Free Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh

replaced the shanty homes of the first gold pioneers who made the city. I was so disappointed as Ma had told me on the plane that it was called the City of Gold, and I had expected the streets to be literally paved with the stuff and the buildings composed of it.
    Gordon's place in Kempton Park was certainly salubrious enough, but all there seemed to be at the end of his driveway was a tree-lined road leading to more houses and grounds. No kids played on the deserted streets, the place was dead. I just stayed in most of the time, or played in the garden, hanging around with Kim. It was okay, though: there were plenty of things to see around the house.
    Gordon lived on his own with his black housekeeper, and it seemed bizarre that he should keep on a house of that size. It was probably just to show the world how much of a success he was, financially at any rate. Emotionally, life in the Republic had not been so rewarding for him. There had been a wife, but she had departed long ago, all traces of her obliterated. Nobody talked about her, the subject was taboo. I'd put the shits up Kim by telling her that Gordon had murdered her and buried her body in the grounds. This was plausible, given the way Gordon appeared. Straight away I clocked him as a true Strang: weird as fuck.
    On one occasion I took my tormenting of Kim too far, and she freaked really badly, spilling the beans, resulting in me getting a good slapping from my Ma. As she belted me, I remembered Vet saying: — I'm only daein this cause if yir faither finds oot n he does it, ye'll ken aw aboot it. That was true as Kim was my Dad's favourite and teasing her always carried the extreme risk of incurring his wrath. While it was quite a healthy slapping, I took it with a sense of relief, recognising the truth in her words. She was actually doing me a favour and I sensed her heart wasn't in it; but unfortunately she was instinctively quite good at violence. She stopped when my nose started to bleed heavily. Though my ears rang for a few days I didn't even sulk or feel bad about her or Kim after. Everyone seemed lighter, happier. It was a good time.
    I knew fuck all about politics at the time, but even I soon sussed that Uncle Gordon was what I suppose I'd now call an unreconstructed pro-apartheid white supremacist. He had come to South Africa about fifteen years previously. His story, which he was fond of telling anyone who'd listen (I heard it literally dozens of times that year) was that he and two of his pals were sitting in the Jubilee Cafe in Granton, thinking about what to do to with their lives. They thought of emigration to Canada, Australia or South Africa. They decided to take one each and Gordon arbitrarily picked SA. They were supposed to report back to the Jubilee in ten years' time, but they never showed up. The cafe had shut down anyway. — We were silly laddies, Gordon remarked, — but it was the best break I ever had.
    Even at the time, as an eleven-year-old, I thought that his story was romanticised bullshit.
    There was no doubt that Gordon had done well, at least materially, from the system. After taking a few menial but well-paid-compared-to-the-blacks-doing-the-same-thing sort of jobs, he set up a property management agency in Johannesburg. It took off, and he diversified into property development. By the time we arrived, Gordon had this large suburban home, a mansion, really, and a fair-sized timber farm out in the veld of the Eastern Transvaal, on the road to the Kruger National Park. He also had offices in Durban and Cape Town as well as property interests in Sun City.
    I think the old man thought that he was just going to walk into a top job in Gordon's business. I can recall Gordon saying to him over breakfast, — Look John, I'll get you fixed up here. Don't worry about that. But I won't have you working with me. I'm a great believer in keeping business and family apart.
    I remember this fairly vividly, because it resulted in an argument, and