Nyiko is much more polite than her own children. Nyiko leaves and the three siblings fight and tease one another.

Time presses upon Bam and Maureen. Their fears intensify as July and the truck stay missing, and they have nothing to distract themselves. Bam keeps looking at his watch, but Maureen knows time is not as it was, that watches and clocks are of no use. Without anger, Bam thinks about how he had suggested they move to Canada, years ago, before the South African situation got out of hand. He cannot help but blame Maureen for keeping them from being in a pristine, snowy landscape at this very moment. The heat oppresses him.

In the past tense, Maureen frets that those Africans who spoke English had learned it as a prerequisite for a job and still believed whites superior. She speaks of that time and place as if it is over, gone, and wishes she had learned the native language instead of ballet. Bam says that they could have left five years ago and accuses women of lacking the courage for frankness and honesty. They nearly claw each other, fighting over their decision, five years ago, to stay in Africa. Then they calm by reiterating that they must live "minute by minute" and not think too hard.

The children have fallen asleep, tangled in the poses they were fighting in. Darkness has hidden the bush around them and Maureen steps outside in the heat, where it has begun to rain. Bam reads inside the hut, the lamp on, and insects fly past her, inside, drawn to the light. They lift the children to the bed to keep them off the wet floor. Massive flying cockroaches hit Maureen in the face. Bam falls asleep on one of the car seats, his feet dangling. Maureen stands outside and takes off her clothes, letting the warm water wash her. While naked, she sees headlights and realizes the car is back. Maureen dries herself and falls asleep in a cardigan.

Chapter seven opens with Bam making tea. The radio broadcast has begun again, detailing where rockets have hit. Maureen hoards her knowledge that July returned. Bam and Maureen quietly consider what would happen if the militants succeeded and stability was restored. Would they return to the city?

July comes to the door of the hut and Bam is both shocked and relieved. July has brought dry wood and begins to start a fire for them in the hut. As if he's still master of the situation, Bam interrogates July about the bakkie and his disappearance. July replies that he went to the shops with a friend who could drive and got supplies for the Smaleses. Maureen pays him for them while Bam asks about the outside world. Before leaving, July says he will send someone to get them when the rain slows, so they can bring the supplies up to the hut. Then he gives them two batteries for the radio, which touches

Maureen deeply, and leaves. Maureen begins to make the porridge gruel that they eat every day. Bam criticizes July, but Maureen says that at least "he did bring things."

The eighth chapter describes Maureen and Bam watching July learn to drive. The sun has returned after several days of rain, and they shiver as their clothes begin to dry out. The cold persists and the fire and food take on a primal, magnetic quality. July waves when the driving lesson finishes, and Bam rages to Maureen about the theft of the keys. This provokes an unusual response from Maureen: "gratitude stuffed her crop to choking point." She has struggled to re-evaluate the currency of life in this new place and knows the bakkie is no longer theirs. They have only their lives. July comes by with wood and explains that he wants to learn to drive to keep them safe, that it's better if he does it than a friend, however trusted. The Smaleses' children are coughing, sick with the same illness as the black children, and Maureen thanks him for the syrup his wife gave to her. July reprimands her for giving that to a white child and offers to bring a blanket for the children. Maureen says she will use the rubber floor mat from the bakkie, holds her hand out for the keys, and promises to bring them back to July. July rearranges the possessions inside the hut without answering.

Victor interrupts, bursting into the hut to say that the village is stealing water from the water tank. Bam explains that it is for everyone, but Victor demands that they keep it. July jokes with Victor, telling him that his smart father has found water enough for everyone.

Analysis
These chapters bring out a theme present throughout July's People: the theme of timelessness. Gradually, Maureen loses all sense of routine and daily structure. Although it is the weekend, Maureen is not allowed to, nor does she want to, participate in the weekend celebrations of the village. For her, the day is the same as any other day in the bush. Without appointments or obligations or clocks, Maureen begins to disassociate from the very notion of time. Adrift in the bush, time becomes meaningless except in terms of day and night. Instead of outside time imposing upon her choices, Maureen begins to let her body tell her what to do. She and the children eat what they have when they are hungry, Vienna sausages or porridge or whatever is at hand. Things that they have always considered essential for the body are being recognized as luxuries inappropriate to their present life. For instance, the children rapidly discard the idea of toilet paper as useful. Maureen cannot adapt to the bush as quickly and easily as her children, but like them her body becomes her driving force. When she cannot remember why they are living in the village, she reminds herself how lucky they are to even be alive. The fact of existence reassures her in the same way that she steps seamlessly into the rain to wash. In this novel, Maureen connects with her body in a way that sanitized city life has never allowed. Minute by minute, only her body remains to inform her of needs.

When survival becomes the driving force of life, Maureen's actions become more and more practical. She regrets the privilege that kept her from learning the native languages. She sheds her old illusions, for instance mocking herself for her past desire to visit July's village as a vacation. As with her new perspective on Lydia, Maureen is coming to recognize the quiet assumptions that made her feel entitled even as she spoke about black rights and voted for the liberal parties. The assumption she recognizes and discards is that she could visit July's village as an attraction, an oddity, instead of acknowledging that apartheid has caused a poverty-stricken way of life for millions of blacks. Being forced to live in those conditions inverts the order imposed by the white government, and with this example, Gordimer manages to underscore the hypocrisy of apartheid.

Furthermore, the immensity of the bush combined with the bleak poverty puts apartheid on a human scale. Maureen's revulsion at her filthy body, her gradual acceptance of living conditions, and her admiration for Nyiko's dignity all force her to come to terms with the fact that the blacks are people living in awful circumstances and that her previous life was one of privilege. Maureen cannot hide behind ideology anymore. In this way, Gordimer manages to criticize all those who participated in apartheid. Nyiko's bow and gracious acceptance of a sausage is far more dignified than Maureen's nervy, pained acceptance of lowered status.

The disappearance of the bakkie thrusts Maureen and Bam into the realization that their living situation could be permanent. They realize that their lives are dependent on chance and the protection of the villagers. When the bakkie is taken away from them without warning, effectively severing their last link to the city, they begin to recognize the permanence of their situation: they say out loud that time has no meaning, that they must keep from fighting and stay alive. Survival becomes the only thing keeping them together. Now stripped of their ideology and their former, shared way of life, they no longer understand each other and no longer have a common base of experience and beliefs to rely upon. Their disillusionment and fear isolates them rather than unites them. They stop fighting only because fighting is not necessary to survival, not because they have reached agreement or understand each other.

July's reappearance brings two ideas to the fore. First, when he returns, the Smaleses are again confronted with their own inability to act. July can come and go with the bakkie, while they are trapped in the village. Second, July brings them supplies in exchange for more money. Their dependence on city supplies highlights their remaining inability to adapt to the circumstances under which they are now forced to live. Their paralysis and inability to adapt fully to village life indicates just how low they have sunk. The Smaleses seem brittle, fragile with their needs that the village cannot meet. They are vulnerable, dependent on July, on the village, and on city supplies.

When Maureen demands the car keys from July, the new power balance becomes completely clear. Bam's impotent rage at July's taking the bakkie has no expression except in Maureen's outstretched hand, demanding the keys. After years of being an obedient servant, July is reluctant to let go of the keys, to fall back into the habit of obedience. He wants the bakkie and knows that they cannot take it from him. July's craving for the bakkie shows that he knows that the rules have changed. No longer are white's possessions invulnerable. The Smaleses do not even have the authority to go to their own truck without July's permission. During the tense standoff with the keys, July's newfound sense of choice becomes apparent. His desires are the problem, but for the first time he controls whether or not those desires are satisfied.