Get A Life

The family outing is over. Monday the four-wheel drive back to the wilderness with Derek, Thapelo, according to the week's plan of research to which there is never a final solution, ever. That's the condition on which the work goes on, will go on. Phambili.

Be

But when up the rock she reaches him, she says nothing. Their attention is attracted by an intense shadow above the trees whose lighter shade and sunlight break up the solid outlines of his face and body and hers. The grand stunt of the eagles, there, maybe the courting display described in the pamphlet.

The eagles have lifted away to their higher altitudes. The branches obscure viewing.

She has taken a step down, from him, backwards.

– Paul -

A signal for him to follow; he hands her the pamphlet, souvenir.

– I'm pregnant. Another child. -

– How did that happen. -

She shakes her head tenderly, in guilt. It's not because she tried another man, the cruelty he sees, of that solution. – I didn't tell you, but I haven't been taking any precaution. -

– So. For how long. – If the roving cells had continued to survive in his body, they could have disappeared by now, the pilot light of deadly radiance that he believed pursued them, could have gone out.

– Only the last two months. -

– So. What do you want to do. -

– Want to tell you. -

'So': it means there is an alternative he wants, abortion.

If Berenice would crumple into tears, effective in TV imagist resolution of confrontation, Be

He did not jump down to embrace her he stretched out his hand the palm wide the fingers spaced and curved and her hand came from support of her face to meet his grasp as if she were to be pulled from a foundering boat or a landfall.

Not an epiphany, life moves more slowly and inexorably than any belief in that. Except there's the question of why she chose that moment and place to a

Lyndsay was told. A sibling for Nicholas. Although he was not so much an only child now that Klara was – an unexpected form of relationship, u

Be

Lyndsay came with a letter again one day, without the accompanying happening of the child, and after calling to ask if he was alone. Yes, his wife Be

His mother ignored Nickie watching the children's television programme he demanded with Be

He slit the top of the envelope carefully and drew out the folded sheet at the same time handing it towards her, but she came to stand close beside him, head bent to read it together.

Stavanger.

Lyndsay recognised the handwriting from the statement of expenses the guide had presented at the end of each week of services in Mexico. She sensed her lips moving as she and her son read, as if following a foreign language. Dear Mrs Ba

Both stopped reading. What happened: he stayed behind in Mexico, he went to Norway. Gone away. It is difficult to realise another departure. If this had been a letter from Adrian telling at last that he was not coming back, the state of retirement he was in, Stavanger, was final, would that have been different? But what an insane escapist thought. Even if they were having it together. Adrian is dead. He hasn't a

Her son – their son – stirs the sheet of paper; they must read on. As if there is anything to say. Already told: died in his sleep, in bed beside the guide of course, no suffering, she knows because she was there, she simply sensed there was no rise and fall of breath or his body was cold against hers. They had walked together in the afternoon on the beautiful North Sea beach, Sola, a theatre where the streak of wet in the light from the stage that touched his cheek a