Blindside. Wilna Adriaanse
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she opened the front door, she found her mom and her guests in the sitting room. Vera had her handbag on her lap. Her husband, Pete, was staring at the television screen, where a cricket match was in progress.
“What kept you?” her mom asked when she caught sight of Ellie.
“I’m sorry.” Ellie looked at Vera and Pete. “Thanks for staying. Please take some of the food in the fridge. We can’t possibly eat it all.”
Vera headed for the kitchen without a moment’s hesitation and returned with a stuffed shopping bag.
Ellie walked them to their car and thanked them again.
“What are you going to do with her? She can’t be on her own.”
“She won’t allow anyone to look after her and I have to go back to work.”
Vera seemed on the point of saying something, but thought better of it and got into the car. When they had driven away, Ellie stood on the pavement for a moment before she reluctantly walked back to the house.
“Surely I can have a drink now? It’s been a hell of a day, and everyone has had something to drink except me.” Her mom sounded like a petulant child.
“There are a few things we have to discuss.”
“Like what?” Her mom licked her lips and Ellie noticed that her hands were shaking. “I don’t need another lecture.”
“I have to go back to work tomorrow, Mom. And I have to know you’re going to look after yourself.”
“I’m sixty years old and I’ve always looked after myself. What makes you think I can’t do it now? Everyone thinks he’s the one who looked after me, but he was never here. I used to look after you, you know, and now you think I’m an idiot.” Her mom got up and placed her hands on her hips. “You’re just like him.”
“Mom …” Ellie felt the weariness dragging her down. “You’ve got to stop drinking so much.”
“You make it sound like I’m an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink all bloody day …” Ellie saw her mom averting her eyes, the way she always did when she was lying. “I’ve never told you and your father to stop drinking and, God knows, it’s not as if you don’t drink. But I’m the one who has to stop!”
“The problem is that you battle to stop once you’ve started.”
“Oh, crap.” Her mom turned and walked down the passage. Moments later Ellie heard her bedroom door slam shut. She collapsed onto a chair.
Later, in her bedroom, she took off the black funeral garments one by one. Her mom had refused to wear black, but Ellie had gone shopping for a black dress. No other colour felt right. She hung the dress against the wardrobe door. Stripped off the black underclothes and wished she could strip off her skin the same way. Maybe the new one would be thicker. Her eyes fell on her image in the mirror. For better or for worse, whether you liked it or not, you continued to pass the genes on. She had her mom’s figure. Slender, medium height. Average. Boobs neither big nor small. She was probably a fashion designer’s ideal. More or less in proportion from head to toe. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But she looked like her dad’s people, and their genes had defined her. Melissa was right. She’d have to get rid of more than her hair colour if she wanted to escape her ancestry.
A girl got to know herself through the eyes of her father, she had once read. With a mother, there’s sometimes a subtext. But a father’s eyes are gentle. There’s no expectation, only acceptance.
She put on her pyjamas and got into bed. The bedroom was hers, yet it wasn’t any more. Once upon a time it had been a haven. Now it was just another room in a house where the walls resonated with her sorrow. She curled up under the duvet and closed her eyes. Maybe her mom couldn’t cry either, she thought. Maybe there are certain things you can’t do more than sniff about. But she couldn’t even do that, and the pressure in her chest kept building. After an hour she got up and took the duvet and a pillow out to the stoep. Douglas lay down beside her and she fell asleep at last with the dog’s ear between her fingers.
CHAPTER 4
Nick Malherbe took his luggage out the boot, paid the taxi driver and carried his bags to the apartment. The key was with the concierge, as arranged. When he stepped into the spacious foyer, he was reminded of his first visit to the luxurious Bantry Bay apartment.
He couldn’t help wondering what his late mother would have said about such opulence. She had often warned him and his brother against trumpery. Against bad girls and strong liquor, too. And the devil’s wiles. They hadn’t taken all her warnings to heart.
He put his luggage in the main bedroom and opened the balcony doors. The sea breeze rushed into the flat, carrying the scent along with it. The late-afternoon sun glinted on the water.
He had come a long way since that day. Two years ago he could never have dreamed he’d be here today. He was old enough, had been in the job long enough, to know you never achieve half of what you initially plan. But his first boss used to say you only fail the day you stop trying. The younger guys had laughed behind his back every time he said it. They were still hungry, supremely confident. But as the years go by, the confidence takes some knocks, the arrogance gets tempered. One day you discover you’re consoling yourself with small victories, telling yourself at least you’re still trying. It’s not that the hunger is any less. It’s just that you understand your own limitations, and the system’s, so much better.
The fridge and freezer were stocked. Nick reminded himself to tell the housekeeper he wouldn’t be needing her every day. He didn’t need her at all, actually, but he knew better, by now, than to say so. It would only lead to questions. People like the Allegrettis didn’t understand that you could make your own bed and wash your own dishes.
He unpacked and was grateful it wasn’t a hotel room. He needed space, even if it was just one or two rooms to move around in. Few things are as frightening as bumping into your own thoughts in the middle of the night.
He wished he could go for a run. In the past two days he hadn’t had time to exercise for even half an hour and he felt stiff and uncomfortable. For a man who had not paid much heed to exercise for most of his life, doing the bare minimum to keep fit, he surprised himself these days. At thirty-eight he was fitter than he had been in a long time. At this point in his life, it was probably exercise or booze or women. Of the three, exercise may not be the most appealing, but it was certainly the safest.
An hour later he drew up at the gate of a house a few blocks higher up the mountainside, gave his name and waited for the security guard to make a call. His glance took in the enormous house and the wall topped by an electric fence. Automatically he began to search for weak spots. When the gate swung open, he drove through and parked the Range Rover in front of the big garage doors. He remembered Enzio Allegretti boasting that he’d got the house on the mountainside in Bantry Bay for a bargain. Only forty-eight million rand.
He pressed the doorbell and waited a few seconds before a voice answered.
“Patrice, it’s Nick.”
There was a click, and he stepped into the entrance hall. He pressed the lift button, the doors slid open and he stepped into the mirrored interior. He stared at his image. Under the bright lights the grey in his short, dark hair was more noticeable. He ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. He looked drained in this light, and the scar next to his eye seemed to be pulling his eye down even more than usual. On the positive side, he seemed to have shaken off two or three kilos.
When the doors slid open again, he couldn’t help stopping for a moment, just as he’d done the first time he’d come here. A gigantic room stretched to his left. Clean, straight lines. Light marble floors, floor-to-ceiling foldaway glass doors that opened onto a large patio where a rim-flow pool slipped over the edge of the property. An unrestricted view of the Atlantic. Armchairs and sofas were grouped together to form different seating areas, mostly upholstered in shades of white, with an occasional