“For us Afrikaans was a deed of rescue. You wanted to use it as well as you could to rescue yourself and other Afrikaners from poverty and misery. Teachers saw to it that we mastered scientific and classical Afrikaans. We had to learn Afrikaans poems and Bible verses off by heart, and so pure sentence structure and vocabulary were bedded in us. Anglicisms were like cursing. You delighted in storytellers who could play with language. They were heard again and again and their stories retold so often that the unique expressions were extended to everybody.”

Ma let me know: “Heavens child, a horse is too big to bury, but your father battled for a week to have a large enough hole dug.”

Went for a walk this evening— it is bone-white outside with snowflakes falling gently, and everywhere in the houses are Christmas lights. My feet scuff the snow like when you scoop flour with a cup.

With the black government being so corrupt— dear Lord— the amount of shame and embarrassment that it causes black people, almost a second humiliation after apartheid— I never criticise along with white people. Never. Even though I can see they want me to.

The moment truth is brought into language, it becomes fiction in any case.