Free Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee Page B

not wasting water, about not contaminating the septic tank. He knows the lesson but listens dutifully. Then she shows him over the boarding kennels. On his last visit there had been only one pen. Now there are five, solidly built, with concrete bases, galvanized poles and struts, and heavy-gauge mesh, shaded by young bluegum trees. The dogs are excited to see her: Dobermanns, German Shepherds, ridgebacks, bull terriers, Rottweilers. 'Watchdogs, all of them,' she says. 'Working dogs, on short contracts: two weeks, one week, sometimes just a weekend. The pets tend to come in during the summer holidays.'
              'And cats? Don't you take cats?'
              'Don't laugh. I'm thinking of branching into cats. I'm just not set up for them yet.'
              'Do you still have your stall at the market?'
              'Yes, on Saturday mornings. I'll take you along.'
              This is how she makes a living: from the kennels, and from selling flowers and garden produce. Nothing could be more simple.
              'Don't the dogs get bored?' He points to one, a tan-coloured bulldog bitch with a cage to herself who, head on paws, watches them morosely, not even bothering to get up.
              'Katy? She's abandoned. The owners have done a bunk. Account unpaid for months. I don't know what I'm going to do about her. Try to find her a home, I suppose. She's sulking, but otherwise she's all right. She gets taken out every day for exercise. By me or by Petrus. It's part of the package.'
              Petrus?'
              'You will meet him. Petrus is my new assistant. In fact, since March, co-proprietor. Quite a fellow.'
              He strolls with her past the mud-walled dam, where a family of ducks coasts serenely, past the beehives, and through the garden: flowerbeds and winter vegetables - cauliflowers, potatoes, beetroot, chard, onions. They visit the pump and storage dam on the edge of the property. Rains for the past two years have been good, the water table has risen.
              She talks easily about these matters. A frontier farmer of the new breed. In the old days, cattle and maize. Today, dogs and daffodils. The more things change the more they remain the same. History repeating itself, though in a more modest vein. Perhaps history has learned a lesson.
              They walk back along an irrigation furrow. Lucy's bare toes grip the red earth, leaving clear prints. A solid woman, embedded in her new life. Good! If this is to be what he leaves behind - this daughter, this woman - then he does not have to be ashamed.
              'There's no need to entertain me,' he says, back in the house. 'I've brought my books. I just need a table and chair.'
              'Are you working on something in particular?' she asks carefully. His work is not a subject they often talk about.
              'I have plans. Something on the last years of Byron. Not a book, or not the kind of book I have written in the past. Something for the stage, rather. Words and music. Characters talking and singing.'
              'I didn't know you still had ambitions in that direction.'
              'I thought I would indulge myself. But there is more to it than that. One wants to leave something behind. Or at least a man wants to leave something behind. It's easier for a woman.'
              'Why is it easier for a woman?'
              'Easier, I mean, to produce something with a life of its own.'
              'Doesn't being a father count?'
              'Being a father... I can't help feeling that, by comparison with being a mother, being a father is a rather abstract business. But let us wait and see what comes. If something does come, you will be the first to hear. The first and probably the last.'
              'Are you going to write the music yourself?'
              'I'll borrow the music,