Is everything alright, he said. Oh, yes, yes. Was just at the dentist, I said. Ah, he said. You’ve hardly ever been here! We laughed then, all three of us. I should give you another tour, he said. And Candace said, yes, you’ll see how we spend our days. We laughed, the three of us, again.

Howard took me back down the passage, a fine rug — perhaps Persian — on the wooden floor. There were his partners’ doors on each side, closed, and a small hallway, then, where a secretary sat. She was older, bespectacled, I had met her at a Christmas party too. She stood up and smiled. Please, please, sit down, I said, it’s lovely to see you. And you! she said. And then, to the right, we turned into Howard’s office.

His office was spare, it had a filing cabinet, and a large wooden desk with a green leather blotter, worn. There was an old armchair with faded covering. Howard had a single photograph, of us, of us four. It was taken I don’t know when, on holiday at the sea in Durban, we windblown and in bathing suits: me, him, the two children. The children were much smaller, they might have been eight and five years old, it was an old photo. Don’t you want a new one, I said, it’s old, this one. Ah, it’s a nice picture, he said. It was in a dark leather frame my parents had given him, it stood, facing the room, on a shelf behind his desk.

I knew it, I said then. You need some paintings on your walls! Why didn’t you say something, I have lots of small things for you. Ah, doesn’t matter, he said.

His tall window, double-sashed and framed in dark wood, overlooked the south part of the city, and I stood there. To the southwest was Soweto, you could see it. It stretched, far as the eye could see, low and still from this distance, small glints in the sun here and there, from a car perhaps, or a window, or from some piece of metal.

I turned then to the bookcase. I knew Howard’s books, he’d kept them at home in his study, before. When I met Howard, he was doing his law degree, his books always with him. Some of the briefs, leather-bound now, were in the bookcase. And there were old textbooks: Roman–Dutch Law in South Africa. The Law and the Courts. British Common Law. Others. It was a sober room. A lawyer’s room, what else.

He had a lamp on his desk, a grey reading lamp, the ordinary kind you buy in a hardware store. It was on, its strong, white light fell on the pile of papers on the desk. The papers were stacked in an immaculate pile. Immaculate like Howard, I thought then.

I can find you a nice lamp, I said. I’m sure I have a nicer one at home. Howard wasn’t interested in that. Never mind, he said. You can bring me a painting though, we can find one at home tonight. I liked that idea. It filled me at once with warmth. I had something to do now, something to look for in my studio.