Introduction

 

Over my shoulder, through the window behind me and out across the square, the clock on the tower of the old Shell House building read 4:30, its huge black hands plain and stark against its white face. The sounds of Cape Town in summertime drifted up through my window, the low-keyed hum of the tourists browsing through the trinket stalls in the square, and the clatter of hawkers’ crates and carts being pushed across its cobbled surface, their calls carrying far in the still hot air. African drums started throbbing in preparation for the daily show to the tourists in their brand new khaki safari outfits and broad-brimmed hats which were such a dead giveaway and a constant source of humour among the locals. If I had turned to take it all in I would have seen a workman on the roof of Shell House, which, although some distance away from me was almost at the height of my window, as he packed tools and materials from some maintenance job into a box and prepared to go home.

 In my own office the secretaries (who traditionally went home at this time) were stirring and the sound of their movements competed with the more distant sounds outside. A marimba started to play in the square, and then another, in harmony with the first, their liquid sounds joining sweetly with the harsher tone of the drums, and that music, together with the cooling air which floated up from the square as the heat of the day subsided, produced a sense of euphoria which did not heed the stressed atmosphere of an attorney’s office and washed right over it. There were many hours to sunset, but this was Cape Town in the summertime and do what you will, the ringing of the telephones competed with the rising sound outside. In that last half an hour of a conventional working day the atmosphere would change from workday to party time, whether we wanted that, or heeded it, or not.

 I wondered how many lawyers, be they wherever in the world, practiced in such a blessed atmosphere, and it was then that I resolved to write this book, because I had a tale worth the telling – no, many tales – and despite the slow atmosphere (Johannesburgers call Cape Town “Slaapstad”, meaning “sleepy town”, a nice Afrikaans rhyming joke with its Afrikaans name, “Kaapstad”), I resolved that over time I would allow those tales to accumulate, of their own accord as it were (only a Capetonian could conceive of such a thing) so that they would cover the length of my career, and me and my book would run shoulder-to-shoulder through life. And that’s pretty much what has happened. “I am writing a book …” I would start out in conversation, and I would be interrupted, “Yes, we’ve heard that one before!” – as indeed they had. The book was only intended to see the light of day at the end of my career, not before! But, well, if it gets to its end before then, well then – I shall write another …