Ed Stranton, a young Englishman, emigrates with his family to find work in South Africa in the mid 1970s. It is the time of the Soweto riots, and although he has no interest whatever in politics, Ed finds himself being forced to take sides. As a liberal foreigner he deplores the violence of the police state, but he does not have the courage of his convictions. His difficulties are compounded by the breakdown of his marriage. On their arrival in the country the Strantons had hired a young Zulu girl, Anna, as a servant and nursemaid. When Ed's wife moves out Ed begins a relationship with Anna and so puts himself outside South African law. Unknown to Ed, Anna's life has other complications. Besides having problems with her black boyfriend she is beaten up by a brutish Afrikaner neighbour, and is forced to have sex with him. There are covert threats that her relationship with Ed is about to be exposed to the authorities. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Anna disappears. Ed is desperate and goes in search of her in the black township. Anna surfaces many months later in police custody, charged with infanticide. Ed is thought to be the father. He faces death amid the squalor of the township when Anna's spear-wielding boyfriend challenges him to a fight to the finish.

Get a flavour of Substitutes:-
 
(In the club.)
‘Ever had a black girl, Ed?’
Bar talk.
I laughed. ‘Sure, Rob, I’m gonna admit it, and blow my chances with our own women. Not to mention the cops — some bugger would shop me for sure.’ The words came out slurred; I was too far gone to care.
‘There are ways round it. You just gotta be careful.’ That from my mate, Acker — all mouth and beer gut. ‘Anyway, we’re not living in the fifties. Things are changing.’
‘Not so as you’d notice,’ said Rob. ‘You still get jailed for poking a black girl. Christ, what a place.’
‘Look,’ I insisted, ‘we may not agree with apartheid, but we have to live with it, or get the hell out of South Africa. I’ll stick with my own kind. It’s safer.’ And the thought stabbed through my
 booze-soaked brain: God, you’re a hypocrite, Ed. Be a man — tell them!
 
(Ed and Elaine hire a servant.)
Anna had waited patiently for our return. She bobbed a curtsy, holding out her pass book in open palms for my inspection. I took the slim volume and flicked through its pages, skimming over the details. Tribe: Zulu; residence: Nongoma, Natal; Date of —. The only thing I wanted to see was the little stamp, correctly dated, which told me that this girl was allowed to be here in Witbank. And there it was. So far so good.
I gave her the casual once-over: short tightly-curled hair, wide nostrils set in a handsome negroid face, and full lips. Tall, I noticed; her eyes would be almost level with mine if she ever raised them from the floor. No gleaming body oil, so thankfully the infamous kaffir smell was absent. The oil was a beauty aid for the girls, but a definite turnoff for Europeans; just another difference between cultures. Plainly dressed in lemon blouse and coarse brown skirt, Anna was barefoot and shapely, with an impression of strength...and an aura of shyness. She didn’t know where to put her hands: one moment they’d be dangling at her sides, then an arm would snake round behind her back to grab the other elbow, forcing her bosom out and up in an unconsciously erotic pose.
And still her eyes found comfort among the floor tiles.
I launched into the interview without preamble. ‘How old are you?’
‘Master, I have seventeen years.’
‘Any children?’
She shook her head.
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Baas?’
‘Do you have a man?’
She mumbled, ‘Ek is ’n goed meisie, baas.’
‘I’m sure you are a good girl, Anna.’ I wasn’t qualified for this interviewing lark. It was getting too personal for my liking. But the questions had to be asked; this girl would be part of my household. I moved on.
‘Do you have references? From your last madam?’
Anna poked around inside her blouse and produced a folded envelope from her bra. She handed it to me. It was warm, and moist. The letter was handwritten in Afrikaans. I scanned the flowing script, understanding maybe one word in ten.
‘That’s fine, Anna. Very good.’
She smiled broadly, showing just the hint of overbite in a mouth full of dazzling teeth. So that was that. Time to wrap it up.
‘The madam will pay you twenty-five rand at the end of this month,’ I said.
Anna curtsied her premature thanks to Elaine.
‘If you work well, and behave yourself, no men in the khaya,’ I paused for emphasis, ‘the madam will pay you thirty rand at the end of next month, and every month after.’ The terms had to be stated clearly, to avoid tears later.
‘Baie dankie, master.’ That curtsy again. And another to the madam.
‘Baie dankie, missus.’
‘One more thing, Anna,’ I said. ‘This is an English household. Save the Afrikaans for the neighbours, and your Zulu for your chummies in the khaya. Inside the house it is English only. Can you manage that?’
Anna smiled. ‘Ja, baas. I have good English.’

(Ed reaches out to Anna.)
Anna was no longer the servant who kept house for me, who cooked my meals and washed my clothes. Nor was she the girl who looked after my son, who played games with him and fed him bowls of mielie pap in her khaya. Who, by simply being here, made it possible for me to leave Eddie and go to work. This wasn’t the maid who smiled shyly and bobbed a curtsy with a ‘Baie dankie, master’ as I handed over her wages at the month’s end; who was a silent witness to the break-up of my marriage. This was the woman who inhabited the fringes of my more outlandish dreams, the ethereal form which tripped through my unconscious just out of reach of reasoning; a mist which evaporated whenever I faced it head on.
And she was the lay that could get me a prison sentence, deportation and disgrace….
I’m here, take me.
If you must.
If you dare!

.... I awoke alone. Anna in the kitchen, Eddie playing in the yard. She brought me coffee in bed. She had left me before dawn, to creep back to her khaya for a shower and change of clothes. I tried to talk about the previous night, but Anna wasn’t having any of it.
‘You were drunk, master.’ Then she left the bedroom.
So, that was it? No mention of us sharing the most intimate, most intense act possible between a man and woman. Had I imagined the hot, panting couple entwined on the carpet, straining and groaning, and gasping out words of love in three languages? White flesh weighing down black, black riding white? And the husky whisper, ‘Kom by die slaapkamer, master’, which got us off the lounge floor and into my double bed for a second, and much longer, bout of love?
I called Anna back into the bedroom.
‘Sit down, Anna. On the bed. We must talk.’
She stayed by the door. ‘It is day, master.’
‘Of course...you’re right. I’m sorry.’
I searched desperately for the right words. Anna’s eyes wandered the room, letting her gaze rest here and there, anywhere but on the figure of her baas propped up naked in bed under a single sheet. The same sheet that she had helped crumple and stain only hours before.

(Ed needs protection.)
She was a little beauty. Mauser semi-automatic, six-point-three-five mil. Five inches of shining black menace.
Acker poked it along the bar with one finger. ‘It’s a bit small, isn’t it?’
‘That’s the idea,’ I said. ‘I can carry it in my pocket, don’t need a holster. I can tote it all the time, in my trousers — too bloody warm for a jacket.’
Rob picked it up. ‘I don’t know, Ed,’ he said, hefting it. ‘Maybe Acker’s got a point. This thing can’t have much stopping power.’
‘Listen, you two...I don’t want to stop elephants, just arguments. I want to get those yobbos off my back.’
‘How are you gonna do that?’ asked Acker. ‘Poke their eyes out?’
‘Watch me.’ I grabbed the pistol out of Rob’s hand, stuck it in my trouser pocket, and turned my back on the bar.
The Steelworks Club was crowded: pay weekend.
‘Gentlemen,’ I shouted across the tables, ‘can I have your attention, please.’
A few seconds passed while the request spread to the far corners of the large room, then I had the stage.
I called out loud and clear, ‘I want you all to pass the word around. Ed Stranton has bought himself a gun, and he will shoot anyone who comes to his door uninvited after nine o’clock at night. Thanks, gents.’
I glanced around the tables, gauging reaction: a couple of wisecracks, some smiles, but generally bewilderment.
Acker slid off his stool. ‘Christ, Ed, you’re dangerous to know. I’ve had enough for one night.’ And he was gone.
‘He’s right,’ Rob said. ‘You’re just inviting trouble. You know how many crackpots carry guns in this town? Present company excepted, of course. Anyway, how did you get your licence so quick? Takes weeks, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m covered.’ I took out my wallet and flashed a slip of paper. ‘On loan from the owner, with written permission. When the licence comes through I hand over twenty rand, and she’s all mine. Easy.’
‘Too bloody easy. Okay, Wyatt Earp, get ’em in. It’s your round.’

(Stolen moments.)
‘You smell lovely,’ I said, and kissed her neck, drinking in the sweet aroma as we shuffled round the spare bedroom. Jim Reeves was setting the mood nicely, his soft voice floating in from the lounge through two open doors. I had chosen this room for its isolation: at the rear of the house and away from the back stoep.
The girls’ beds had long since been dismantled. The pieces leaned against one wall, reminders of earlier days. I didn’t come into this room much any more. Tinie’s bedside cabinet served as our bar. A half-jack of Bols brandy, ten empty Lion bottles, and a half-full beer glass crowded its top, with a litre bottle of Coke standing sentry duty at its base. Anna’s brandy glass lay on its side in a corner; its dregs had trickled out and stained the plastic floor tiles.
Anna’s scent was familiar: Coty Lamont. Elaine’s favourite. Anna must have been sampling the bottles in the bathroom. I didn’t mind; she could take the lot — Elaine wasn’t coming back for it.
Anna snuggled up close as we danced. She was still warm and moist from her bath, and my shirt had soaked up as much dampness as the towel she was draped in. Her clinging nearness registered all along my body, and Charlie reacted stiffly to the heat; Anna could not fail to notice the change.
She smiled up at me. ‘One more drink, master, and then —.’
‘No, pet, you’ve had enough brandy for tonight. We don’t want you getting sick, do we?’
‘No drink? Okay. I am going to bed. Goodnight, my master.’
She pushed herself away from me and flitted through the door, coming to a stop in the hall. She couldn’t leave the house dressed like that: her bathtowel had slipped so often she’d settled for wearing it like a skirt.
Which way would she go? Straight on, to the lounge and out to her khaya; or left into the master’s bedroom? She giggled and turned left. I laughed and ran after her.

(Ed's showdown with Cephas.)
The shack door burst open to reveal the tall Zulu, stripped to the waist and holding an assegai across his broad chest. I stopped in the middle of the yard.
‘Come, honky,’ He said calmly, ‘it is time. We must finish it.’
My stomach lurched and my bowel control almost failed me.
I was facing death.
He advanced slowly across the yard, holding the short spear blade-up, passing it casually from hand to hand as I backed away, my eyes straining to lock on his in the dimness. My back came up against the car. I was dimly aware of the two women in the doorway with piccaninnies crowding their legs, and of the Zulu dialogue passing between the three black adults; tense, urgent pleading cut off by curt dismissal. The women were plainly losing the argument — his intention was clear.
Cephas now held the centre of the yard; he would soon be within striking distance. I remembered my history: Shaka’s spear was designed for stabbing, not throwing. Cephas would have to get close.
The women’s voices were frantic by now. Anna started wailing. The big black turned on her in his fury, cursing and screaming, jabbing towards her with the spear, out of control. That was my chance. I dived across the front seats for the glove compartment, fumbling at the release, scrabbling about inside, cursing my clumsiness. My hand closed on cold steel. I backed out of the car, spun and fired in the ranting black’s direction. The shot went wild, the bullet screaming past Cephas and lodging deep into the shack wall just inches from Anna. A scream froze in her throat; her aunt yelled and pulled her backwards into the shack, slamming the door. The sky above the yard was filled with the flapping of
wings and the cawing of startled crows.
Cephas was out of sight. Not good. I peered into the gloom, slowly sweeping the vista of shack, yard and nearby undergrowth for any movement. What I wanted most of all at that moment was to get the hell out of there; start up the Firenza, gun the engine, swing round onto the dirt track, and just keep going. But this big Zulu wasn’t going to let me do that. He wanted me dead. I had to get him first.

This fast moving story is played out against an authentic South African background which pulsates with life and danger. Get your copy now at Lulu.com.