We spent our last night in Cape Town in our small, empty flat in Gardens. We slept very badly on a blow-up mattress. Seven years of memories and freezing tiles kept me awake. I thought of all the parties, the dinners, the friendships made in this home.
I went onto our massive wraparound balcony and stared at the rain-shrouded Table Mountain like I had a thousand times before, moving my eyes over Lion’s Head and the city. Gentle, wild, comforting.
Five months later I would be at a book launch on the roof of the Lister Building in Jeppe Street, watching a thunderstorm break over the angles and grit of Jozi skyscrapers, the vastness of it making for a different wildness; an industrial beauty I appreciated simply because it was so alien. I felt love.