Anna’s voice cracked again. She was thinking: Good Lord, if I were sitting here watching myself I’d feel quite sick at all this sentimentality. Well, I am making myself sick. She said aloud, her voice shaking: ‘We shouldn’t make what he stands for look cheap.’ She was thinking: I’m making what he stands for look cheap in every word I say.

Marion said: ‘He sounds marvellous. But they can’t all be like that.’

‘Of course not. There’s his friend - he’s bombastic and rabble-rousing and he drinks and whores around. He’ll probably be the first Prime Minister - he has all the qualities - the common touch, you know.’

Marion laughed. Anna laughed. The laughter was over-loud and uncontrolled.

‘There’s another,’ went on Anna. (Who? she thought. Surely I’m not going to talk about Charlie Themba?) ‘He’s a trade union leader, called Charlie Themba. He’s violent and passionate and quarrelsome and loyal and - well recently he cracked up.’

‘Cracked up?’ said Marion, suddenly. ‘What do you mean?’

Anna thought: Yes, I had been meaning to talk about Charlie all the time. In fact that’s probably who I’ve been leading up to all this time.

‘Broke down, then. But do you know, Marion, what’s really odd is, no one recognized the beginning of his breakdown? Because the politics out there - they’re violent and full of intrigue and jealousies and spite - rather like Elizabethan England …’ Anna stopped. Marion was frowning with annoyance. ‘Marion, did you know you look angry?’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes, it’s because it’s one thing to think poor things and another to allow that African politics could have any resemblance at all to English politics - even such a long time ago.’

Marion blushed, then she laughed. ‘Go on about him,’ she said.

‘Well Charlie started to quarrel with Tom Mathlong who was his closest friend, and then all his other friends, accusing them of intriguing against him. Then he began writing bitter letters to people like me, here. We didn’t see what we should have seen. Then suddenly I got a letter - I brought it with me. Would you like to see it?’

Marion held out her hand. Anna put the letter into it. Anna was thinking: When I put this letter into my bag I wasn’t conscious why … The letter was a carbon copy. It had been sent to several people. Dear Anna was written in rough pencil at the top.