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Mine engineers, but you know something about materials, and you seem to know quite a lot about roads, too, as it seems. So why not tell government?”
    Tom said, “Waste of breath. You may believe that. You listen to your husband.”
    “They don’t want to hear it,” Gareth said again, more firmly.
    “But then a letter. Anonymous. Or write the
Daily News
. They print letters.”
    Both men laughed, then said, “Not likely,” in unison, which made them laugh again.
    Nan raised her voice. “Why don’t you go to, oh,
anyone
, then? Go to the High Commission instead of just sitting there laughing at the sheer folly of ever, ever, ever trying seriously to help these poor wretches get something they pay for! You won’t even try! Because even if there are pirates you won’t do it. Tess, this is what I am ill with. Just this.”
    Gareth spoke in an even, ominous tone. “You are exciting yourself. We’ll not have it. There is nasty driving coming and you are doing this. Tess, can you assist? We are not alone in this vehicle, Nan.”
    “Oh, you don’t like what I say—what a surprise! You don’t care for the people here, and there is an end of it. The smallest thing I propose is always senseless, madness—I must put it from me. Like the tins the workmen boil up their mealie pap in for breakfast and tea, No. 10 size. They are just boiling the lead from the seams straight into their food. Now, it
cannot
be sound. I spoke to the sisters, and they said, ‘Good heavens, are they?’ Tess, not even will he get a proper three-leg pot or two for his own men. That would
interfere
.”
    “You are making a row!” Gareth shouted.
    Nan said, still loud, “Yes. Talking of rows, Tess, listen. Last week, blazing rage. For what? First, you know all the beef this country sends abroad. All right, they don’t eat much beef. Certainly the poor hardly see it unless the chief has something to celebrate. No, the beef is kept to multiply,and then, when they need cash, it goes straight to the abattoir and then straightaway into tins and to Europe—England. Because grass-fed beef makes up perfectly into baby food, Tess. Now, what drove him to rage was this mad idea of mine: Why can’t government just save aside some portion of the tinned baby food and provide it to mothers free through clinics—why not?”
    Gareth broke in. “I’ll tell you why, because the mothers would eat it, wouldn’t they?”
    “Oh, Gareth! You shame me! Yes, all right. Some would. But a lot would get to the babies. The mothers are hungry, too. And the babies go straight from the breast to mealie pap, starch. And it kills a lot of them—indirectly—Tess.”
    “Mealie has protein,” Gareth said.
    “Ah, but so little! And one can just look at the size of the people. The men are small. Answer me why the meat must go only to the fair babies of Europe.”
    “You know my answer.”
    “Well, state it for Tess and Tom, or just for Tess, then—by now they are fascinated.”
    “It is not our part! That would be the dole, and the government are dead set they will not have that, and quite right. Now enough!”
    “And that’s all you truly see?”
    “All there is, isn’t it? Ah.” They had reached the last high point before the Pala stretch. The men were relieved.
    “The Trench!” Tom said. “There it is.”
    Tess said softly to Nan, “We must be still.”
    Very softly, Nan said, “You know I don’t hate him, Tess, do you?”
    Tess patted Nan’s shoulder.
    The last of the sun was in their eyes as they descended. Gareth came down into the deep sand with good speed. Thelong ascent began well. The trick was to stay precisely in the spoors cut by the last vehicle preceding. There were hazards to avoid, the worst being the loose meshes of brush, like nests, which had earlier been packed into soft places in the track by drivers who had gotten stuck. Gareth scanned the road far ahead. There was right-of-way for only one vehicle. If two vehicles met, one would