I had driven almost exactly a thousand miles in one day, never stopping except at service stations to fuel up and heave empty plastic bottles and candy wrappers from the passenger seat into the trash, then get in a new supply of coke, candy and that South African speciality spicy dried meat called biltong. Just the right fare for a drive across a continent. It had been like a dream state, driving, driving, driving and I wouldn't have stopped in Springbok either, in fact I am sorely tempted just to go on the remaining 400 miles to Port Nolloth, but as usual with me I had had a late start, and now it is midnight, a time when I'm not normally out on the road in South Africa, a land with one of the highest murder rates in the world. In the hotel they look very peculiarly at the lone woman with one bag, arriving in the middle of the night. They probably decided I had bolted. In a way I had.

The next day I am glad I'd had the sense to stop. Would have been a shame going on driving in darkness, past black hills resembling burned-out furnaces standing in the pale yellow grass of Namaqualand after the bloom, through the rose madder vastness of the Southern Kalahari, never even knowing what I missed.

From Steinkopf a long and lonely road leads to Port Nolloth through white sand dunes covered with sparse brush under a brassy sky. The land here is supposed to be full of diamonds, and hostile barbed-wire fences and boards with stern language warn off the hopeful private prospector. Brown hills come into sight, on their flanks I see things glittering in the sun, but that is just gypsum crystals.

On the western horizon lies a grey band; all the time I drive towards it I think it is the Atlantic Ocean I see, but later I learn the grey band is the mist coming in from the sea which lies there most of the time. About five miles from the town the sky changes abruptly to cool grey and soon it begins to drizzle, so finely that the drops float in the air, through the car window, onto my face, moist relief after the brute heat of the road.

Among the white sand dunes lie low houses, few higher than one storey, most built from wood, the colour flaking off the weather-beaten boards.

And then there is the Atlantic Ocean, grey under a grey sky and I feel that I have come to the end of the world. One of them, anyway. A few miles out lie three diamond boats, big yellow tubes hanging into the water sucking the gravel from the sea bed, full with agate and diamonds.

The woman who receives me in the guesthouse on the esplanade has tawny hair piled high on her head and wears a lace blouse. She leads me into a spacious fresh-smelling room with sea view.

Looking at the window pure terror assails me. The window is big and has just a plain and none too stable wooden window frame of the English pull-up-and-down-if-you-can sort, and is not barred. I can't sleep in this room, no way!

"Er ... there's no bars on the windows." I point out the obvious.

"Oh no!" she says. "We don’t have bars on the windows."

"Er, I suppose it’s not advisable to sleep with my window open?"

"Why not? Of course you can."

"But, but, won't - er - robbers come in?"

The woman gives me an astonished look. "Surely not while you're in here. You close it when you go out."

Well, I'm not worried about people coming in while I'm out. I damn well hope I'll be out, when they come. You can die so very easily in South Africa, but it won't be an easy death. Not a quick one either. If you want to live, stay in your own little world. Always look around carefully as you unlock the car door, walk to the front door key in hand, no fumbling on the doorstep. On no account forget to arm the alarm, then lie awake behind barred windows, listening to stealthy feet padding through the night. At the breakfast table read about last night's murders. For a woman it's always worse, although contrary to the stereotype they don't even like white women. But it's not about sex anyway. And it's not only us, black people tell me that they're afraid too, decent, hardworking folk too poor to afford alarms, guns, security services, snarling watchdogs, all they have is a prayer to keep out the predators walking the nights and ever more of the day.

I'm seriously considering taking up my bags and going to the only hotel in the town and asking for a room on the third storey, except I haven't got the nerve to tell the woman that because I'm way too nice, which will be the death of me one day. So I just stand there doubting. The woman says to go anywhere I like in the house, and I look at the other rooms full of what's commonly called period furniture, all very clean and comfortable. None of the rooms has bars on the windows. They don't seem to lock their doors much during the day either; that feels strange to me, unprotected, and the wild terror that I had felt at the sight of the unbarred window threatens to wash over me again, but I firmly push it back, telling myself that surely the people here know what they're about, after all, they’re still alive, aren't they! I come across the kitchen; sitting at the table cutting tomatoes is a black woman, so round of figure and genial of face, I know to expect a good evening meal. I ask her if it's safe to walk on the beach.

"Of course!" she says.

"Of course!" I mutter, scrambling down the high embankment on a narrow footpath. An off-land breeze has blown the mist out to sea, which now shines blue, the sand snow white. Subtropical paradise, and I have it all to myself, there's nobody on the beach to worry me.The diamond boats are still out there, they have passed the town beach to the left a mile or so since I checked into the hotel.

I take off my shoes and walk across the white sand, faster and faster, the sand is hot! So hot, can't stop for a second, have to go on, at last I'm running, shoes in my hand. A wave comes to shore meeting my run and I jump in. It's cold! Too cold, I hop from one foot to the other in the icy water coming right from the south pole, when I can't stand the cold any longer I hop onto the sizzling beach again and now I put my shoes back on, thinking happily that it's one thing to know about dunes of quartz sand and the Benguela current and quite another to feel them making fun of you between them.
Out of the corner of my eye I see something moving and quickly look back the way I came.

And freeze.

Dark figures are standing on the embankment etched against the sky, and now they come down the footpath, two, five, twelve little figures. Children. Black children. I don't fool myself for a moment because they're little, I've heard the stories, read the police reports in the papers, once I almost ran into such a bunch myself in a gas station, never forgot the sudden stirring in all corners, they were even on the station roof, the milling motion of the young crowd at the prospect of loot. That day I noticed them in time, but not today. Should have stayed in my world. Too late now.

It's very quiet, only the ice-cold sea swishing over the sand behind me. Not a soul in sight the whole length of the beach, the steep shore blocking off sight of the houses. The diamond boats are still in sight, but even if they noticed, or cared, what could they do to help? I consider running towards the street at an angle, imagining myself slipping back in the white deep sand at each step, then trying to scramble up the steep bank. I know I'll never make it. So I start walking, towards the path, which takes me towards them, but each step made now I won't have to run later.

They've seen me, and are coming on purposefully, spreading their line out over the sand. Embankment and path are still light-years away. Serious faces, no smile, well I didn't expect one, though I may have hoped, funny how one always does. The eldest boy, he’s about ten, stops in front of me, the others stand back a little and off left and right of me. Cornered. Twelve pairs of dark eyes homing in. This is the moment.

"Good afternoon!" the boy says in Afrikaans.

The kids behind him murmur politely.

I stare at them, while their little leader observes that we have fine weather, opining that it will hold. He inquires whether I have come to Port Nolloth for a holiday.

They all look at me expectantly, while I drag out my few words of Afrikaans from the corners of my brain where they’ve been cowering in panic. "Yes I'm here for a holiday ... I've came from Natal today ... Yes, from Durban."

The boy expresses his hope that I will enjoy my stay. The other kids nod and mutter assent to that and he bids me a good day and leads them stately away.

After I stop shaking I decide it's high time to take a good hard look at what has become of me in a matter of three months since I stepped onto the tarmac of Jo-burg airport. No matter how careful I was to bar doors and windows against pain and death, the predators had got at me all the same, at my very soul. Sapped my courage, put me in a cage. There's an old joke saying just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. I never laughed. Nasty feeling, being paranoid. But now I'll have a holiday, a few nights sleeping with my window open again, before hitting the road back to Natal.

I go to the hotel bar, always do in any place I visit, the most congenial method to find out all here is to know about an area and therefore the best place to find out how safe this town really is. Interior, landlord and customers all give a subtropical Clondike impression, and they have Jameson whiskey, which shows they know good drink. Yes, this is just the place for me. So after the third whiskey I put my habitual question.

"Is it dangerous to walk the streets at night? I mean, had I better get back to the guesthouse before darkness falls?"
I catch myself hoping for the typical Port Nolloth answer that of course it's safe. I like it here, and I would like another drink.
The landlord smiles thinly, polishing a glass, while a lot of possible answers are passing visibly behind his ample forehead. Finally he selects one.

"If anyone should so much as look at you sideways, all I can say is, I’ll be sorry for him. I really will."

This is a most unexpected remark and I look all intelligent inquiry for him to proceed. He does, after another selection process.
"There's diamond - hm - business conducted in the area. All kinds. Folks don’t want any - trouble here. See?"

I see perfectly and I drink to crime. I drink to crime a lot and roll home in the small hours of the morning.