Is it possible I am misreading her cues, and that she doesn’t judge me at all? Yes, I suppose it is. But I doubt it. I know her, you see. I’ve learned to read her face and to detect the unspoken words that lie between us like the casualties of war.

* * *

I’m sitting in a vegan café on Kloof Nek Road waiting for Eugene. It is one of only two strictly vegan establishments in Cape Town, although there are a number of restaurants that advertise themselves as vegetarian. Eugene suggested it, even though the plan is to have coffee only. It will be vegan coffee.

I’ve already lost the upper hand. I arrived first and now I’m sitting waiting for him. I should have made him wait for me so that I could make an entrance. All the women’s magazines agree on this. But just getting here was stressful enough. I couldn’t add being late to the requirements. And so, here I am, early.

I recognise this place from Eugene’s Instagram photos. The furniture is made from scuffed railway sleepers. The smell of coffee and burnt onions hangs in the air, simultaneously appetising and stomach-turning. The walls have been stripped to expose the brickwork and the ceilings removed to reveal the roof beams. The effect is of a corpse that has had its flesh ripped away to lay bare the skeleton beneath.

A long refectory table runs down the middle of the room. I am perched at one end, sharing my space with clumps of talkative, tattooed people. I stand out for my lack of ink, of piercings, of shaven patches on my head. On the other hand, my thick tights, tweed skirt,Victorian blouse and jacket have a granny-ish sort of appeal. Rape Chic, I call it. Or Raped Chic.

I watch dust motes dancing in a beam of light that falls across my skirt. There are so many of them. Are they attracted to the light, or are they present all the time in the air we move around in—the air we breathe? How do our chests not get clogged with so many specks and spirals? I imagine them entering my lungs and getting caught up in a network of bronchioles—settling and accreting over time, building up into a sludge that all the coughing in the world can’t dislodge.

Now I can’t breathe at all. I try to draw air in through my nose, but an agonised wheeze is the best I can produce. I open my mouth, but my trachea has clamped down hard and refuses to open. My heart is banging like a barn door in a gale.