It's a beautiful day, of course, Easter Sunday. The family brunches, spectacularly, in the garden, the boys hurtle about, I sit like the non-child I have somehow become. And, far more importantly than my family and a beautiful day and great food, I have made an arrangement for someone to pick up the darn posters from me and take them to POPArt: the venue which we are playing here in Johannesburg.
Even for this to work there has been some back and forth and re-arranging. Of course there has: the venue is run by three young women all needing to make a living and pursue their creative careers and run a fringe venue. I have absolutely no illusions about the sheer time-consuming thankless slog this can be most of the time. On top of that, Orly who, it turns out, lives near to my cousin's place, has a small child. Personally I can't fathom how she can manage that too, but as we greet each other in that very traditionally Joburg way - though the grating of the gating which closes off my cousin's place from the street, I spy a fella in the car. Well, that certainly helps - to have someone else involved in bringing up your child. He smiles at me - he's clearly fabulous.
Orly is very friendly and I tell her that I plan to make the trip to see the theatre tomorrow, in company this time. I've told her about my harrowing trip the day before to find the place. She laughs and says that it's a good idea to have someone to navigate as it's not that easy the first time. This makes me feel the slitheriest of scintillas better about the whole debacle, though deep down I know it's my fault that I cannot find my way.
The show opens again on Thursday and amidst all the things I need to do I cannot resist visiting old haunts, old friends, with my mother and my littlest aunt. Our tastes are embarrassingly similar: we want to go where their sister went, to see her friends.
Jane was 21 when she married a Dutchman who lived in South Africa. She lived nearly forty years in the country and she was well-loved. Jane may be gone, but we want to reconnect to her life and her people. She made wedding dresses for a living, as does my littlest aunt, and we go to her local fabric shop, still there like it surely has been forever. We go to Jane's favourite local cafe and meet her best friend and her daughter who is about my age whom I first met when we were seven. It is so natural to see them and yet so odd that Jane isn't here. It is hurling a typical Joburg afternoon electric rainstorm outside and I'm basically chilly and damp. I remember meeting these people more than thirty years ago. And here we all still are, yet depleted.
We visit another friend of Jane's where we talk politics and the past, present and future. That extraordinary optimism-laced-fear or pessimism-laced-hope or horror-laced-excitement or joy-laced-grief which seems to be the lietmotif of the discourse of so many of my South African friends, old and new. We talk about Jane. We talk about Kate.
This particular friend of Jane's gave my brother and I small gifts when Kate died, helpful gifts. Mine is a series of painted blocks strung together. One one side of each is an angel. On the other side is the legend "And all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well." This friend is a Christian and I suppose that might be what she believes... in fact, I think it is what she believes. The angels and their message hang above my kitchen sink reminding me that I was born an optimist and it has been well and truly beaten out of me because I am weak and ungrateful.
And we see Paulina. If you've seen Sometimes I Laugh Like My Sister you'll remember her - she was my sister's very dear friend, her housekeeper, and she is the last moment of the show. We pick her up to take her out to lunch. It's another strangely rainy, cold day and we go to Moyo's at Zoo Lake, near to where she and my sister used to live. I get lost on the way, and we stop to look at the map, finally working out how to get to the shops in Park View where we are meeting Paulina. I'm driving and I apologise to Mum and my littlest aunt, explaining that I was trying not to go down Kate's road. "We know that," they both reply. There we all are, talking about everything but, yet thinking the same thing.
Paulina seems not to have aged and has not lost her infectious laugh. She's had a tough time since we last saw her, having to give up a job and move house. Moving house has involved moving into a shack in a different township. At first, she says, she was mortified at the idea of living in a shack. It is very small, smaller than her old place and, well, it's a shack and there are rats everywhere. She tells us that one day it began raining and it turned out her roof was leaky. As despair was about to grab her, a neighbour came round with some plastic sheeting which saved the day. She tells us she is very happy where she is living, that the people are lovely, that she's far happier than she thught she would be. It's so good to see her, to hear her opinions on the political future of South Africa. She says that whatever happens, the rewards of post-apartheid South Africa are not for her, that she and most of her generation will have to forego things so that future generations can benefit. She does not sound resigned, she sounds accepting. Maybe that's me romanticising or trying to make myself feel more comfortable about my massive western advantages, but she states it as if resistance is futile and I'm sure she's right on all counts.
I think of the story most Europeans know of South Africa, of Mandela and wine and rugby and gun crime and I think of Paulina's amazing life and massive good grace. And I know I cannot even begin to explain the place, but that it's got me good and proper this time. In my head I blame Jane and her Dutch husband, I blame Kate and her over-arching ambition, but mostly I blame Paulina and all the other Paulinas who open their hearts to me and demonstrate their eye-watering good will, their love-in-action.
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