Get A Life

– Unlawful dismissal. We won. It's something of a test case with implication for others. Charlene Damons was an outstandingly good witness – the attorney who was supposed to prepare her said it was the other way about -

The two women laughed; this testimony must have been what led Lyndsay to take an interest in the woman. Obviously initiated some opportunity to talk to her; time has long passed when coffee shops were segregated and there was nowhere to go. Over the Sunday lunch Lyndsay encouraged voluble Charlene, who didn't need much urging while she composedly enjoyed her food and the usual wine the host's mother contributed, to tell about her work among people suffering HIV and AIDS, in particular workers employed in industry and chain stores.

– What happens to the babies? Many die? And if they survive, with treatment. They do get treatment? – Be

– Many die. What can you do. They've been left in public toilets. Some in the street, the police find them and bring them in. -

– The mothers? -

– Nobody knows the mothers, who're the fathers. -

Lyndsay has been turned away, listening. – But when you see them, their faces. They look like someone. Not nobody. -

There's proof. Nickie, icecream-besmeared face, looking like – Paul, Be

The new kind of family lunch passed uneventfully enough with the guest; Paul and Be

She probably wrote back – would she? – the same kind of letters with matters skimmed from the surface of what the family was living; whether there were words, residue of the exchanges of the personal, not the ancient, past, coming privately from her to him was her own affair, her son couldn't speculate any more than he could foresee any resolution the parents might come to for themselves.

The government's a

– The Minister's passing the buck. Just listen again. Environmental Affairs: 'The Minister remains opposed to the mining and instead supports ecotourism in the area. But ultimately the decision to mine on the Wild Coast rests with the Minister of Minerals and Energy.' Ja-nee. – Derek's jerks of the head mimic 'yes-no'.

– The Mineral Commodities outfit must have submitted for the Aussies the application to Minerals and Energy by now. Department's sitting on it. While that's going on and Mineral Commodities' spin doctors are lobbying, you can depend on that, we've got to keep pushing, man, pushing. They're going over the Pondoland Marine Park projects, they say, to 'assess' how it will affect their mining plans, but that's nonsense, shaya-shaya, their chief exec's already said the frontal dune and riverine systems had always been excluded from the mining areas – they're not – Thapelo hoists the flag of one of the surveyors' maps.

A heat of frustration rises with it. Paul waves a hand up across the table as if clearing this emanation. – Lobbying – that's only part of the strategy. Bribery is going to serve them even better. The option they've given to a black empowerment company that represents the very community, the traditional leaders we counted on, the people we've been lobbying to protest misuse of their land, threat to their subsistence. A fifteen percent stake in the mining deal, ten million dollars. Ten million! How does that divide up among – how many people? It doesn't; going to be shares on the stock exchange. Doesn't matter. It's a sum that fills the sky. – His rolling glance tilts inadvertently at Thapelo, who shouldn't be singled out; wanting the empowerment of money is a characteristic of whites as well, at least human temptation isn't discriminatory. The difference is whites have held that power exclusively, so long. – How does that look for protest against the toll road that's going to break up their habitat, the mining that's set to destroy the dunes there? So? We don't want rural blacks to have a share in the growth of economic power? It's not for them? They're out of the mix in our mixed economy? What're we going to say to that. -

Thapelo slaps his hands across his chest to strike and grab his biceps. – We have to live with it, Bra. Race sensitivity's out, my man, for this thing. Those big money boys know how to operate rings round us. For sure there's a link, a deal, between the toll highway and the mining, let the Mineral Commodities set-up and the government deny it, shout from now till tomorrow, you saw how the National Road Agency says the road will reduce transport costs, that's important for the products of the mine, getting the stuff to the smelter. -

– And finally to the stock exchanges of the world. -

– And the ten million dollar shareholders scattered by the highway. Who'll get the dividends. -

– The makhosi. -

Paul turned from the contest of words to decisions. – We're only a couple of months before the deadline for final objections to the mining project. Co-ordinate all the organisations and groups for action, jack up overseas support (Berenice's vocabulary comes in useful, an unfamiliar weapon). Get a life, man! – Let's make up and bring a high-profile party of save-the-earthers to come as observers of what's at stake – not the low-voltage ones we've had – some pop stars who'll compose songs for us, Come rap for the planet, prove they're good world citizens… it's cool now for the famous to take up causes -

– Right on, my brother! -

Maybe her advertising agency would know exactly how to manipulate this, now desperately become like any other publicity campaign.

Lyndsay had left a message among those waiting on his mobile phone. Responding to relevant others, he forgot about it. She called again – it's just to say she'd like to come round this evening, if he and Be

His mother arrived after nine without acknowledgement of being later than expected and with the air of having pleasantly concluded some preoccupation. Be