ON THE 31ST OF JANUARY, JUST as Victor and I were settling into bed, I received a phone call from my mother.

My father had died.

‘I found him this morning in his dressing room,’ my mother said, ‘still in his pyjamas. He must have got up to get some water. It was a heart attack.’

When, after the shock of this news, I was finally dozing off, the phone rang again.

‘Who is this now?’ Victor moaned, covering his ears with the blanket. I bent over towards the telephone on my bedside table, hesitating. Should I pick it up? At that time of the night, it couldn't be anyone else but him.But then I did. Out of instinct? Routine? Longing? We had not let Dambudzo move in with us again in the new year but I still got together with him whenever I could.

‘Hello,’ I said, wearily.

‘Hey, it's me,’ I heard his drunken voice bellowing through the receiver. ‘I am here, at the Terrescane Bar. There was this guy, I really would want you to …’ and he went on and on.

‘Please leave me alone. I just had the news that my father died.’ ‘

Oh, my gawd. Your father? Dead? I hate death!’

I hung up. Next time the phone rang I did not pick up.

So, there it was again. Although it was my father who, aged 85, had died a peaceful, orderly death in his own home, in Dambudzo the gruesome images of his own father's death were evoked once more.

‘Death had reduced his face to skilled butcher's task.’