ONCE, in New York, Helena, eleven years old, had a friend to play, they spent the afternoon whispering in her room, I remember it. I was busy with my things — in the living room, perhaps I was reading — but I kept thinking, what are they whispering about. Ordinary things, of course ordinary things, little girls’ things. There’d be giggling, then gales of laughter, then silence again and the sound of things being moved in the room. And when they came out I said, girls, what are you whispering about, I said it good-humouredly of course, and Helena said, it’s a secret, a secret. And her friend said, we have a secret, shhhhhhhh . . . and they laughed together, again.

There are small, harmless secrets, innocent secrets, and then there are large, important secrets. I remember thinking that, then. And I remember feeling guilty about the large, important secret we’d had in our house in Johannesburg: the large, important secret that begat other secrets. Don’t tell anyone, remember, I had said to Emily. Don’t tell anyone.

MY PARENTS CAME for a short visit from Villiers, it was a long weekend. Klaas, who worked for my father, drove them. They came in their blue Peugeot, I remember Josias calling, calling through the house when they arrived. The dogs barked, the children were so excited, there was Emily laughing with Klaas as she greeted him, and the cling peaches in their cardboard box — pale orange — like a blessing.

My parents brought other things too, they always did. My mother had a new, smaller throw she’d made, to put over a chair, and she’d brought her bag with the tortoiseshell handle, filled with a new knitting project, a sweater this time, for Stephen. She worked on it on the patio through the days she was visiting. I picture her now there, alone under the white trellis. She avoided the sun.

My father smoked a pipe, he left trails of ash wherever he went, and kept bags of tobacco in his pockets. He and Howard shared interests in business, my father had a shop, a wholesale business, in his town. He was a man of great energy then, with a booming voice. He and Howard talked about the stock market, about the price of gold. Anglo American, De Beers. The price of shares. I didn’t understand any of that, or care.

But I felt, as always, the weight that an only child carries. The weight of my parents’ lives. I still feel it now sometimes, and they are long gone.

My parents slept in our spare room, it had two single beds, narrow, how I remember the room, filled then with their suitcases, they seemed to bring so much.

The problem was, that visit, we had the man — Joseph — in the garden. This was a large, an unprecedented, problem.

I HAD TRIED to dissuade my mother from coming. I told her Howard was very busy at work and tired, that I had been under the weather. This was a mistake, to say that, because my mother was, at once, alarmed. Then I must come, she said. I can help you. Oh, no, no, I said. Mom, I have Emily. But she wouldn’t be dissuaded. I tried again, with a different excuse. We’ve been painting the spare room, I said, it’s a mess. Why are you doing that, my mother said, the room’s lovely as it is. She really wanted to come. She had peaches to deliver, the new sweater for Stephen was almost finished. They came.