So we decided to go to Villiers for a few days, just a few days, to visit my parents, and for the children to have some time in a different place, and swim in the river. Villiers wasn’t far. My father promised Stephen fishing, they’d go in a rowboat, fishing.

But before that Howard’s firm had a party for the holidays. It was at the Benators’ house.

IT WAS A PARTY like all the others, the others we went to, Howard and I, that I haven’t mentioned much. I didn’t care for them, I’ve said so.

A pool under the summer stars, drinks and clinking glass, some music wafting from the lit windows of the house. I sat on a deck-chair with my drink, Howard was talking to some people, clients I suppose, that I didn’t know. There was a woman laughing in a loud and crude way, I put my head back then against the chair cushion, and closed my eyes.

I thought of Villiers, where we’d go soon. I thought of the peach trees, and the swing where Helena would swing, as I’d done as a child. I thought of the rough blanket that I’d haul out and lie on, as I looked up to the blue, cloudless sky. I’d bring a book. Perhaps I’d also bring my sketch pad, although I never carried it with me. No, I wouldn’t bring my sketch pad. I’ve said how I used to hide it when I was a child, and I had the same instinct now. There’d be comments. Those trees look so real, Jacqueline! My trees were just exercises, diversions for me, from my painting that had died, on its easel.

And Howard. Howard would get some rest in Villiers. He’d go with my father to his shop, he enjoyed doing that. They’d talk business: the price of lumber, the price of steel, my father bought and sold lumber. The lumber yard was behind my father’s shop, a wide space of unpaved ground, under the hot sun. I’d always avoided that yard. It wasn’t a place for a child, or a girl. Mountains of lumber, dust, Black men shouting, or lounging under the eaves, on their rest.

Then I thought of Howard and my father, and their other favourite subject: the rugby. This player or that one, this rugby match or that one. The Springboks, in their green and gold jerseys. Such proprietary pride my father felt, towards the Springboks. Bokke. He’d listen to a match broadcast from Ellis Park in Johannesburg on the small black radio he carried around with him. I’d hear the familiar voice of the broadcaster, excitement mounting through the crackling across the airwaves, and through the small radio, which my father would then put to his ear. Howard would listen with my father, they’d banter about it, this could occupy hours. I sometimes thought Howard was merely humouring, even indulging my father, and in a way I think he was. That was Howard’s way, too.