Age of Iron

'And?'

He shook his head.

'I am just asking,' I said. 'We like to know a little about the people near to us. It's quite natural.'

He gave that crooked smile of his in which one canine suddenly reveals itself, long and yellow. You are hiding something, I thought, but what? A tragic love? A prison sentence? And I broke into a smile myself.

So we stood smiling, the two of us, each with our private cause to smile.

'If you prefer,' I said, 'you can sleep on the sofa again.'

He looked dubious. 'The dog is used to sleeping with me.'

'You didn't have the dog with you last night.'

'He will carry on if I don't come.'

I heard no carrying; on by the dog last night. As long as he feeds it, does the dog really care where he sleeps? I suspect: he uses the fiction of the anxious dog as other men use the fiction of the anxious wife. On the other hand, perhaps it is because of the dog that I trust him. Dogs, that sniff out what is good, what eviclass="underline" patrollers of boundaries: sentries.

The dog has not warmed to me. Too much cat-smell. Cat-woman: Circe. And he, after roaming the seas in trawlers, making landfall here.

' As you please, ' I said, and let him out, pretending not to notice he still had the sherry-bottle.

A pity, I thought (my last thought before the pills took me away): we could set up house, the two of us, after a fashion, I upstairs, he downstairs, for this last little while. So that there will be someone at hand in the nights. For that is, after all, what one wants in the end: someone to be there, to call to in the dark. Mother, or whoever is prepared to stand in for mother.

Since I had declared to Florence I would do so, I visited Caledon Square and tried, to lay a charge against the two policemen. But laying a charge, it appears, is permitted only to 'parties directly affected.'

'Give us the particulars and we will investigate,' said the desk officer. 'What are the names of the two boys?' 'I can't give you their names without their permission.' He put down his pen. A young man, very neat and correct, one of the new breed of policeman. Whose training is rounded off with a stint in Cape Town to strengthen their self-control in the face of liberal-humanist posturing.

'I don't know whether you take any pride in that uniform, ' I said, 'but your colleagues on the street are disgracing it. They are also disgracing me. I am ashamed. Not for them: for myself. You won't let me lay a charge because you say I am not affected. But I am affected, very directly affected. Do you understand what I am saying?'

He did not reply, but stood stiffly erect, wary, ready for whatever might come next. The man behind him bent over his papers, pretending not to listen. But there was nothing to fear. I had no more to say, or at least not the presence of mind to think of more.

Vercueil sat in the car in Buitenkant Street. 'I made such a fool of myself,' I said, suddenly on the edge of tears again. ' "You make me feel ashamed," I told them. They are probably still laughing among themselves. Die ou kruppel dame met die kaffertjies. Yet how else can one feel? Perhaps I should simply accept that that is how one must live from now on: in a state of shame. Perhaps shame is nothing more than the name for the way I feel all the time. The name for the way in which people live who would prefer to be dead.'

Shame. Mortification. Death in life.

There was a long silence.

'Can I borrow ten rand?' said Vercueil. 'My disability comes through on Thursday. I'll pay you back then.'

III

In the small hours of last night there was a telephone call. A woman, breathless, with the breathlessness of fat people. 'I want to speak to Florence. '

'She is sleeping. Everyone is sleeping.'

'Yes, you can call her.'

It was raining, though not hard. I knocked at Florence 's door. At once it opened, as if she had been standing there wailing for the summons. From behind her came the sleepy groan of a child. 'Telephone,' I said.

Five minutes later she came up to my room. Without her glasses, bareheaded, in a long white nightdress, she seemed much younger.

'There is trouble,' she said.

'Is it Bheki?'

'Yes, I must go.'

'Where is he?'

'First I must go to Guguletu, then after that, I think, to Site C.'

'I have no idea where Site C is.'

She gave me a puzzled look.

'I mean, if you can show me the way I will take you by car,' I said.

'Yes,' she said, but still hesitated. 'But I cannot leave the children alone.'

'Then they must come along.'

'Yes,' she said. I could not remember ever seeing her so indecisive.

'And Mr Vercueil,' I said: 'he must come to help with the car.'

She shook her head.

'Yes,' I insisted: 'he must come.'

The dog lay at Vercueil's side. It tapped its tail on the floor when I came in but did not get up.

'Mr Vercueil!' I said loudly. He opened his eyes; I held the light away. He broke wind, 'I have to take Florence to Guguletu. It is urgent, we have to leave at once. Will you come along?'

He made no reply, but curled up on his side. The dog rearranged itself.

'Mr Vercueil!' I said, pointing the light at him.

'Fuck off,' he mumbled.

'I can't wake him,' I reported to Florence. 'I have to have someone along to push the car.'

'I will push,' she said.

With the two children on the back seat warmly covered, Florence pushed. We set off. Peering through glass misted over with our breathing, I crawled over De Waal Drive, got lost for a while in the streets of Claremont, then found Lansdowne Road. The first buses of the day were abroad, brightly lit and empty. It was not yet five o'clock.

We passed the last houses, the last streetlights. Into a steady rain from the north-west we drove, following the faint yellow glow of our headlights.

'If people wave to you to stop, or if you see things in the road, you must not stop, you must drive on,' said Florence.

'I will certainly not,' I said. 'You should have warned me earlier. Let me make myself clear, Florence: at the first sign of trouble I am turning back.'

'I do not say it will happen, I am just telling you.'

Full of misgiving I drove on into the darkness. But no one barred the way, no one waved, there was nothing across the road. Trouble, it seemed, was still in bed; trouble was recuperating for the next engagement.: The roadside, along which, at this hour, thousands of men would ordinarily have been plodding to work, was empty. Swirls of mist floated toward us, embraced the car, floated away. Wraiths, spirits. Aornos this place: birdless. I shivered, met Florence 's gaze. 'How much further?' I asked.

'Not far.'

'What did they say on the telephone?'

'They were shooting again yesterday. They were giving guns to the witdoeke and the witdoeke were shooting.'

'Are they shooting in Guguletu?'

'No, they are shooting out in the bush.'

'At the first hint of trouble, Florence, I am turning back. We are fetching Bheki, that is all we are going to do, then: we are going home. You should never have let him leave.'

'Yes, but you must: turn here, you must turn left.'

I turned. A hundred metres further there was a barrier across the road with flashing lights, cars parked along the verges, police with guns. I stopped; a policeman came up.

'What is your business here?' he asked.

'I am taking my domestic home,' I said, surprised at how calmly I lied.

He peered at the children sleeping on the back seat. 'Where does she live?'

'Fifty-seven,' said Florence.

'You can drop her here, she can walk, it is not far.'

'It is raining, she has small children, I am not letting her walk alone,' I said firmly.

He hesitated, then, with his flashlight waved me through.

On the roof of one of the cars stood a young man in battle-dress, his gun at the ready, staring out into the darkness.

Now there was a smell of burning in the air, of wet ash, burning rubber. Slowly we drove down a broad unpaved street lined with matchbox-houses. A police van armoured in wire mesh cruised past us. 'Turn right here,' said Florence. 'Turn right again. Stop here. '