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It is by no means the first hint she has had of how far the old barriers between white and Coloured have come down. The signs are more obvious here than in Calvinia. Merweville is a smaller town and in decline, in such decline that it must be in danger of falling off the map. There can be no more than a few hundred people left. Half the houses they drove past seemed unoccupied. The building with the legend Volkskas [People's Bank] in white pebbles studded in the mortar over the door houses not a bank but a welding works. Though the worst of the afternoon heat is past, the sole living presence on the main street is provided by two men and a woman stretched out, along with a scrawny dog, in the shade of a flowering jacaranda.

Did I say all that? I don't remember.

I added a detail or two to bring the scene to life. I didn't tell you, but since Merweville figures so largely in your story, I actually visited the town to check it out.

You went to Merweville? How did it seem to you?

Much as you described it. But there is no Apollo Café any more. No café at all. Shall I go on?

John speaks. 'Are you aware that, among his other accomplishments, our grandfather used to be mayor of Merweville?'

'Yes, I am aware of that.' Their mutual grandfather had his finger in all too many pies. He was – the English word occurs to her – a go-getter in a land with few go-getters, a man with plenty of – another English word – spunk, more spunk probably than all his children put together. But perhaps that is the fate of the children of strong fathers: to be left with less than a full share of spunk. As with the sons, so with the daughters too: a little too self-effacing, the Coetzee women, blessed with too little of whatever the female equivalent of spunk might be.

She has only tenuous memories of their grandfather, who died when she was still a child: of a stooped, grouchy old man with a bristly chin. After the midday meal, she remembers, the whole house would freeze into silence: Grandpa was having his nap. Even at that age she was surprised to see how fear of the old man could make grown people creep about like mice. Yet without that old man she would not be here, nor would John: not just here on earth but here in the Karoo, on Voëlfontein or in Merweville. If her own life, from cradle to grave, has been and is still being determined by the ups and downs of the market in wool and mutton, then that is her grandfather's doing: a man who started out as a smous, a hawker peddling cotton prints and pots and pans and patent medicines to countryfolk, then when he had saved up enough money bought a share in a hotel, then sold the hotel and bought land and settled down as of all things a gentleman horse-breeder and sheep-farmer.

'You haven't asked what we are doing here in Merweville,' says John.

'Very well: what are we doing in Merweville?'

'I want to show you something. I am thinking of buying property here.'

She cannot believe her ears. 'You want to buy property? You want to live in Merweville? In Merweville? Do you want to be mayor too?'

'No, not live here, just spend time here. Live in Cape Town, come here for weekends and holidays. It's not impossible. Merweville is seven hours from Cape Town if you drive without stopping. You can buy a house for a thousand rand – a four-room house and half a morgen of land with peach trees and apricot trees and orange trees. Where else in the world will you get such a bargain?'

'And your father? What does your father think of this plan of yours?'

'It's better than an old-age home.'

'I don't understand. What is better than an old-age home?'

'Living in Merweville. My father can stay here, take up residence; I will be based in Cape Town but I will come up regularly to see that he is okay.'

'And what will your father do during the time he is here all by himself? Sit on the stoep and wait for the one car a day to drive past? There is a simple reason why you can buy a house in Merweville for peanuts, John: because no one wants