The old woman with the white hair and the fat dog: ‘John my poor boy!’

‘Morris Medem.’

‘Johnny poor boy, what happened to your legs?’

‘Morris Medem. Morris Tshabalala.’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Morris Tshabalala Medem is looking for work.’

‘Stop it Biggles.’

‘Work Medem.’

‘Biggles stop it. Come here.’

‘Anything Medem.’

‘Oh these dogs!’

‘Your garden Medem.’

‘It is lovely.’

‘I’ll weed it Medem.’

‘Good heavens! There are no weeds in my garden.’

Then she had gone and come back with the penny which she gave him, afterwards closing the door, and Morris Tshabalala, because he was looking for work, had thrown it away.

Not many had given it to him like that though, actually stooping down to drop the coin into his blistered palm. Most of them had simply fallen beside him out of the sky, falling hard and metallic like the first drops of a sky that has promised the miracle of real relief and then broken faith and blown away, and he for his part threw them all away because Morris Tshabalala was looking for work. Five shillings it had been, counted with deliberation and anger at the end of the day because it helped to pass the time. The next day it had been three shillings and five pence. It was more or less the same for the days that followed, rising once sharply to just under ten shillings because that day he had cried and there was no bush he could crawl into and hide his tears. The pennies had showered down. That was also the first day he kept the money, and it happened this way.

He had stopped with his sorrow and tears on a street corner. His hands were too sore to carry him any further, his heart too heavy to drag down another street in his fruitless search for work. The determination he had had when he left the hospital to survive as best he could was gone, and also his hope. Even his desire to survive. He had stopped on the corner, dragged himself into the doorway of an empty shop, out of the way of the hurrying feet, and for the first time that he could remember in many years there were tears in his eyes. So, not caring, he had just sat and let them come and the pennies had come falling down. He had not even cared enough to throw them away, because he was too tired in his heart for even that. Hours later, many hours later in the time between day and night, when the streets emptied and were silent and windy while the city waited for the moment to switch on its lights, then Morris Tshabalala had looked down and considered the money.

He was hungry and had spent the last of his money. He didn’t have so much as a penny for a crust of bread. He had no work. He would get none. But he despised the money beside him. He despised it because of the way of giving and because he hadn’t worked for it and the people who got money they hadn’t worked for were of a different breed from Morris Tshabalala.