Outside, the huge sign advertising the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund flashed past, a fleeting reminder of one man’s conscience, its promise of a better life now receding as quickly as the hoarding. No one said a word. For many of the dozen or so other passengers this was the last enervating lap in a day that had begun at five that morning. The silence was interrupted only by the ringtone of a phone or a curt instruction to the driver.

‘Short left,’ somebody shouted, meaning the driver should pull over at the next left turn. Kagiso pulled out twenty rand and handed it to the person in front of him who, in turn, handed it forward, like a game of Pass the Parcel. Other notes and coins were making a similar journey up the cab where the driver, flicking his eyes from the road down to a cashbox next to him and back up again, managed to count the takings and send back the appropriate change. Kagiso took the change and received a surly look from the woman next to him as he stretched his leg towards her so he could squeeze the coins into the tight pocket of his jeans. He looked outside again and they were passing Wits Medical School. Not long now till they got to Hillbrow, where he would be getting off.

‘Next robot,’ he shouted, hoping the instruction would alert his immovable neighbour that he would shortly have to squeeze past her. When the time came she stuck to her spot, and Kagiso had to try to get over her to the door without touching her – a movement that was as ungainly as it was impossible.

Eventually, he fell out onto Claim Street and made for the Hot Line internet shop on the other side, almost colliding with a youth riding a shopping trolley down the gentle slope towards Klein Street. Ahmadu, who ran the shop, had just put a handful of egusi with yam into his mouth. He held out an arm, which Kagiso shook at the wrist. ‘Howzit,’ he said.

‘Can’t complain,’ said Ahmadu, one of the many Nigerian traders who had colonised the area. The shelves were stacked deep with DVDs, the output of Nollywood, Nigeria’s prolific but variable film industry. These days he made almost as much from renting out the films as he did from the phone business, but both were eclipsed by the lucrative room rentals and the express abortions that invariably followed. The clients for his medical services were always too desperate to wait for the state’s lumbering alternative. Ahmadu asked no questions, and he wasn’t told any lies. As long as the bills were paid he didn’t care.

Ahmadu was watching one of the films on a laptop, engrossed in a storyline that had a young bride telling her mother that her marriage was floundering.

‘Are you denying him?’ the older woman in the film asked.