, ‘that the moment has maybe come for us to look more closely at our own fair land. Last May we were made a republic. Why, exactly? What were the steps we took in cutting loose like this from the Commonwealth, setting ourselves up as a separate country? Well?’
But again no one ventured a word, so after a prolonged and increasingly awkward silence he began to provide the details himself. With a sigh, he took them back to 1948, when the nationalist government had first come to power. He highlighted the introduction of apartheid, group areas, pass laws and something called suffrage. He also talked about things that had been touched on for Paul at Sunday lunch, like the Suppression of Communism Act; or, from earlier, the State of Emergency the government had declared following the massacre at Sharpeville.
The last of these events, not only Paul but the others too could all remember from the vivid photos that had accompanied the many newspaper articles on the subject; photos of policemen standing guard outside their police station while the protestors (black, naturally) fled the shots that had just been fired. Plus, in Paul’s case, there had been the fallout at home. The letters – even, at one point, a tearful phone call – from his grandmother. His mother’s angry, anguished response. His father saying, as Father Ashley had, that people who weren’t born in South Africa, or didn’t live here, couldn’t know the whole story; shouldn’t pass judgement.
Meanwhile, Spier wanted to know what the following letters stood for – PAC? ANC? – arriving by this route at the aforementioned Mandela, whose trial was about to be held, he told them, in the Old Synagogue. ‘In other words, on our very doorstep.’
‘But, sir,’ interrupted Horton, ‘isn’t a synagogue where Jewish people go to worship?’
‘Ja, it’s that really weird-looking building,’ said Bentley major, ‘in Paul Kruger Street. We drive past it going home.’
‘The design,’ said Spier, ‘is Byzantine.’
‘So why there, sir,’ asked Horton, ‘if it’s not really a court?’
‘Ah, but it is,’ crowed Spier. ‘That’s the funny thing. The government acquired it years ago and have recently been using it, quite cleverly in my opinion, as somewhere to try cases that involve national security. It’s far enough away from Jo’burg, see, to make it difficult for supporters to come all this way and sit in the gallery. The government isn’t stupid.’
Did he really say all that? Possibly not – Paul’s mind was more on his looming task – although during this session he certainly made coded mention of du Toit’s note from the week before.
‘Last time,’ was how he did it, going to stand behind du Toit’s Brylcreemed head, ‘one of you indicated that he’d like to know more about what some call die rooi gevaar. A subject we have, of course, considered before. Countries like North Vietnam and Cuba. Why the West gets so exercised. Well, by following this trial, which I promise we will, and asking ourselves – without prejudice, mind – why our government behaves as it does, we might just start to see a pattern here.’
Then Lombard, glasses glinting, performed his usual trick.
‘Supper, sir,’ he cried, ‘in ten minutes. And it’s Mr Stanford, sir, on duty tonight.’
Paul’s eyes, in the interim, were locked on Spier’s desk. Next time we’re in Spier’s study, if you see anything unusual …
What, though? And where? How would he ever manage, in the stampede for the door, to lift anything of any description from the chaos on Spier’s desk?
Chairs were being pushed back. Spier was moving towards the door. Everyone was standing up. Except, that was, for du Toit, who said, from where he was sitting, ‘Sir, there’s a book, sir, I was wondering if I could borrow. There by the door. Can I, sir? Please?’
Cover! He was trying to provide cover. Something Paul hadn’t imagined would be on offer. But how brilliant that it was! He must make the most of it. So, while du Toit looked with Spier for some quite spurious book and the others all stepped around them, Paul began scanning the confusion on Spier’s desk for what it might yield. Exercise books and old newspapers mainly; countless pens and pencils and rubber bands and … but what was that, peeking out from under some papers? A comb? Some sort of comb? It had teeth like a comb, although they were, it had to be said, unusually large. Also, the object was of wood and square-shaped, where combs tended to be oblong and of plastic. So highly unusual, then, exactly as stipulated, and in less time than it took for du Toit to tell Spier it was okay if they couldn’t find the book, perhaps by next session he’d have remembered better what it looked like, Paul had slipped the object into his pocket.
‘I don’t want you thinking that what you do goes unnoticed,’ said Spier seconds later, as he stepped away from the desk to head for the door. ‘Hear me, Harvey?’
Paul’s stomach lurched. Did Spier maybe have what his mother boasted of having: eyes in the back of his head? But no, apparently and luckily not, since what he then said was, ‘You made a real contribution today. Thank you.’
Words which, at any other time, Paul would have savoured, committed to his diary even, but which in the present circumstances he was simply too flustered to register fully. All he managed, as he squirmed past, was a mumbled, ‘Yes, sir, I do try, sir, I hope you know that.’
Stanford’s daughters had, since the previous week, cleared away their playthings, leaving nothing on the lawn except an expectant du Toit.
‘You must never tell,’ he warned as Paul came up to him, ‘that I tried to help, okay? You do things on your own. Got that?’
Then, without waiting for Paul to fall in alongside him – or say even whether he had in the end been able to find anything of note on Spier’s desk – he darted away, and by the time Paul himself emerged from the masters’ compound was halfway round the open expanse of the fields already, a diminishing arrangement of collapsed grey socks, trim grey shorts, white shirt and a flash of purple tie; while from the centre of the nearest field was approaching a contrasting arrangement of baggy and, in this instance, khaki shorts, no socks (bare feet, in fact) and a khaki shirt that gaped not only at the neck, but wherever it happened to be torn. Pheko, the school groundsman, who would also be bringing with him the pungent smell of that other compound, the one where the servants lived: a smell of Lifebuoy, the soap provided by the school for all its inmates, combined, in Pheko’s case, with tobacco, wood-smoke and a young man’s sweat. Though, as the groundsman was still at some distance, Paul didn’t actually have to experience anything other than the sight of him before he, too, began running towards the main building.
In line for supper, he had time at last to catch his breath, order his thoughts and remind himself that these days – remember, remember! – he was walking tall. A member – number four, no less – of the school’s most select grouping. Mustn’t panic. Hold your head high. Sydney Carton style.
Then up sidled Slug and, although Paul did wonder why it should be necessary to do this now, rather than at the next club meeting, he nevertheless found himself – quite proudly, too – obliging Slug in his request by passing him, in all its strangeness, the object he’d lifted from Spier’s desk. Having first made sure, of course, that Stanford wasn’t looking.
‘People don’t always do so well,’ murmured Slug with a surprised smile as he pocketed Paul’s offering. ‘You’ll go far, man.’
Both my hosts are in evidence as I enter the dining room, which I do through double doors at one end of it, doors which must have been closed on my arrival at the B&B, since I don’t remember glimpsing the room earlier. Not that it looks any different from the rest of the house. The curtains are every bit as swagged and ruched; again there are Persian carpets on the floor, more English scenes of a pastoral nature on the pink walls. Only the immaculately set tables, four in all, each unoccupied, distinguish the room.
‘Ah!’ cries Giles, swooping forward like a bulky ballerina; past her sell-by date maybe, but still fleet of foot. ‘There you are! We were wondering.’
He has a different shirt on, although, as with the décor, it doesn’t exactly ring the changes. Also flowered, also flowing, on a smaller person it could have doubled as a dress.
‘Take this table here, why not?’ he continues, pulling out a chair. ‘Plenty choice tonight. No other guests. Then Lawrence’ll fix you a drink. What’ll you have? There’s everything – hey, Lawrence!’
Lawrence is not as tall as Giles, or as voluminous. He’s bird-like rather and has a sharp, enquiring face. He extends a quick hand. ‘Welcome to Mokimolle,’ he says. ‘First time? You must take a walk in the morning, see it by daylight. From the koppie – it’s not far – you get really lekker views.’
‘But first a drink!’ interrupts Giles. ‘Let the poor ou order himself a drink, skattie, his tongue must be hanging out, while I tell him what’s on the menu.’
I order some wine and the bobotie. Then, left alone to continue my wry assessment of the room while they attend to my wants, it occurs to me that, as I’m dining alone, I’ll probably be required, when the food comes, to give an account of myself. And so it transpires: once Giles has overseen a uniformed waiter in the setting down on my table of what I’ve ordered, and Lawrence has produced and opened a bottle of wine, even though the pair of them could now withdraw, they don’t.
‘You must forgive me!’ sighs Giles, closing the door to the kitchen on the departing waiter’s back. ‘But unless you watch their every move …’
‘How’s the wine?’ Lawrence cuts in, sensing, from my look, that the subject could do with changing. ‘One thing at least that this country does get right, hey!’
Again I nod, then add for his further benefit that the bobotie is delicious.
‘Something else,’ he says with a pleased smile, ‘special to us. It’s from Malaysia. Slaves introduced it. Way back when.’
‘Ag, nee!’ says Giles, rolling his eyes. ‘Don’t get him started on blerrie history, else we’ll be here all night.’
‘Oh dear, are we being insensitive?’ says Lawrence, a look of sudden concern replacing his smile. ‘Would you rather be alone? Should we go?’
To which I feel I can only reply, ‘No, no, of course not. Company’s always welcome.’
‘Are you sure?’
Another, hopefully convincing nod.
Whereupon Giles suggests to Lawrence that he fetch their own bottle of wine and the two of them are very soon settled at the table alongside mine.
For a while, the talk remains general. The weather, the state of the roads out of Jozie, the sad fact that people don’t dare use the railways any more.
‘Well, we wouldn’t, you wouldn’t,’ says Giles. ‘It’s just not safe and they used to be so good. Ag, this country!’
In this way we arrive at the moment of truth. They’re keen to know when I got here. Have I just flown in? Where am I headed? Will I be with them only the one night, or am I staying in the area longer? People, do, they say. It has attractions.
They’re going on my accent, of course. Plus how pale I am.
And I don’t disabuse them. I pretend this is indeed my first visit. I’m English, I say. A veritable pom. I play up fully to being European – not in the old, South African sense of the word, but insofar as this is where I hail from.
Nor do I let slip that in other ways, too, we are not dissimilar.