Make or Break

‘The exhibition isn’t Dad’s,’ I said, plodding one foot in front of the other on the sand.

‘Shocking,’ Annabelle said down the phone. ‘But I already know that because you called me last night.’

‘I did?’

‘Yes. You called at about two a.m. to tell me how some hot guy called Jimmy knew all the words to the Dennis Leary “Asshole” song.’

Jimmy, walking next to me and able to hear Annabelle’s side of the conversation, cracked up.

‘And that Pete was away with a goat and a gazelle and that you hate Goat, who evidently is a guy, and you hate Gazelle, who is a girl, and you hate deers . . .’

I glanced at Jimmy, who seemed to be appreciating his eavesdropping session while Annabelle continued her recount of the call.

‘. . . and I told you it was ‘deer’ not ‘deers’ and that I thought a gazelle was actually an antelope and you tried to google the difference between deer and antelopes and you hung up on me.’

‘Sorry,’ I said in a small voice.

‘Gazelle is a really weird name, though. Is everyone in South Africa named after animals?’

‘That’s not her name. It’s Giselle.’

‘Jesselle?’

‘No, Gis-elle. Like male jizz and Elle magazine. Gis-elle.’

Jimmy sniggered.

‘Right,’ Annabelle said. ‘So, it’s a bit crap about Pete.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where all this “must-climb-to-the-top-of-all-the-rocks” has come from. Why have humans become such creatures of extremes? “Must go to London to walk where millions have before me”,’ I said in a dramatic documentary-style voice. ‘ “Must go to the wilderness where no man has ever gone before”. Nobody wants to just go somewhere ordinary, where an average amount of people have been. Like Staines.’

Annabelle laughed. ‘Hey, thanks for the dinners. You didn’t need to do that, I know you don’t have much spare cash.’

I shot an embarrassed glance to Jimmy, who smiled warmly back. I’d jumped online when Pete was packing in determined silence for the Cederbergs and ordered three each of Annabelle, Hunter and Katie’s favourite dinners from a delivery service. Just so I could feel I was still helping out in some way.

‘CAN YOU ASK FOR THE PEAS TO BE ON THE SIDE OF THE PIE NEXT TIME?!’ Hunter’s high-decibel boom came down the line. I heard some muffled instructions. ‘THANK YOU, AUNTY JESS!’

‘Why isn’t he at school?’ I said, looking at the time on my phone and noting it would be 11 a.m. on Thursday morning in England.

‘He’s got a little cough.’

‘A cough?’ I did some panicking. What if Katie caught it?

‘He’s fine,’ Annabelle said and briskly changed the subject. ‘So, I think Pete is just feeling frustrated. He’ll come round. You’ve been promising to move for ages now. Maybe he’s just sick of waiting.’

‘Waiting for what?’

‘To get your own flat on the other side of town like you promised you would.’

‘But I can’t leave you. What about Katie?’

‘She is pretty adorable,’ I could hear the smile in Annabelle’s voice. ‘But we’re good. I’m coping fine without everyone – an Americano please?’

‘Who are you talking to?’

‘Marcus. We’re at Wandsworth Common. He’s showing me his new site.’

‘How come you’re seeing Marcus’s new site?’

‘He wants me to check out his renovation plans. Oh hey, Hunter wants to ask you something.’

The line went muffled for a moment and then Hunter was on the phone, his mouth too close to the speaker. ‘Aunty Jess, is it night time where you are?’

‘No, it’s daytime. It’s only two hours later than where you are in England.’

‘But Mum said it’s summer there?’

‘Yes, it’s a different season but I’m just below England so that makes it nearly the same time of day.’

‘You’re below us?’ Hunter said, and I could tell he was moving his head around by the varying volume of his voice. ‘I can’t see you.’

‘Can’t you? Ask Mum which way south is.’ I waited while he asked Annabelle and came back on the line. ‘Are you facing south?’

‘Yes,’ Hunter said.

‘I’m waving now. Can you see me? I’m the one in the white top,’ I said, and waved towards where I thought north was. Jimmy stopped walking and looked up at the cliffs, seeing who I was waving to. ‘Can you see me?’

‘No!’ His chesty breathing was loud in my ear.

‘I’m still waving,’ I said, waving harder.

‘She’s being silly,’ Annabelle said, coming back on the phone. ‘Oh god, he’s running around looking for you.’ She giggled. ‘I’d better go, Marcus is running after him and Katie is running after him. Oh god, and now a dog is running after Katie. Do you think if I ran after the dog we’d look like we were doing some kind of interpretive theatre? Oh shit, gotta go, Hunter is bothering a lady in a white top who isn’t you. She does sort of look like you though . . .’

‘Oooh, can you get her number? I’ve always wanted a doppelgänger so I can play tricks on people.’

‘Sure,’ Annabelle said, laughing. ‘Bye!’

I hung up giggling then looked at Jimmy. ‘I’m the normal one.’

‘If you say so.’

We walked a few paces watching surfers tackle the curling waves.

‘So what are you going to do for the rest of your holiday, then?’ Jimmy said, carrying Flora across the sand.

Flora got ‘tired’ and would frequently sit directly in Jimmy’s path. Jimmy would carry on chatting, pick her up and continue walking, Flora tucked under his arm, taking in the superior view with an air of entitlement. When she wanted to get down she’d paw at his chest with a single snowy-white mitt. Jimmy, still talking, would place her on the ground and she’d trot ahead, her black nose held high, her self-possession higher. It was a relationship of silent understanding. I was not enamoured by Flora. She looked at me with haughty indifference and I was disappointed with myself for being rattled by a ball of arrogant fluff. I identified more with Lucy: the ugly, sweet-natured chihuahua-pug cross who’d sneezed on Pete. She’d labour behind us on the beach, never requiring a grander viewing platform, wheezing and dripping snot from her interbred mooshed-in nose, her buggy eyes watering and her tongue flopping out of the side of her mouth like a wet sock. She’d come when you called, sit whenever possible and flop on her back and open her legs with shameless appeal for belly rubs.

‘I’m going to have such an amazing time that when Pete gets back he’ll wish he’d been here doing all the fun stuff with me instead of at the top of some dusty rocks with—’

‘The sunrises there are out of this world—’

‘With the snakes and the vicious wildlife—’

‘My mate saw a leopard. Said it was the most amazing—’

‘And the precarious cliffs and the—’

‘The views are unbelievable—’

‘Will you shut up!’

Jimmy looked startled for a moment then grinned.

‘Anyway,’ I said, shooting Jimmy a pretend glower. ‘I’m going to do all the awesome Cape Town things I’ve wanted to do my whole life, since three days ago when I knew I was coming on this trip.’

‘Cool!’ Jimmy put Flora down for her next instalment of pretentious promenading. ‘Who with?’

‘Myself.’

‘And what are you going to do?’

I named a bunch of things I’d read about with Jimmy screwing his nose up as my list went on.

‘I can’t allow any of that to happen,’ he said with a firm sweep of his arm.

‘OK,’ I said with a curious grin. ‘What do you think I should do?’

He stopped walking and faced the ocean, watching a couple of morning kayakers whoosh along the crest of the waves. Didn’t anybody have a job in Cape Town? The beach seemed to be in a constant state of activity.

‘OK,’ he said, looking out to sea. He appeared to be doing some thinking. ‘I only work evenings and have most of my days free, so how about I show you the Cape Town locals love?’

I did some thinking of my own. What about Pete? What about him? I kept defaulting to what Pete would think but was starting to realise that he might not be up his mountain range worrying about what I thought. The fact that he’d been unhappy for a while was slowly sinking in and that I, in my ‘Annabelle needs me’ little world, had failed to notice. Him going on this trip was perhaps his way of letting me know he thought we were over. I grappled internally with this notion.

Pete doesn’t care what you do. He’s hanging out with little miss neat braids.

That’s not very nice – she’s probably quite lovely.

I don’t care – who are you to tell me Giselle is lovely? Whose side are you on?

I’m on your side because I am you.

If talking to yourself is a sign of being crazy, what does it mean to be arguing silently between yourself and a meaner version of yourself, imagining what each one looks like and thinking your negative side dresses better and wondering if she got her pencil skirt at All Saints?

Jimmy was watching me. He seemed to sense my internal chatter. If only he knew it was a full-scale production with costume, make-up and a set design that needed looking into. Who chose the geese-in-a-field wallpaper?

‘Why would you do that?’ I asked, looking at Jimmy.

‘Because I can’t see you hanging out at the top of Table Mountain with a bunch of tourists in white sneakers and matching anoraks.’

I gave him a ‘no, really’ look.

‘Because it’s pretty shit of your boyfriend to just take off with a goat and a gazelle and leave you here on your own.’

I gave a rueful smile. It was pretty shit. I was trying to serve it up better – ‘it would be good for us as a couple for him to “find himself”/we are individuals/nobody said couples have to do everything together etc., etc.’ – but shit is shit, no matter the platter.

‘I only have one rule,’ Jimmy said, clicking his fingers for Lucy to come.

She’d given up on the whole walk thing a few paces back and was sitting on her arse drooling on her own feet.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘No more advantage-thrusting.’ He grinned, then affected a dramatic confession, palm to his chest. ‘It makes me feel really uncomfortable and I feel like you don’t respect me—’

‘You’re such a loser,’ I said, shaking my head and smiling.

I felt surprisingly content when Jimmy, and I arrived back at the house and put down two bowls of (filtered) water for the dogs. Flora lapped it delicately while Lucy slumped her whole smashed-up face in and looked in danger of drowning. I watched Jimmy arrange her in a seated position. I was putting the next few days entirely in his hands and I was quite fine with it. He would work in the evenings, but I could use that time to skype Annabelle and catch up with the party-planning. While Jimmy made coffee, I sat at the island and chatted to Pamela as she rearranged the cushions on the already tidy sofa. When she left the room, laughing at Jimmy who’d asked her not to move the fake dog poo he’d put on Ian’s side of the bed, I looked around at the light-filled space that seemed to be perpetually ready for a photo shoot and asked Jimmy why they needed a cleaner every single day when most people in England had one once a week, if at all.

‘Everybody has housekeepers here,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It’s normal. They’re part of the family. She does the laundry, changes the sheets twice a week, irons, washes cushion covers and beats dust out of everything. And does the shopping.’

I gasped, making Jimmy nearly spill our coffee. ‘Like groceries?’

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy said, bemused.

‘Oh no. I couldn’t have someone choosing my avocados. I’m an expert avocado chooser. What if they got one with a bruise?’

‘Well, I guess the sky would fall down,’ Jimmy said, getting back to pouring coffee.

‘I knew it.’ I said, and grinned at his expression. ‘So, what am I in for in the next few days? Tell me your daily routine.’

Jimmy raised an eyebrow.

‘I like to know what’s happening,’ I said with a shrug.

‘Well,’ Jimmy said, getting comfy on a stool next to me, ‘usually, if I don’t wake up next to a randy girl with her undies on inside out—’

‘Back to front,’ I corrected.

‘I wouldn’t be so quick to point that out.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Continue.’

Jimmy laughed. ‘As I was saying, after I wake up I like to get out and do something physical, a run, a walk, a climb or something. Sometimes Diego makes me go to a yoga class – remember the dodgy leggings?’ he said, making an ‘eek’ kind of face.

I sniggered.

‘Then I come home and sit out on the balcony eating breakfast and drinking coffee and watching the waves.’

‘Sounds a bit ideal.’

‘I work on my music, go to my writing class, meet up with mates. Normal stuff.’ He grinned and grabbed an iPad that was sitting on the table top. ‘I like to keep abreast of what’s going on at home . . .’

I looked over his shoulder at the screen. ‘That’s the Daily Fail.’

‘Yes,’ he said as he clicked on a picture of a reality TV star attending a movie premiere in Leicester Square with a stare so vacant, a dress so tiny and a split so high you could see that not only was she not wearing underwear, she was as hairless as polished steel. ‘But I like looking at the pictures. It reminds me why I stay here.’

I read over his shoulder. The girl in the ‘article’ was defending her ‘LOOK AT ME! ENVY ME! LUST AFTER ME!’ outfit, saying it was ‘empowering to wear what she wanted’.

‘Why is it empowering to be that level of naked in public in the middle of January?’ I said. ‘Do you know what I’d do if I wanted to feel completely empowered as a woman attending a premiere in London in minus one degrees with all the photographers crouching down low to get a fanny shot?’

‘Tell me, I’m fascinated,’ Jimmy said, not fascinated.

‘I’d wear a dress made out of a duvet. And it would have a hood made out of memory foam so that when you’re in there watching yet another probably very average Johnny Depp film you can rest your head back and sleep instead of pretending you give a shit in a tissue dress and earrings so adorned they remind me of the cutlery drawer. How does she not stab herself when she turns her head?’

Jimmy shrugged, his eyes beginning to glaze over.

‘I’m not going to walk around uncomfortable and naked and call it “empowerment”. I’m going to be warm and cosy.’ I lifted my coffee cup with an air of having said something profound.

‘You done there, Germaine Greer?’ Jimmy said, turning his attention to the iPad again.

I sipped my coffee. ‘Yes.’

‘Oooh look, somebody from some reality show stepped out in Chanel trackies and a Louis Vuitton cap,’ Jimmy said drolly, while scrolling past some pictures of a woman walking along a street. ‘Her glasses are Chloe and her tote is Marc Jacobs. Thank god I know.’

As Jimmy continued to flick through varying questionable online newspapers scanning ‘articles’ about which nobody was wearing what, eating where and dating whomever, I checked my phone. I was still holding on to the hope that Pete would call. Or text. Or send me a picture of the view saying, ‘wish you were here’. But perhaps he didn’t. The thought stung. Perhaps he really was ‘becoming who he was meant to be’ and I was not meant to be beside the new him.

I checked my emails. I had one from Dad!

Hi Plum, Lovely to hear from you. Having a very busy time. Clients ended up wanting to view an island on a lake in Uganda. Then a couple by Madagascar. Been flying all over the place. How wonderful you are in Cape Town. That’s lovely. I stopped by there on the way to Uganda. I hope you and Pete have a wonderful time. Give my love to Priya and her friend. Am tired and looking forward to coming home and also the ‘secret’ party! Do you and Annabelle need any help? How about money? Just ask Mum. Love Dad.

Overjoyed the whole Dad-having-affair-with-ex-Victoria’s-Secret-model-who-now-opens-orphanages-in-her-native-South-Africa thing was unfounded and noting that, yet again, my overactive Princess of Doom imagination had run away with the muse of Shakespearian dramatics, I tapped out a reply. I said the wedding was amazing, Cape Town was stunning and that the party-planning was all going fine. I didn’t mention that Pete was sleeping under the stars with snakes and leopards and goats and gazelles. I told him I was flying home Saturday week and that the party was running exactly to plan. Of course it was; I was in charge. I sent Annabelle a text telling her that I’d heard from Dad and all was well and got a sarcastic reply implying my lunacy levels needed checking. With my shoulders less burdened, I put my phone on the counter, picked up my coffee and tuned in to Jimmy saying that Taylor Swift had written another thinly veiled song about people who’d slighted her.