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ONE of my jobs in the office was to keep a supply of stamps for sale to the staff.
A member of staff came in one day to post a letter to a firm of undertakers.
"We've had a death in the family", he said morosely. "The worst of it is that is was my fault, in a way."
I looked at him in horror.
He continued; "He borrowed a thousand rand from me to buy himself a motorbike. He was killed outside a little town last month. If only I had refused to lend him the money, he might still be alive."
Double take
In the days before he met me, my husband had gone for a trip on the back of a friend's motorbike when the friend had an accident. People passing afterwards called an ambulance, and they took the driver to the hospital.
When he came to after a couple of hours, his first question was: "Where's Sean?"
"Who is Sean?" the Doctor asked.
"The guy who rode on the back of my bike."
"We found only you."
"Well, you'd better go back quickly and look for Sean."
So the ambulance went out for the second time, and in a ditch beside the road they found Sean, still unconscious.
Older and wiser
I've never driven a motorbike, but when I was young I knew a few boys who owned one, and they'd sometimes let me ride pillion.
If birds could talk and explain what it's like to fly, I think they could only describe the freedom I experienced on the back of those bikes. You feel so free and so glad, and the little worries of every day become unimportant.
"Faster, faster!" you think. And those days there was no speed limit to speak of, and we'd laugh at those signboards which warned: "Drive like lightning and you'll crash like thunder."
I don't want to be a wet blanket because I myself experienced the joys of pillion riding on a motorbike, but, older and wiser now, I'd be nervous about my own children doing the same.
Scale of values
Years ago my eldest son was home for a weekend, and we went for a walk together. Not far from our house, a neighbour's son, totally incognito in heavy crash helmet, goggles, leather jacket, boots and gloves, roared past us.
"Does he think he is impressing us?" I said when I'd recovered from shrinking on to the pavement.
"Yes," my son said calmly. "You see, he'd be impressed by me if I roared past him on a motorbike, wearing those clothes, and so he thinks I'm impressed by him."
Into the sunset
I remember the months some boys who had accidents on motorbikes spent being nursed. They suffered tortures and lay in plaster for months, but they counted the days until they could get up. And do you know what the first thing they intended doing was?
Not, as I hoped, to buy a little car. Not a chance. They only wanted to get back on to their motorbikes and go screaming off again, into the sunset.
