Free A Sport of Nature by Nadine Gordimer

chutney—theyoung people’s favourite lunch. Joe asks what the swimming was like. Oh wonderful, though not as good as Plett. —The water was so warm we all went in on Friday night—about two in the morning!—
    â€”Who’d you meet up with?— Carole slips into innocent schoolgirl gossip.
    â€”No-one in particular. Mandy knows some chaps from Michael-house, it turned out it was their half-term, and they knew someone I met at Plett.—
    â€”Who’s that?—
    Sasha swallows a large mouthful and turns on his sister. —Nosey.—
    Hillela is smiling at Sasha, but he doesn’t look at her face. She glances down at her arm as if something, a touch of light, has directed attention there. She rolls the shell bracelet off over her fist. —I brought this for you, Carole. Sasha—I would’ve got you something if I’d known you’d be here—

The Shadow of a Palm Tree
    There was a time and place for Hillela to give account of herself.
    Olga’s Rover kept by Jethro shiny as the taps in her bathroom stood outside the gate. Olga sat in Pauline’s worn livingroom with Pauline, waiting. Olga got up and hugged her; —Hillela, oh Hillela.— She was sweaty from the day at school and did not know when it would be all right to break the sweet-smelling embrace. —You want to tidy up a bit?— Olga lifted the hair at the back of the girl’s head, gauging it needed an expert cut.
    â€”There’s a chicken sandwich in the kitchen, darling. Leftovers from the grand lunch I gave Olga.—
    â€”It was a perfectly good lunch, believe me. I usually have an apple and a bit of cheese.—
    â€”Yes, one can see that by the shape you keep. But I can’t be bothered. There are too many other things to do. I’m hungry; I eat bread and peanut butter to fuel myself; I spread around the arse …—
    She came back barefoot, her face washed, hair pushed behind her ears.
    â€”Your sandwich.—
    She turned and fetched it from the kitchen.
    Olga kept smiling at her, frowning and smiling at once, as people do in order not to make fools of themselves in some way. Olga would leave it to Pauline: Pauline accepted with the gesture of inevitability. —It’s all been passed off just as if you’ve been—I don’t know, spending the weekend with a friend, as if it were any other time you or Carole …? But the fact is, my dear little Hillela, you gave us all a terrible twenty-four hours. Notonly us, your immediate family here where you belong, but also Olga … Olga was running around hospitals and police stations, just like us.—
    Olga’s smile broke. —We don’t want to reproach you, darling. We only want to know why. Why you could just go off like that.—
    â€”You know how much freedom I give you and Carole and Sasha. If you had an invitation, if you planned to go to Durban, you could so easily have asked me …—
    Pauline told Joe, Olga told Arthur: the girl answered unnaturally openly: —On Friday after tennis we were hot, and we began talking about the sea. So we thought, why not go?—
    â€”Without money, without a change of clothes?—
    The girl reassured Olga. They had their gym shorts, pullovers and swimming costumes in their attaché cases; Mandy had money. They had no trouble getting lifts. First a man and his wife going to their farm near Harrismith, and then they waited about half-an-hour at the roadside before a van driver stopped, he was on his way back to Cato Manor because his boss let him keep the van over the weekend, but he specially went right into Durban, for them.
    â€”Isn’t Cato Manor a black location?—
    Pauline broke in across her sister. —Prejudice is one thing, Hillela, and you know in this house I take full responsibility for bringing you up without any colour-feeling, any colour-consciousness. But you must realize that there are risks one