In which it's made clear to me I'm lucky that Kate was shot once and killed

March 2013
I have already sung a song of love for the many fabulous folk we encounter in Cape Town, but one song is not enough.
Like many others, as I age I am working out which things really are great for me. Three of them are
1. Walking
2. Seeing theatrical productions
3. Eating fruit.
Mysteriously, amongst other chums, I find myself with two buddies: one is a walker and one is a theatre-goer, with access to seemingly everything which is going on on the Cape Town scene. Frustratingly I do not meet a fruit dealer and find myself having to purchase my own fruit although Mark, one of the fathers of my eight-month-old roommate, makes the best smoothies known to humanity, one day producing a little something shot-through with basil grown on their roof terrace which Ikeraam, the other father, does not like much, so I get extra rations.
What I'm saying here is I really cannot complain. While Martin and Jacques go on the most tyre-expensive trip around Namibia in modern history, I am looked after by the good folk of Cape Town in a way I cannot imagine before and will surely become some kind of dream afterwards.
It is Stacey who takes me walking. There are lots of places to walk here in CT but, how can I put this....? If they can, most South Africans will avoid walking. The vast majority of South Africans have no choice but to walk and walk and walk, to work, to their friends' places, across the highway at dusk - I could do a whole series of blogs about the transport infrastructure crisis here, where pavements are anathema and the idea of a public transport system, owned by the people, seems as far off as full employment and a decent education for all. Those who do have access to a car may well use it to get to the gym, the pool or iron man competition but they would no more think of walking five minutes to the shops than running naked through their own brother's wedding. Actually, my uncle walks his area a lot. He comes across, though, as rather an eccentric, shorts (never mind the season), a woman's red body-warmer with fur-lined hood, cinched at the waist by a belt, and, given the rest of the look, standard sandals with socks. He pounds the streets with breaking-edge scientific philosophy on his ipod and is, remarkably in this crime-ridden city, never bothered by anyone. Can't think why.
Stacey, though, is a walker. She is also a purveyor of coffee, cheeses and little boxes of the best snacks. I even stop talking myself to listen to what she has to say, so interesting is she. The walks are beautiful, her friends and family are interesting and it's just great. I can walk a bit of my angst away, stop worrying about the fact I am not writing, talk about my heartbreak to a woman who Knows About Life, though, disappointingly, she has yet to solve it. And I get to see Cape Town from many new angles, literal ones.
Conveniently, my theatre maestra is Tracey so I do not have to trouble my shocking memory to remember their names. Tracey takes me to opening nights where there is free food, introduces me to actors and artistic directors, explains the Cape Town theatre scene to me. It is at one of these events where, not only do I get to listen to John Kani speak, an inspirational ten minutes where he raises up, above us all, the young people we have just seen perform - where they belong - but I also get to shake his hand and gush and generally embarrass myself. I also meet a woman who has seen Sometimes I Laugh Like My Sister.
She is, she says, pleased to meet me, she wants to talk about the show. And I am grateful that I never, ever relax and presume that someone wants to tell me I'm brave and eloquent and a beautiful performer.... obviously sometimes they do want to do just that, but not on this occasion. No. As she stands just that bit too close, even for me, she tells me that she could hardly stand the show, that she wanted to walk out. I say, I wish she had. Er... that sounds really bad, but I say it in a way that means she would have been as welcome to go as she was to stay. And I mean it. Bartelt and I always mean that. We do not expect everyone to like our work and it is emotional stuff, people must look after themselves. She says it was horrible to sit through, that so may awful things happen in South Africa, she tells me of two terrible attacks on people she knows. Other people are coming up to us, including my friend Tracey, but I do not break eye contact with this woman, who feels as if she might break apart at any moment. I feel I must stand here ready to catch the glowing, furious filings of her shattering self. Because that's what it feels like, as if she cannot keep her self together, that the pain and fear and anger are too much to contain. I hold my ground, I hold my eye contact, just as I tell doctors and dentists and lawyers to do in the communication skills training I dole out with alacrity. Frankly, I do not know what else to do. The show has affected her, or she was already in this state pre-show, and it is my duty, as Bartelt and I have said from the start, to bear witness to whatever the show unleashes.
I'm managing, I'm doing well, and then she tells me I'm lucky, that Kate was lucky just to be shot once in the back and die, she was not assaulted by several people, tortured, afraid for her life as the cruelty that humanity can dole out enjoyed her fear and suffering. She was not tied up, not gang-raped, not left for dead. She had a good death, a clean murder. I hold my ground, my eye-contact, it is all I have left: I must hold this, she is speaking about herself not about me, not about Kate, she is hurt, she is lashing out, I do not know her journey, I cannot, must not judge, she is allowed these feelings, and it is good that she is expressing them.
I just want to yell "FUCK YOU! YOU KNOW NOTHING!"  but that's because I am weak and I am ego. In the end, that I want to do that, has nothing to do with her, it is my self-pity, as strong as hers, pulling at its reigns, desperate to hurtle across the space between us and shake her until she understands. But we can never understand one another, the gap remains no matter how long your arms.
But I don't. I don't know why, but it's a combination of feeling so sorry for this wounded woman, years of post-show practice and the final bell going for the show I'm about to see. There has been no appropriate moment to stop the conversation, so I choose an inappropriate one and break away anyway.
And this one angry, hurt voice, in a sea of praise for what we have created, is enough; I am assailed by that familiar doubt, wondering if we should ever have made the show, and this feeling sits with me a while, open and unresolved: no one can tell me I was right to do it, but then equally no one can tell me I was wrong.