‘Nice of you to join us,’ François said. He was smiling.

‘My meeting was delayed. I got here as quick as I could.’ Kagiso looked around the room. He couldn’t decide which was worse – the second-hand odour of other people’s cooking, which he’d just left behind, or the stale smell of cigarette smoke that caught the back of his throat now. ‘Sis, man! How many times have I told you guys to open the windows?’

‘He arrives late and the first thing he does is give us a tongue-lashing.’

Sharmi Meer had one leg over the end of a threadbare sofa. Her jeans were tucked into black knee-length boots. Her black hair, cut short, framed a face of angular, strong features. There was a muscularity about her, enhanced by her choice of clothes. Sharmi dropped her cigarette stub into a mug in front of her. It hissed as it sank into what was left of the coffee. She pulled her leather jacket tight across her chest as Kagiso opened the window above her.

‘You missed your calling. You should have been a headmaster.’

Kagiso saw the bottle of Klipdrift on the packing case that doubled as a table. It was half empty. There were a couple of Coke cans next to the brandy and a column of plastic cups.

‘Where’s Two-Boy?’

They heard the lavatory chain being pulled and pulled again. Sharmi shouted across the room towards the toilet door. ‘Stop being so gentle. One firm jerk, man!’ She looked at the others. ‘All these times we’ve been here and he still can’t do it.’

Two-Boy shuffled in.

‘You’d be bloody hopeless if a girl wanted a bit of rough,’ she said, smiling. ‘Pour me a Klippies-and-Coke and let’s get on with this.’

Two-Boy, the fourth member of Land Collective, was a software engineer at SABC. A tall man, he nonetheless could not disguise his ample belly, though he carried it with some aplomb. He wasn’t embarrassed by his weight. The tail of his shirt hung out from under his knitted jumper, and the laces on his suede ankle boots were untied. His dishevelled look and the fondness for a little dop, as he put it, belied a rare gift for navigating his way around the ether unnoticed. He saw Kagiso. ‘Heita! Howzit?’ He looked sheepish.

The two men shook hands, touching alternate shoulders as they did so.

‘How many of those have you had already?’ Kagiso asked.

‘For Chrissake, leave him alone. I think we’ve got more than Two-Boy’s drinking habits to worry about,’ said Sharmi.