In Terminal Four at Heathrow the couple were having the first of many differences of opinion that their holiday was going to major in. "Darling, the first class lounge is down this way, near gate 19," the man said with an edge to his voice that wasn't really called for in one just giving directions.
"I know, darling, I just thought I'd do a teeny bit of shopping first," she said. "Darling, lots of lovely free drinkies in the lounge," he implored. "Not really free, darling, we are paying a fortune to go in the front seats."
"We mightn't be able to afford them, darling, if we let you go shopping." Was it said jokily? I wasn't sure. She was sure. She spoke slowly, in a voice full of menace. "You know, I read recently that there is no greater hell on earth than discovering that you have married a tight-fisted man," she said.
I moved a little bit away in case they were going to start belting each other and I didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. But not too far. "What, will we die if we don't have, this time, a 50th lipstick?" he asked and marched off to his free drinkies at gate 19.
I saw them later as we were all getting ready to get on the plane. "You spent £30 on a beach bag?" His face was totally confused. Her face was a grim, hard line.
In Cape Town the small boy was trying to read the notices in Afrikaans. "Niks te Verklaar," he read out slowly, "nothing to declare." "It says that underneath, you fool," said his sister, who was 12 and sophisticated. "No I mean the word `Niks', it must mean `nothing', like that's where we get the word nix from." "Einstein," said his sister.
"I bet you didn't know nix was an African word," he said, wounded. "It's not African stupid, it's Afrikaans," she said. "Well, whatever." "You're very, very boring," she said to him sadly.
"I'm not. Am I boring, Dad?" he asked his father. His father was a tired, pale man who was feeling the effects of 12 hours in a plane from London, and whose forehead was already a bright pink from walking across the tarmac in the morning sun. "No, you're not boring," he said after some thought. "Talkative, but not boring."
"I'm going to learn all these African words, just see, then I'll be able to talk in African to everyone." His sister should have let it go, but she had to say: "That's great, then you can bore everyone in two languages, saying ladies and gents and nothing to declare."
The early morning rush-hour was in full swing. To the visitors it couldn't have mattered less. It just meant that there was more time to spend looking up at Table mountain, down at the harbour, and around at the ever-increasing apartment blocks with cascades of Bougainvillaea tumbling down from balcony to balcony. Past the impressive grounds of the Groote Schur hospital where Christiaan Barnard worked. Past the signposts familiar now from other visits here pointing inland to Constantia and seawards to Seapoint and Bantry Bay. Taxis and mini buses full of startled and delighted white-faced visitors staring in disbelief up at the warm February sun are nothing unusual these days.
The tourist numbers are up again, with more and more people deciding to spend the whole winter in the sun. These are not at all from any so-called smart set, not the kind of people who would come out to visit Earl Spencer's family or Mark Thatcher, but much less wealthy folk, retired couples whose pension will stretch very far at eight Rand to the pound.
Only the flight is a bit costly, they say, and then the sunshine makes old bones ache less and the prices mean that what would be treats at home could be the norm out here. And you'd be mad not to have a picnic lunch every day.
The couple at the next table were from Ohio, it was their first night in Africa and they were about to expound on it. I had this great wish that they would be happy with the place, that they wouldn't accuse each other of being tight-fisted or spendthrift, that they wouldn't say the other was very boring to learn a few words of Afrikaans.
I didn't want any more of the downside of people's lives. I was feeling so happy myself, with all the frangipani blossom on the trees above, the lights of Cape Town harbour stretching out into the distance below.
I was so pleased at being able to eat in the open air on a February night and at being able to walk through airports now without a wheelchair any more. I didn't want one jarring note.
Mr Ohio said: "Do you know what I think, Honey, after one full day in Africa?" And Mrs Ohio said "No, Honey, tell me."
Mr Ohio said, "I think it would give you hope for the future of the whole world."
And I sighed out of pure, custard-heart pleasure and drank deeply of the ridiculously inexpensive South African wine.