His words, the words he’d said to me on my last visit, I still carried with me, in a secret space — another secret space — in my mind. How many secret spaces I had now, that I’d never had, before. Lie with me, Jacqueline, he had said. And for the first time it occurred to me: did he mean, tell a lie? To lie with him would be a lie. Then again, it came to me: to lie with him would be a deep truth.

No, he didn’t mean tell a lie. He meant what I’d first understood, I knew it, of course I knew it.

I knocked on his door, and how I remember the exact sound of that soft knocking on the old, wooden door, under the shade of the trees, the exact, filtered light, a faint rustle of birds, a start of a bird, perhaps. A tableau. I, standing at the worn step, in that glade. If I still painted, I’d paint it. But I never painted figures, you know that. No, I would never have painted that.

And Joseph’s immediate opening of the door, he standing there, his dark head, his bearded face, his glasses.

But that day Joseph wore a different shirt, it was a pale blue one, a collared, buttoned shirt, like the white one. The same shirt, just a different colour.

Joseph, I said, I’m not coming in. We’re going away, to Villiers, for five days. Me. Howard. The children. Emily will carry on with everything, as before.

And then he said: Villiers? On the Vaal?

Yes, I said, my parents live there.

Your painting, he said.

Yes, yes, my painting, that is true, I said. We both smiled.

Is everything else alright, Joseph, I said. Yes, yes, all is fine, he said. He gestured towards his table, covered, as always, with his papers, and the pile of books, on the floor. Joseph, while we’re away you should go out into the sunshine a bit you know, just step out, I said. Ah, he said. He shook his head. It’s alright, Jacqueline, don’t worry.

Goodbye then, I said, and I reached to shake his hand.

Shake his hand? I had not shaken his hand since the evening I’d met him, almost a year before. Such a formal gesture. But he reached out, and we shook hands. His hand was firm and strong, and dry, I remember it. A man’s hand, only a man’s hand felt that way.

And then I turned, and walked, quickly, up the grass. I feel he must have been standing there, watching me, my departing self: my pale legs, my sandals, my skirt.

WE WENT TO VILLIERS. We drove that familiar road, out of the city, past the mine dumps. A city ringed with mine dumps, strange pale hills, dusky: the dun residue of gold. Gold. We felt it then, but I know it now: they, the mine dumps, were the source, the reason, for everything. The state was built upon it: the state itself.