It is the mother and children who make up the core and the husband only a contributor to the economy as a… — J. M. Coetzee

The nearest shops from where they live are a mile away along a bleak eucalyptus-lined road.

The boy is special, Aunt Annie told his mother, and his mother in turn told him. But what kind of special? No one ever says.

Sometimes when he is among the sheep — when they have been rounded up to be dipped, and are penned tight and cannot get away — he wants to whisper to them, warn them of what lies in store. But then in their yellow eyes he catches a glimpse of something that silences him: a resignation, a foreknowledge not only of what happens to sheep at the hands of Ros behind the shed, but of what awaits them at the end of their long, thirsty ride to Cape Town on the transport lorry. They know it all, down to the finest detail, and yet they submit. They have calculated the price and are prepared to pay it — the price of being on earth, the price of being alive.