The year is 1975. Uncle Ian’s little tea party (camouflage-themed) with certain countries to the north of us isn’t going particularly well, and The Bay City Rollers are singing Bye Bye Baby, Baby Bye Bye while the makiwas pack in droves. The American preachers go first, dragging their hordes of sunburned children and promises of redemption with them; the ma-judahs are long gone; the Poms are starting to leave – even the Greeks are thinking about it, while the poor old Porras have only just started arriving from Mozambique. Murra fuck up hey?

But in Bamba Zonke, ‘Skies, Enkledoorn, Umtali, Rusape, Marandellas, Fort Vic, Umvukwes and other metropoles throughout our beloved little teapot-shaped country, the remaining madams and masters are putting on brave Rhodesian faces and carrying on like nothing’s cutting. Are we going too ma? Are we what Steven? Going ma. Going Steven? Going where? You know ma – going, like the others. Jesus bloody Christ Steven. The only place I am going is round the bloody bend from all your stupid questions. We are going nowhere my boy. No. Where. What. So. Ever. Got that? Ja ma.

Part of June deciding that everything was normal led to the only fight my parents ever had in front of me. June came home one day with a painting. Is that a painting ma? What does it look like Steven? It looks like a painting ma. Then even by your standards that’s a bloody stupid question my boy. June’s new painting was almost as collectable as a copper ashtray from Broughton’s, painted by a man who was quite a sensation in Rhodesian art circles. It was one thing to be a sausage jockey in Rhodesia, but it was another thing entirely to be a flamboyant one, and the oke who had painted June’s latest acquisition had not so much come out of the closet as recently burst out naked playing with his own nipples with his boerie gooied backwards between his legs so he looked like a gwarra. And June had – with much excitement – arranged for this paragon of Rhodesian manhood to come round one Sunday and sign her new painting.

He’s not coming into my house said my old man, much to everyone’s surprise, including his own, because my old man hardly ever said anything. He’s not what Les? He’s not coming into my house the old man repeated. Your house Les? Really hey? Is it your house now? Let me tell you a thing or bloody two. For a start, it’s our house. And he is coming here, and he is signing my painting, and that is the bloody end of that. Why can’t he come in our house dad? Because he’s one of those said my old man. One of those whats dad? One of those men who like other men said my old man. You mean a homo dad? Jesus bloody Christ Steven, how many times have I told you not to use that word? Hey? Sorry ma. But is he one dad, hey, that oke who made ma’s picture? Yes Steven, he is, and he is not coming into this house. Oh really said June. Oh is that so. She paused, and looked at Les long and hard. And then she hissed in a voice so icy that snow fell in the Zambezi Valley: And tell me Les. What makes you think he’d want to fuck you?

Les got up and left the room. June and I laughed so hard we couldn’t breath, and later that day the oke came around and sat on the verandah at 4 Ridgelee Way Avondale Salisbury with June, and Auntie Hessie, and another couple of aunties and then signed his picture. Les sat in the lounge, and kept very quiet. But then again, he was always a quiet and gentle man. That painting hung in our various houses for maningi years, and it now hangs in a family flat in Umhlanga – but that’s okay; the story is much better than the painting ever was.