Simple things that helped ordinary people to cope with life. Lydia asked Mikey to drive, as if to demonstrate the need for a ‘man around the house’. Usually, she wanted to drive even when Silas was sober. Women are better at these things, we don't have egos to parade. Mikey, who had only recently obtained his licence, drove now, fast and resolute on the freeway, slow and careful when they took the off-ramp to Soweto. An afternoon haze of smog turned the sun to brass. When they pulled up outside Jackson and Mam Agnes's house, Silas said he would wait in the car. The vehicle wouldn't be safe if left unguarded, and, in any case, ‘You're on night duty and we can't stay long,’ he said to Lydia's disappearing back. Soon, Jackson, his face burnished the colour of dark wood by a day of drinking in the sun, swaggered out through the gate, his oversized shorts flapping around his sturdy legs.

‘Sielas, Sielas, they'll steal you along with the fucken car,’ Jackson said, delighting in the musical tone this emphasis gave Silas's name. ‘Why don't you come in and have a drink?’ Silas went inside to have a beer with his father-in-law. Mam Agnes gave the two men chiding looks, while Lydia became stony-faced. Mam Agnes, dressed ‘like the queen bee in drag’, according to Silas, made some remark about men who did nothing but drink beer all day, then handed Mikey the keys to Jackson's car (an old but stately Rover that ‘needed a slow hand’, in the words of its owner). The one thing she wished for her grandson, she said, was that he never became a beer-drinking slob.

Mikey and Mam Agnes drove off under Jackson's watchful eye, while Lydia strode away towards their own car. Silas gulped his beer much too quickly, and joined Lydia. They drove back towards the city. His loud, exaggerated burping brought no reaction from Lydia, who concentrated on her driving, glancing at her watch all the time.

‘I saw Du Boise today.’

‘Who?’

‘Du Boise, Lieutenant Du Boise.’

Lydia said nothing. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel more tightly.

‘Where?’

‘In the mall.’

‘Is that why we have no groceries?’

He looked out of the window. They had emerged from the township smog. Clouds darkened the sky. He opened the window, letting in a gust of moist, refreshing air.

‘I recognized him immediately. Old and fucken decrepit, but Du Boise all right. It was his eyes. And that arrogant voice.’

Lydia looked at him, then returned her attention to the traffic. He tried to engage her eyes, but she stared straight ahead of her.

‘You spoke to him?’ she asked after a while, her enquiry casual.

‘Yes.’

Again, he looked at her. She was steering the car down the off-ramp towards Doornfontein, bending her body with the curve of the road.