Agnes hung her head, trying not to weep. Her parents’ silence swelled and reddened and seemed to suppurate like a wound. Finally, in a voice Agnes had never heard before – gapless, as if no longer needing to accommodate her husband or as if they now spoke as one – her mother issued their final words on the matter: ‘You have disgraced us. Your grandfather would roll in his grave. You had better pray that this Kaffir has not yet laid a finger on you. Because if he has, I promise you, he will hang.’
