Bra Tebza is a short, chunky man with skinny greying dreadlocks on his head. He’s wearing stained blue overalls and is leaning against the boot of his black Nissan Navara in the yard of his house in Umlazi K Section. The bright outside lights around his house illuminate various other cars parked around the yard – some in the process of being fixed, some covered by tarpaulins.

Bra Tebza ends the call with Andile, pulls a cigarette out of his pocket with one hand while he calls a number saved as “Advocate Higgins” with the other hand. He balances the phone between his ear and shoulder while he lights the cigarette.

“Madam,” says Bra Tebza. “Mrs Higgins.”

“T, stop it, you know my first name,” replies Mrs Higgins. “Is it done?”

“Yes, my boys have sorted it,” Bra Tebza takes a long pull of his cigarette and blows it up as if trying to add a cloud to the clear purplish-black sky above. “They say it’s a red Mercedes Benz, ND 42278.”

“ND … 422 … 78, alright, God bless you,” replies Mrs Higgins, memorizing the license plate. She is seated in the back of an Uber, a white Toyota Avanza parked down the road from the cars parked by the roadside near Durban Manor Hotel.

Mrs Higgins puts her phone in her tiny white handbag. Beside her, a thriller with the title Trying to kill Smile lies open face-down. She puts the novel inside the handbag too, takes a deep breath and smiles a tight-lipped smile. She’s sixty-three years old but has no grey in her long black hair. Her slim body and face could easily belong to a younger woman.

The tracksuit she’s wearing and the fluidity of her movements makes Cebo, the Uber driver, guess that she’s one of those old ladies who exercise regularly. Cebo has been furtively studying Mrs Higgins in his rear-view mirror.

Thirty minutes ago, the Avanza had been parked in the Suncoast Casino parking lot on the north side of Durban, with Cebo lying on a fully reclined seat, staring at the Avanza’s grey ceiling. His hands were on his bald head and tears were sliding down his round face as he thought of what had happened that morning. His girlfriend, Phindi, had sat beside him in the car and told him she was pregnant. Cebo grinned widely, happy to receive the news, and leaned in to hug Phindi.

“But I’m not sure I want to keep it,” Phindi had said and shifted away from Cebo, her big eyes suddenly welling up with tears. She’d folded her arms to hide her shaky hands.

“Wha-wha-what?” Cebo had stuttered in confusion.

“Babe, you know I love you with all my heart,” Phindi’s voice had wobbled as she tried to keep herself from crying. She’d pulled in a deep breath and said everything she wanted to say as fast as she could. “But hun, we are not fit to raise a child. You can barely afford to take care of yourself with the money you get from driving this car, and I have nothing. I don’t want us to do to our child what our parents did to us. I don’t want to bring him or her into this world to suffer like we did growing up and still are. Do you want to do that to our child?”

Tell us: What do you think about Mrs Higgins? What is she up to? What do you think about Phindi’s argument about children?