The Alis remain together in their middle-class home in Berea, perhaps because they have no choice, perhaps because they realize that for any one of them to move out would require an acknowledgement of the ‘thing’ that has divided them, for ever. They do not speculate about their fate, they each find a way to deal with the reality of the ‘thing’.

Silas thinks of the past, increasingly summoning up happier times, epochs of greater clarity, times without this ambiguity he sees everywhere. In his home, in his office, in the country, in the grand scheme of things, in the religions of God and in the godlessness of politics, there is a growing area of grey, shadowy morality. He is a ‘progressive’, an epithet that distinguishes his generation from the older members of the liberation movement. He knows the value of being pragmatic, he welcomes the freedom ‘even to be wrong’, but it cuts him adrift, sometimes sending the needle of his personal compass into wild swings. The rule of law is no longer the keen knife-edge of all meaning, he is losing his ‘true north’. He has a grudging sympathy for his Minister, and for the Old Man, the President, both of whom embody, in their personal integrity, the ‘value system’ of the liberation movement. Being in government, having to make decisions that accord not with their own wishes but with the ‘needs of the country’, makes demands on their personal principles.

The President has decided to make way for the inevitable future, the Age of the Manager, with deals being struck and countries saved over a companionable glass of whisky, in the hush of dimly lit rooms. His Minister should consider retiring, and so should Silas. After all, he is only a township bushie. What future does he have in the government?

Lydia lives in the present, self-judging, brutally honest. These once self-evident instruments of purgatory do not lessen the dull pain that besieges her consciousness. She is back upstairs, in the main bedroom, while Silas has taken over Mikey's room. It was Mikey's initiative to move down to Silas's study, so that both Lydia and Silas could have ‘proper’ bedrooms (they all avoid the guest-room, with its bare walls and gaping cupboards). This is the only change to their newly established routine. Lydia sits on the narrow balcony outside her bedroom, close to the precipice of an encroaching street, protected only by a rusty railing. She sips endless cups of herbal tea (for the health of body and mind), stretches her legs, admires her slim ankles.

She takes up her diary again, opening it one day with a sense of trepidation. She suspects that someone has read through these pages, but cannot imagine that Silas would do such a thing. Perhaps it was Mikey? She dismisses this thought and continues writing. Now it is a true journal, a record of daily events. Her feet are healing. The stitches have been removed, the cushioning (and deforming) swathes of bandages are gone. She thinks of her enduring loveliness, in spite of her remorse and guilt, and prays that her attractiveness will fade, that she will quickly crumble into a premature middle age of grey hair and sagging thighs.