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.’
    ‘She must look after her stepmother!’ he said, raising his voice.
    ‘She has already Kleine Kiki, papa,’ Anna protested. ‘Katerina wants only she.’
    ‘ Nee! Too young!’ Piet Van Heerden shouted. I could see he was coming close to losing his temper again.
    Anna was not put off. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at her father, her eyes daring him. ‘For what, Papa? Why I am too young?’
    The Dutchman’s fist smashed down on the table. ‘ Heere , man! Jy is te jong om te fok! ’
    It was crude and direct and said in Dutch, but the one essential word needed no translation.
    ‘Sir, you have my word of —’
    ‘Sssh! Nicholas,’ Anna interrupted. I looked at her, surprised. Tears formed in her lovely eyes, then escaped to run slowly down her cheeks. Her voice was steady as she spoke to her father in English. ‘My mother was fifteen! Mijn moeder was slechts vijftien! ’ she repeated in Dutch.
    The Dutchman brought his arm back to strike Anna as he rose from the bench. I saw the dark healing line of the superficial cut Ishmael, the barman I’d replaced, had made with the lime-slicing knife down the length of his massive forearm. I had the Dutchman in a headlock before he was halfway up, squeezing hard to cut off his air supply and pulling him backwards so that he was off balance and then forcing him back onto the bench. He was a huge man, but still enormously strong as he pulled at my arms. But I was standing and he was seated, giving me the immediate advantage, and I knew he couldn’t resist for long while I was choking him. Unable to pry my arms from his neck, his face near-purple from the constriction, he gave up and tapped the table with the butt of his hand to indicate that he’d had enough.
    ‘First promise you won’t hurt Anna, or punish her!’ I demanded.
    A croak followed and a slight movement of his head and shaking of his shoulders indicated to me that he agreed. He tapped the table a second time. I was happy to release him. I wasn’t small and I guess I was fairly strong, but had he been a younger and fitter man he might well have been too much for me. As it was I was panting from the effort of holding him down.
    Anna’s frightened face looked first at me and then down at her father. ‘Oh, Papa!’ she howled and rushed to embrace him, kissing his scarlet and furiously perspiring face.
    ‘Now I’d better go,’ I said emphatically, still panting. ‘Will you be okay, Anna?’
    ‘ Ja , thank you, Nicholas,’ Anna said, glancing up, now wiping her father’s face using her tulip apron. I noticed that a small trickle of blood ran from his nose and that a smudge of it stained her pretty sarong. ‘Nicholas, please forgive mijn father,’ Anna said, appealing to me through sudden tears.
    The Dutchman looked up, but when he opened his mouth his voice, intended no doubt to sound as a fierce reprimand, came out as a gravelled rasp. ‘Go! You will not see again Anna. If you do I shoot you! You understand?’ In his newly acquired squeaky voice it didn’t sound too dangerous.
    But Anna screamed. ‘ Nee, nee! ’ she shouted. ‘Do not believe, Nicholas! He doesn’t mean.’ Then she began to sob, using the apron to cover her face.
    ‘Whore! Whore! Whore!’ It was Katerina, the stepmother, wheeling herself into the kitchen and shaking an accusing finger at the Dutchman. All that was needed was for Little Kiki to appear and to drop the dishes on the kitchen floor and we had a complete Mack Sennett scene, the full slapstick. But, of course, at the time I thought it far from funny.
    I picked up my canvas bag and turned to go when I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t given Anna the specimen I’d prepared of the Clipper. ‘Oh, this is for you, Anna,’ I said, removing the small display box from the bag and placing it on the table. ‘With my love,’ I said softly.
    Walking home I was close to tears on several occasions. ‘What a balls-up! What a total fucking