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She blames the deterioration in his Afrikaans on the move he made years ago, first to Cape Town, to ‘English’ schools and an ‘English’ university, then to the world abroad, where not a word of Afrikaans is to be heard. In ’n minuut, he says: in a minute. It is the kind of solecism that Carol will latch onto at once and make fun of. ‘In ’n minuut sal meneer sy tee kom geniet,’ Carol will say: in a minute his lordship will come and partake of tea. She must protect him from Carol, or at least plead with Carol to have mercy on him for the space of these few days.

At table that evening she makes sure she is seated beside him. The evening meal is simply a hotchpotch of leftovers from the midday meal, the main meal of the day: cold mutton, warmed-up rice, green beans with vinegar.

She notices that he passes on the meat platter without helping himself.

‘Aren’t you having mutton, John?’ calls out Carol from the other end of the table in a tone of sweet concern.

‘Not tonight, thanks,’ John replies. ‘Ek het my vanmiddag dik gevreet’: I stuffed myself like a pig this afternoon.

‘So you are not a vegetarian. You didn’t become a vegetarian while you were overseas.’

‘Not a strict vegetarian. Dis nie ’n woord waarvan ek hou nie. As ’n mens verkies om nie so veel vleis te eet nie …’ It is not a word he is fond of. If one chooses not to eat so much meat …

‘Ja?’ says Carol. ‘As ’n mens so verkies, dan …?’ If that is what you choose, then – what?

Everyone is by now staring at him. He has begun to blush. Clearly he has no idea how to deflect the benign curiosity of the gathering. And if he is paler and scrawnier than a good South African ought to be, might the explanation be, not just that he has tarried too long amid the snows of North America, but that he has indeed been starved too long of good Karoo mutton? As ’n mens verkies … – what is he going to say next?

His blush has grown desperate. A grown man, yet he blushes like a girl! Time to intervene. She lays a reassuring hand on his arm. ‘Jy wil seker sê, John, ons het almal ons voorkeure,’ we all have our preferences.

‘Ons voorkeure,’ he says; ‘ons fiemies.’ Our preferences; our silly little whims. He spears a green bean and pops it into his mouth.

It is December, and in December it does not get dark until well after nine. Even then – so pristinely clear is the air on the high plateau – the moon and stars are bright enough to light one’s footsteps. So after supper she and he go for a walk, making a wide loop to avoid the cluster of cabins that house the farm workers.

‘Thank you for saving me at the dinner table,’ he says.

‘You know Carol,’ she says. ‘She has always had a sharp eye. A sharp eye and a sharp tongue. How is your father?’

‘Depressed. As you must surely know, he and my mother did not have the happiest of marriages. Even so, after my mother died he went into a decline – moped, didn’t know what to do with himself. Men of his generation were brought up to be more or less helpless. If there isn’t some woman on hand to cook and care for them, they simply fade away. If I hadn’t offered my father a home he would have starved to death.’

‘Is he still working?’

‘Yes, he still has his job with the motor-parts dealer, though I think they have been hinting it may be time for him to retire. And his enthusiasm for sport is undimmed.’

‘Isn’t he a cricket umpire?’

‘He was, but not any more. His eyesight has deteriorated too far.’

‘And you? Didn’t you play cricket too?’

‘Yes. In fact I still play in the Sunday league. The standard is fairly amateurish, which suits me. Curious: he and I, two Afrikaners devoted to an English game that we aren’t much good at. I wonder what that says about us.’

Two Afrikaners. Does he really think of himself as an Afrikaner? She doesn’t know many real [egte] Afrikaners who would accept him as one of the tribe. Even his father might not pass scrutiny. To pass as an Afrikaner nowadays you need at the very least to vote National and attend church on Sundays. She can