AS IT BECAME WARMER, Josias started cleaning up the pool, which was green with algae, it had been under the grey tarpaulin for the winter. There was now the familiar sight of him and the pool net, sweeping, sweeping across the water. And the chlorine, the chlorine levels, to worry about. Howard drove Josias to the hardware shop and they came back with the chlorine, and a new chlorine measure. I imagined the two of them in the car, a conversation only about the chlorine, how much it was last time, how much it must be this time; what colour the measure must be this time, what colour it had been last time. Back and forth. Then silence. Howard driving. Josias in the front seat, looking out of the passenger window, the front windscreen. Josias was never in a car, when would he be in a car?

And in the hardware shop, the two of them going up and down the aisles, following each other, like friends. Or partners. And again: Howard talking about the chlorine last time, and what must be got this time. No baas, Josias would argue, this is the one; not that one. Then, a consultation with the shop assistant, who addressed himself only to Howard, not to Josias. And finally: the right chlorine found, the right measure, the right box. Josias carrying it ahead to the cash.

And home, a better mood for both of them this time on the way home. A job done. The pool would be ready for summer.

But one day soon after, the pool filter broke, and again the two of them had to set off one evening, back to the hardware store. I heard Josias speaking in his language afterwards in the kitchen with Emily: a string of words I didn’t understand, and then ‘filter’; more unintelligible words in his language, and ‘filter.’ ‘Filter’ again. A laugh then from Josias. Was he mocking Howard? I think so.

The filter, in any case, was fixed. The pool became clear: it glinted, a sapphire on some days, in the sun. I bought the children new swimsuits, they had grown so much.

I WENT TO my studio every morning, but I didn’t work on my painting. It stood on its easel in the corner, but I had turned it around to face the wall, there was no point looking at it, I went nowhere, made no progress, doing that. I started working on some sketches though, which were minor things, drawings in pencil. I drew trees, mostly trees, and from memory, I never stepped out, say, into my garden, to draw with my sketch pad there. I’d also brought a book I had into the studio, a coffee-table book with photos of trees — encyclopaedic. Most often I drew (and drew, and re-drew) the thorn trees I knew from the Karoo, lone trees, sentinels in the dryness. I felt I was a thorn tree, then.

Josias did some planting. I didn’t really know about gardening, what to plant, where, but I went to the nursery each spring, and bought trays of seedlings, small plantings, advised by the nursery owner. She knew me, and my garden. Mrs. Kline, here are your usuals, did your geraniums survive the winter? I wasn’t sure, I hadn’t noticed, but I’d listen to her, I took her suggestions. Nasturtiums? she said. And I’d come home with the trays in the trunk of my car, orange nasturtiums that I remember, soft, nodding blooms in the sun. Josias carrying them out and exclaiming and commenting on each one. His English had improved. He knew what the plants I brought were, he knew where they were going, and didn’t need much direction from me. Soon enough I’d see him from the window deep in a flower bed with his spade, and then the hose which he hauled from the side of the house, and, later, he’d put the sprinkler on. The sheets of water curved, back and forth, back and forth, a rhythmic motion I watched.