On tour

In rain-dazzled, sun-speckled Cape Town, Cleo and I - L.'s temporarily in Jo'Burg, to meet her students - live something like a band on tour. The mornings have nothing to do with our communal performance; just as the Stones or the members of G'n'R would have used mornings to sleep off the previous night's excesses, we split up and take care of our needs. I edit chapters, smooth out permission payments, read about germinate verbs in Arabic, and stare disbelievingly at evidence of another Pirate win; Cleo, I gather, clutches her two small plastic toys as talismans in making her way through another morning of heavy accents and Boer games at daycare. But then, at 2:30, my work and her nap both end, and we reunite, transformed: she into Lisa, of Milkshake, and I into children, her adoring entourage. And, cast thusly, we take the city by storm: cutting out a paper dinosaur at the local library, and seeking out apple cake at the German bakery; splashing in puddles, and learning the ropes of the nearby playground and its treacherous, but alluring, carousel. Only to crash into bed, spent, at the end of the performance - and then to rise the next afternoon, and do it again.