RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

130 | denis beckett
who knew first aid took over. The social rules were suspended.
Strangers talked to each other, commiserating, lamenting,
communicating. Then there were sirens and police and dogs
and ropes.
When I got back aubrey had come and gone. He was a
stickler for time, aubrey. If you had an appointment for nine
and pitched up at five past he’d pull back his sleeve and
scrutinise his watch.
aubrey had tolerated my ideological failings better than
many of his comrades. He nibbled at super-democracy and that
was what this meeting was about. We’d agreed to thrash it out
until one of us persuaded the other. Optimistic, but not a bad
thing to try.
Next time I saw aubrey was after Frontline published
Nomavenda’s expose of Winnie Mandela, in May 1987. aubrey
wasn’t talking to me any more, or to Nomavenda. Whenever
either of us saw him he shook his head and held up his hand
in do-not-accost-me style. Which has something to be said for
it. Several of his colleagues congratulated us in private but
wouldn’t be seen in our company.
I never spoke to aubrey again, though I once visited his
office (in Portland Place, next door) in strange and sickening
circumstances.
Long before, I had started a story about car theft. Why were
cars stolen? In the electronic age surely police should pick them
up like jam, through terminals at border posts or roadblocks?
I asked the head of Vehicle Theft. He said he wouldn’t know
about that. His job was to catch the thieves after they stole the
car. Nor could he comment on the efficacy of deterrents – gearlocks,
alarms, etc – because that would be State interference in
the private sector.
I started the story but distractions arose. When Gael’s little
blue escort became our seventh car to go walkabout, I tried
again and I got a captain who deserves medals. I spent half a
day in his office at the east end of John Vorster Square, next
to the stairwell where the toilets were. He demonstrated tools