He looked at Boston and Boston looked at him, and Tsotsi felt a palpable movement in his stomach and a lightness in his heart.

‘What’s it to you Boston?’

And Boston who was drunk and deaf to the new sound in Tsotsi’s voice pressed on regardless. ‘I’m older than you Tsotsi. Ja man. Older by a good few years.’

‘So what’s that to me?’

‘A reason to listen.’

‘To you?’

‘Yes. You know what I wanted to be when I was your age, Tsotsi?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to know about you.’

‘A teacher. I studied. I titcha-boy Tsotsi. I wore a tie. Ja man, with dots and stripes, like that big one tonight. That’s what I’m getting at. That big one tonight. It’s because of my decency.’

‘Your sickness.’

‘Ja, that’s why I was sick.’

‘Go see a doctor, Boston.’

‘Jesus Christ!’…and there was no blasphemy in Boston when he said that. But Soekie was back with the bottle again and filled their glasses and also passed Butcher a ‘cigarette’ so that just in time the acrid smoke of dagga filled the room and Boston’s wet eyes went unnoticed.

Soekie tried to move Rosie a second time. ‘Rosie man. Jy moet loop.’

‘Soekie my friend.’

‘Nothing more man. Move.’ She got as far as her hands under Rosie’s arms when Butcher stopped her.

‘Leave her.’

‘For heaven’s sake why.’

‘Leave her!’

‘You?’ She looked from the woman to Butcher and back to the woman again. ‘She was my friend.’ But she shrugged her shoulders. ‘This is a clean place hey. No rough stuff.’

‘Leave her!’

Soekie went back into her room, leaving the four at the table and the woman alone in the corner.

Tsotsi rocked gently on his chair. Boston asked no more questions, brooding into his glass while the zol passed between Butcher and Die Aap. They took sharp, deep drags, smoking with a quiet intensity until their pupils had shrunk to pinpoints, giving their eyes a visionary quality, as if focused on some eventuality remote from the world they found themselves in.

When at last the cigarette was finished and his heart was so light it seemed to lie in his mouth, and the nerves in his groin were tight and his legs watery with desire, then Butcher stood up and went to the woman in the corner. He stood there beside her a long time, and so rich was the smell of his presence that as a reflex the woman moved in her seat and parted her knees. Butcher put his hand under her dress.

‘Come again darling,’ she murmured. He moved his hand higher. She opened her eyes. ‘Not in here. Please. Not in here.’

He pulled her to her feet and pushed her to the door.

‘Butcher Boy,’ Die Aap said.

Butcher turned and looked at him. He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. ‘Come,’ he said, and so the three went out into the night, leaving the other two alone, the room thick with smoke, a dog somewhere in the distance, and behind the wall where Soekie lived, her gramophone grinding out the broken shards of an old song.