I last visited Cape Town in 2009. I had gone down with my mother and sister, Cora. Our holiday was for just over a week, during which time we went to all the usual tourist attractions, such as the V&A Waterfront, and even managed to survive choppy waters on the ferry back from Robben Island.

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My mother had soon got bored, though, and was looking forward to flying back to Johannesburg. So, it was no surprise when, just after a late breakfast on our final day, she packed our suitcases and stood them by the hotel room door, even though I had arranged for late checkout and our flight was only at four.

‘You know, we still have most of the day ahead of us,’ I told her.

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‘No, we don’t,’ my mother replied. ‘We need to be at the airport by three, and that means leaving here about two, if not earlier – you never know what traffic will be like and you can’t take chances.’

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‘It’s only about forty-five minutes to the airport,’ I reassured her, but she was having none of it.

‘You can’t take chances,’ Cora piped up, taking our mother’s side, which she always did. ‘Anything can happen. There can always be unforeseen delays.’

‘Listen to your sister if you won’t listen to me,’ my mother said haughtily.

‘You are both being neurotic!’ I told them. ‘You can sit here with your suitcases if you want, waiting for the taxi that is due to arrive only in about three hours!’

‘What are you planning to do?’ my mother asked.

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‘I’m going out,’ I told them. ‘I’m going to visit a museum a friend told me about.’

‘He’s lying,’ Cora said dismissively. ‘He’s probably going to buy even more books to add to those he’s bought already. He will probably have to pay for excess weight as it is.’

‘What friend? What museum?’ my mother asked, ignoring Cora.

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‘Well, not really a friend, more of an acquaintance, someone I got talking to the other day.’

‘Who?’ my mother asked again.

‘Probably some drunk,’ Cora said.

‘He is not a drunk!’ I almost yelled at her. ‘He’s an artist, and it’s a museum devoted to Pessoa.’

Neither my mother nor Cora knew who Pessoa was – they probably thought he was an artist too. But I had also been puzzled when I heard the news of this museum.  Why there would be a museum – even if only a small one – devoted to Pessoa in Cape Town was beyond me. In Durban, where he had gone to school, yes, but surely not in Cape Town. Still, I was curious and with some time to kill before going to the airport, I was determined to pay this museum a visit.

‘Sounds like something mad to me,’ my mother said, sitting down. ‘Where is this place? How are you going to get there?’

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‘It’s not that far – only about twenty minutes by bus, and the bus stops right outside this hotel,’ I said. ‘When I arrive at the stop where I need to be, the museum is about two minutes’ walk away.’

I picked up my jacket. ‘I really won’t be that long. I will be back long before three – probably at about two. The museum is quite small, I believe. I won’t take that long to go through it.’

‘Well, it’s your disaster if we miss our flight,’ my mother said, judgementally.

‘We will not miss our flight!’ I insisted, and walked out the hotel room door, leaving them behind. I could see Cora was about to add something, but I managed to close the door before I could hear her words.

I was glad to be out of the hotel and in the street. I always liked being on my own. I always liked going on holiday alone. It was a mistake to allow my mother and Cora to come with me. A lesson learnt, never to be repeated.

After a few minutes’ wait a bus arrived, and when I asked the driver if he could let me know when to get off, he said, ‘Sure thing, it isn’t that far.’

Indeed, it wasn’t that long before I was getting off at the respective stop. I thanked the driver as the bus drove off and I took quick stroll in the direction of where I was told the museum would be.

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Sure enough, a short while later I came across a small house with a sign reading ‘Fernando Pessoa Museum’ above it. I was flabbergasted. So, this museum did exist, after all! A celebration of the man with nearly eighty literary alter egos!

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I walked inside. The interior of the museum consisted of one large room with framed photos on the walls and several display cases. The exhibits were manuscripts of letters and poems, including translations of Tennyson, Poe, Wordsworth and Whitman, whose work had had a strong influence on Pessoa’s own poetry, notably those written under the heteronym of Álvaro de Campos. There was also a first edition of Mensagem (Messages), the only poetry collection of his to appear in his lifetime, and of course there were some early editions of his posthumously published masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet.

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I also spotted some examples of Pessoa’s handwritten horoscopes, charts that he had drawn up for various people, including one for Aleister Crowley. Pessoa and Crowley had met up in Lisbon, and Pessoa had even translated Crowley’s ‘Hymn to Pan’. I was hoping that a copy of that translation might be on exhibit, but I was out of luck on that item. He had also translated some of the leading theosophists, such as Blavatsky, Leadbetter and Besant, but these works were, likewise, not on exhibit.

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The photos on the walls were of Pessoa at various ages, plus, of course, street scenes of Durban, where he had attended school and published his first poems, and Lisbon, where he had lived from 1905 until his death, reputedly from alcoholism, in 1935.There was, not surprisingly, also the well-known photo of Pessoa drinking wine at a Lisbon bar.

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What caught my attention particularly, though, was a small portrait photo of a young woman. I looked closely at the photo as there was something that intrigued me about it. Firstly, the young woman’s clothing looked almost contemporary – not from Pessoa’s era at all. Secondly, and stranger still, the young woman also looked familiar to me, as if she was someone I knew.

‘Who is this woman?’ I asked out loud.

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‘Oh, that is Pessoa’s sister,’ a voice said suddenly. I turned around and saw an old man in dark suit, probably the curator, standing close to me.

‘His sister? I didn’t know he had a sister,’ I said, then added hastily: ‘Not that I know that much about him – I have never read a full biography of him. I’ve read his poems in English translation, and The Book of Disquiet.’

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‘Oh yes, he had a sister,’ the old man said. ’She was a medium. She introduced him to seances.’

‘Hang on – I read somewhere that it was an aunt that introduced him to seances,  not a sister!’

‘It was his sister who did it,’ the old man said quietly. ‘Let me assure you, I know.’

‘What was his sister’s name?’ I asked, out to test him.

‘Cora’, he said.

‘What? That’s my sister’s name!’ I blurted out.

‘His sister’s name was Cora,’ the old man said.

‘But it’s not even Portuguese,’ I protested.

‘His sister’s name was Cora,’ the old man repeated. ‘Cora was his sister.’

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I suddenly felt dizzy. The room started spinning and I could smell something like burning incense. The old man just looked blank at me, not saying anything further. Dark spots were beginning to appear before my eyes. My mouth went dry and my tongue started to feel numb. I needed to get out of the museum and back to the street. I pushed past the old man, muttered ‘Sorry, I …’ and rushed to the door. I could sense him standing behind me, silently, watching me, saying and doing nothing. Once outside, I took deep breaths and tried to regain my equilibrium.

I looked back at the museum entrance, but I didn’t want to go inside again. The old man hadn’t even followed me outside to check if I was okay. I was sweating. It had been such an unnerving and unsettling experience. I was sure the old man had his facts wrong. When I got back to Johannesburg I would do some research and clear things up. That would put me at ease.

I wanted to get back to the hotel. Something made me feel that my mother had been right. I need to be with her and Cora and we needed to wait patiently for the taxi and then get to the airport in plenty of time. I looked at my watch: it was quarter to one.

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I walked back to the bus stop, still wondering about the strange woman in the photo and was even more perplexed that this supposed sister had the same name as Cora. It was weird. I would tell Cora about it and wished I had brought my camera along, so that I could have taken a photo. ‘A photo of a photo,’ I laughed aloud. It struck me as funny for some reason.

The bus arrived. I jumped on, relieved that it wouldn’t be long before I was back at the hotel. I never thought I would feel happy to be back with my mother and Cora.

The bus had been on its way for about fifteen minutes when traffic became congested. It didn’t worry me at first, until I realised that twenty minutes had gone by and the bus had barely moved. Some of the other passengers were getting restless.

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked the driver.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ he said. ‘Could be an accident or anything.’ He didn’t appear to be worried about the delay.

‘Do you think we will be stuck here long?’ I asked.

‘How should I know?’ he responded cheekily.

‘Well, so long as it clears soon,’ I muttered and went back to my seat.

Ten more minutes passed and still the bus hadn’t moved. Some of the passengers started getting off the bus. ‘We’ll be quicker walking’, one of them complained.

The bus started moving again but after a short distance came to a halt again. Now I could hear sirens.

‘Here come the cops,’ yelled the bus driver.

A police car came to a halt alongside the bus. A police officer stuck his head out the car window and yelled up to the bus driver: ‘There’s been an armed robbery – a big shootout. The whole area has been cordoned off. You can’t go much further along this road. Take a detour at the next intersection.’ And with that he drove off again.

‘What now?’ I asked the driver.

‘You heard the man,’ he replied. ‘We need to take a detour.’

‘Bloody hell!’ I said.’ You mean you won’t be continuing on your route?’

‘Well, I need to get back on my route,’ the driver said, ‘but I’m just a stand-in driver and I don’t know these roads that well.’

I looked at my watch: it was already almost two o’clock! We must have been stuck in traffic for much longer than I had thought. Either that, or I had been in the museum for much longer and had misread my watch when I got out. I had felt disoriented, yes, but surely I could not have lost my sense of time when in the museum?

‘I need to get to the Agency Hotel,’ I said. ‘Which is the quickest way there?’

‘Haven’t a clue,’ the driver said, turning right and off the bus route. ‘I don’t know where that hotel is.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ I asked him.

‘Have never heard of that hotel. Do you know what street it’s in?’

I started to say: ‘It’s in ...’ when I stopped: I couldn’t remember the name of the street the hotel was in!

‘Well, what street’s it in?’ the driver asked. ‘If I know the street, I might suggest you would be better off walking.’

‘I can’t remember the name of the street,’ I mumbled. ‘But I am staying at the Agency Hotel. My mother and sister are waiting for me there. We need to be at the airport by four. We are catching a plane back to Johannesburg.’

‘Ah, from Joburg’, he said. ‘That explains it. When you come down here on holiday you should take note of where you are staying.’

‘I do take note of where I am staying!’ I yelled at him.

‘Don’t’ shout at me,’ he snarled, ‘or else I will drop you off right here and you can find your own way back to your hotel. I don’t take nonsense from passengers!’

‘Look, please understand,’ I pleaded. ‘My mother and sister are waiting for me. They will be worried. The taxi to the airport will be arriving soon. They will load up our suitcases into the taxi, but I won’t be there!’

‘That’s not my problem,’ he said. ‘All I need to do is to get this bus back on the route!’

I wanted to swear at him, but there was no point. I was wondering what my mother and Cora would be thinking back at the hotel, when I heard a phone ringing very close to me. Of course, I had my cellphone in my pocket! I could simply call the hotel and let them know I had been delayed! Why hadn’t I thought it before? Perhaps I was within walking distance and they could give me directions.

I took out my phone and saw that it was the hotel calling me. I answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Geoff!’ Cora yelled at me. ‘Where are you? Mom and I have been so worried about you. Why aren’t you here with us?’

It was then that it struck me: this wasn’t 2009, it was 2016, and both my mother and Cora had been dead for five years.