The signs of laughter were marked around Kate’s brown eyes, although she was then in her mid-twenties. Her casual clothes made soft folds on her full body; the body you felt would always be soft for those who love her. The hearty laughs came from deep within, free and open. Yet she was uneasy, a hidden doubt eating her from within.

They had married in 1968 in an ancient market town, an hour from London. Kate while at a famous art college, and Dirk after completing his degree in international law at the London School of Economics. She was from the minor gentry settled in and around the town, most of them having been taxed off the land and into the more genteel professions. He was an Afrikaner aristocrat, whose rich and sophisticated family owned most of a valley in the mountains near Cape Town and he had many political connections. Dirk was as hard as she was soft, with knotted muscles that came from a passion for rugby and doing a tour of duty ‘on the border’.

***

They had met, in London, at a Church function to raise money for scholarships for black South Africans. Although Kate had little interest in politics, her family had always been supporters of worthy causes. Dirk was affable and relaxed and talked freely with some black students that hung around nervously. His voice rich and smooth without the whining drawl that she associated with white South Africans. Something sparked between them, and they went ...