The machine timed out. No more £1 coins, and last time the machine had not liked her SA credit card. She wondered briefly if she could confuse it with a new R5 coin, similar enough in weight and size to £2, but thought better of it when a queue formed behind her. They'd know who broke it, and the Immigration people were close enough. Not a risk worth taking.
Getting through Immigration had been a business. She wondered if she was still on a wanted poster from the last time she'd set of the alarm with her underwear, given the thorough search of her laptop bag - and the half-hour she'd wasted repacking it once they'd done - and the grilling the humourless Immigration man had given her. She thought she'd be bounced for risking a joke, but luckily they finally let her through, once she'd given her life history and several contacts at home and in the UK who could vouch that she had her distemper shots as a calf, didn't carry foot and mouth, and had no intention of wondering off into an English field and seeking asylum.
She didn't need to seek asylum, anyway - Valkenberg was close enough, back in Cape Town, after all - and was concerned that news of her mental health had spread so far, so fast. Still, she was very relieved that this time around the grilling was not quite as overtly racist as last time. White people were also harassed this time, not just black people, though she couldn't help noticing that they were still allowed through, whereas the "wait here, and yes you'll miss your connecting flight, but we're not satisfied with what you've told us" group were all black - Asian and East Indian, mostly.
Perhaps after "Black Wednesday" the week before, they felt they needed to be careful what colour the allowed in, she wondered.