‘So you didn't hear me scream?’

‘Of course I did, how do you think I knew?’

‘How do you know it wasn't a scream of pleasure, the lekkerkry and fyndraai and all that, the things you men fantasize about?’

‘Fuck you, Lydia, I know the difference, I know pain from pleasure.’

She stood up, her angry reaction slowed by the coldness in her body. ‘You don't know about the pain. It's a memory to you, a wound to your ego, a theory.’ She thrust her face into his. ‘You can't even begin to imagine the pain.’

They stood facing each other for a moment, then he slumped down in the wicker chair.

‘Ja, I suppose imagined pain isn't the real thing. But I've lived with it for so long, it's become real. Nearly twenty years. The pain of your screams, his laugh, his fucken cold eyes when he brought you back to the van.’

‘What else do you remember?’

‘That Sergeant Seun's face, our black brother, the black, brutal shame in his face.’

‘You don't remember my face, my tears…’

He closed his eyes almost as she closed hers. When he opened them again, she was inside, busy dialling on the phone. He followed her.

‘Who're you calling?’

‘The hospital, tell them I can't come in tonight. It's late to call, but a courtesy anyway.’

He took the phone from her and asked for the matron in charge, told her that Lydia was ill, that he'd call the next day to tell them how she was. ‘I don't know, some kind of fever,’ he said, then slowly replaced the phone.

Lydia stood at the kitchen sink, drinking a glass of water. He went in, leaned against the fridge.

‘Lydia, we have to deal with this.’

‘With what?’

‘With what we went through, both of us.’ He saw the smirk on her face. ‘Yes, for fuck's sake, I went through it as much as you.’

‘You're screaming at me, you know how I don't like being screamed at.’

‘I'm sorry.’

She went into the front room, he wanted to follow her, but remembered that she didn't like being pursued when they were having an argument, even though fleeing from room to room was a sign of deep distress that she would need help to overcome. But he only made things worse by following her and trying to force on her his comforting arms and consoling voice. He leaned up against the fridge, felt its throb against his back, slid down until he was on his haunches. He remembered how the police had made them ‘tauza’, squatting with their legs wide open and frog-jumping, so that anything they had concealed in their anuses would drop out or hurt them enough to make them scream out loud. He closed his eyes and smiled.

‘You're amused.’

Lydia was back in the kitchen. He got to his feet. ‘I remembered how they made us do that.’

‘What?’