She hesitated but she took the key. She picked up the camera and opened the car door, holding the key by its fob in her left hand, the camera in her right. He noticed that she hadn’t passed the strap of the camera, his treasured Pentax, round her neck, she never did. For the thousandth time he could have told her but he lacked the heart to speak. His swollen foot throbbed and he thought of the long days at Ntsukunyane that remained to them. Marguerite seemed infinitely far away, further even than at the other side of the world where she was.

He knew Tricia was going to drop the camera some fifteen seconds before she did so. It was because she had the key in her other hand. If the strap had been round her neck it wouldn’t have mattered. He knew how it was when you held something in each hand and lost your grip or your footing. You had no sense then, in that instant, of which of the objects was valuable and mattered and which was not and didn’t. Tricia held on to the key and dropped the camera. The better to photograph the porcupine, she had mounted on to the twisted roots of a tree, roots that looked as hard as a flight of stone steps.

She gave a little cry. At the sounds of the crash and the cry the porcupine erected its quills. Ford jumped out of the car, wincing when he put his foot to the ground, hobbling through the grass to Tricia who stood as if petrified with fear of him. The camera, the pieces of camera, had fallen among the gnarled, stone-like tree roots. He dropped on to his knees, shouting at her, cursing her.

Tricia began to run. She ran back to the car and pushed the key into the ignition. The car was pointing in the direction of Thaba and the clock on the dashboard shelf said five thirty-five. Ford came limping back, waving his arms at her, his hands full of broken pieces of camera. She looked away and put her foot down hard on the accelerator.

The sky was clear orange with sunset, black bars of the coming night lying on the horizon. She found she could drive when she had to, even though she couldn’t pass a test. A mile along the road she met the American couple. The boy put his head out. ‘Anything worth going down there for?’

‘Not a thing,’ said Tricia, ‘you’d be wasting your time.’

The boy turned his car and followed her back. It was two minutes past six when they entered Thaba, the last cars to do so. The gates closed behind them.

The Dreadful Day of Judgement

THERE WERE FOUR of them working in the cemetery. They were employed by the city corporation – to do what? Even the foreman was vague about their duties which had not been very precisely specified. Not to clear the central part, certainly, for that would have been a task not for four but for four hundred. And a wild life sanctuary, for which purpose it was designated, must be wild. To tidy it, then, to remove the worst signs of vandalism, to carry away such gravestones as had fallen, to denude certain of the many winding paths of the intrusive bramble and ivy and nettle. When they asked the foreman whether this should be done or that, he would say to use their own judgement, he couldn’t be sure, he would find out. But he never did. Sometimes an official from the corporation came and viewed the work and nodded and disappeared into the hut with the foreman to drink tea. As the winter came on the official appeared less often, and the foreman said it was a hopeless task, they needed more men, but the corporation could no longer afford to spend the money, they must just do the best they could.