AS OFTEN HAPPENED IN HIS LIFE, in his forays through the city bars, tired, starving, desolate, Dambudzo had bumped into a relative of a relative. ‘Mukoma, you don't have a place to stay? No problem, come along, uncle, get some sleep in my flat.’

As it turned out, the tenants of the flat were in arrears with their rent and rates and were about to be evicted, so Dambudzo told us. Thus, what had looked like a temporary arrangement was able to become, by chance and with our help, a permanent one. We negotiated with the management of the building and after we had paid the outstanding debts, Dambudzo obtained a lease agreement. Sharing the rent as well as water and electricity bills between Victor and I and Marilyn Poole, our protégé writer was able to live in 8 Sloane Court until the time of his death.

Before he moved in, we had the flat thoroughly cleaned, fumigated and whitewashed. We put up a bookshelf and gave Dambudzo some odd pieces of furniture, pots, pans and crockery. I sewed curtains from a fabric we had brought from Germany and put them up at his window. The fabric had a kind of Scandinavian pattern, I remember – slanting stripes in bold red and white – you can see the curtains in the background of the photos taken of him in the flat. Sewing, like knitting, has a warm, caring side. I sewed the curtains for Dambudzo, hoping he would be happier, feel sheltered in this place of his. I was hoping for us, too, for our love to have a space to steady itself and expand. But would it?

It was mostly in the early afternoon that I knocked at his window, a couple of hours before my German classes at the nearby Zimbabwe German Society.It was also the best time to be with him. He would have spent the morning writing or reading, maybe got some food from the nearby shopping centre, and he tended to be in a placid mood; much better than in the evening, when he became restless because he wanted to go out and drink; or was drunk already.

I would often have a hip flask of sherry in my bag, from which we would take sips in between, to flavour our mouths and enhance the sensuousness in our limbs.