Synopsis
SHADOW-BOXING LEAVES NO BRUISES
by Frank Swales
A novel, approx. 104,000 words.
SHADOW-BOXING LEAVES NO BRUISES is an account of love and hostility played out against the backdrop of apartheid and the street-level politics of South Africa's most violent townships.
The story opens in Witbank, South Africa, 1980. Acker, a fitter in his late thirties, has spent the last six years drinking, clowning around and flouting South Africa's strict immorality laws by bedding every black girl he can buy.
He was not always so dissolute: his life once revolved around his wife and children, but he lost them to another immigrant. He has not got over their loss, and even now keeps the door open for their return, while they are busy building new lives miles away on a gold mine.
Acker gets involved with Thoko, a black girl, even though he is warned that she is a police informer. The pretty young thing makes a tidy living by entrapping white men who stray across the colour line in search of sex.
Her controller is Detective-Sergeant Harrid of the South African Police. Thoko tells the policeman that she may have another fish on her line, then regrets it after Acker helps her by beating up an unwelcome visitor.
Acker takes Thoko to Johannesburg to escape Harrid's awkward questions; she stays with her friend, Anna, a prostitute. Wanting to be close to Thoko, Acker moves to Benoni, just outside Johannesburg, but their relationship falters and she returns to Witbank to allow them time to sort things out. Acker tries to lose himself in other affairs but can't forget Thoko.
Back in Witbank he is happy to help when she must again escape Harrid's clutches. After rescuing Anna from her vicious pimp, Fats, Acker hides both girls in a Soweto shebeen run by Mama Poppie.
When her husband is arrested by the People's Council for shooting a burglar Poppie tries to shift the blame onto Acker, who was captured by the mob during a riot. An uneasy period follows, during which both prisoners are badly treated and deals are offered for their lives. And Thoko must decide which side she is on; is she ready to pay the price demanded for the white man's life?
Acker and Poppie play on the opposing ambitions of the ruthless gangster, Fats, and the political activist, Mokae. But the People's Council is united on one point: someone must die for the death of the young burglar. Will it be Mama Poppie's ageing husband, or the wild honky?
In the most critical time of his life Acker finds himself fighting on two fronts -- against an overwhelming tide of black hatred, and an internal conflict spilling over from his emotionally raw past.
