Straight after the braai, I have a Skype call to Richard. It’s raining in Cape Town. He turns the computer around to show me the grey sky.

‘It’s going to be like this all weekend, apparently,’ he says. ‘Hockey’s been cancelled already.’

Skype doesn’t do rain well, but the view looks pretty miserable.

He asks what I’ve been doing and I tell him all about the quad bikes.

He swivels the computer back around to face him. ‘You have a friend who has his own race track?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What kind of people are your friends there? Do any of them have planes or islands or anything? Did you race? Did you win?’

‘I did okay.’

I’d stopped thinking about racing early on. It wasn’t about beating other people. I couldn’t have beaten Max anyway – he’s really good. It was just about the four of us gunning those excellent quad bikes, churning up dirt and letting the engine rip. I won enough today, doing that, and doing it with them. I’ve been winning enough for a few days now.

‘How’s Hansie going?’ Richard picks up the mug that’s near him on the table and takes a drink.

‘Dad’s back from the mine, so he’s pretty happy today.’ That’s true enough. ‘Other than that, most of his problems seem to be solved by chocolate.’

Not solved, perhaps, but chocolate doesn’t seem to hurt. I don’t know how to explain how it works to Richard, all of this. Every day has steps forward and steps backward and sometimes leaps. I miss him. I miss the whole city, even the bad bits. But I know why we’re here.