“It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change things between us. I just want to know. How difficult is it for you to understand?” He swatted a fly from his shoulder as he spoke.
“It’s very difficult, Daddy. It really is.” John shrugged. “Surely you’d take my feelings into account above all else?”
He turned to her. Then his tone softened. “It’s not okay with me, Brig. I want to know. For some fucked up reason, I do. I just need to know. I can’t explain it. And my therapist doesn’t see this as the problem you’re making it out to be.”
Brig didn’t realise tears were streaming down her cheeks until one plopped into her mojito. She used the back of her hands to wipe them away.
“Please. No,” she said.
John shrugged, “Why not?”
“Because I’m afraid of either outcome. If you are my Dad, then right now you’ve fucked it up, because by wanting to know, it’s kind of tainted everything. The only certainty I have about love and relationships is the bond between us.” John tried to speak. “Stop! It’s my turn to speak. I thought our love was unconditional. Talking about fucking things up. And, if you’re not my dad, then…” she stopped herself. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Brigit rose from her chair.
“What now?” John asked.
“I’m going.”
“Of course you are,” he said, “Always leaving when things are too tough for you. Just sit down and don’t be such a baby.”
Brig grabbed her bag. “This isn’t the kind of afternoon I had anticipated.”
John shrugged dismissively.
“I know you feel shitty about Mom’s birthday. I know you’re feeling estranged from all of us. But I’ve been your constant. I’ve always been there for you. Why would you turn your back on the one person who loves you unconditionally? Why?”
John ran his hands through his hair again. He checked whether anybody could hear them. It was his turn to feel uncomfortable. Lowering his voice, he said, “I’m not turning my back on you. It’s not about you, Brig. It’s about me. I want to know.”
She knew he was watching her as she climbed the steps to the restaurant and stormed off.
Through the huge glass window, she saw the waitress approach John. He placed his hand around her waist as she leaned towards him. She saw him point to her glass, and the waitress nod. Who knows what other ridiculous shit he was whispering in the poor girl’s ear?
Fuck him.
“Fuck him!” she said aloud. “Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.”
Seven
John drove up the tree-lined driveway to his farm. He felt uneasy. He had been reassured by his therapist that it was okay to want to know whether Brigit was indeed his daughter. But even he knew the way he had handled this issue with Brig earlier had been totally wrong. Why did he have to fuck everything up by being plain nasty?
His workers were still busy with the harvest. He should have been supervising them, but he couldn’t bear to spend any more time with them than he had to. After last season’s wage disputes he fucking couldn’t look them in the eye without wanting to spit. He had to hand it to his son, Pete. He’s a great negotiator and motivator. He secretly conceded that since his forced partnership with Pete, his son had implemented changes on the farm that seemed to please the workers; even though it affected the business’s bottom line.
He had been advised by Frans that the last thing his establishment needed was bad publicity. “You want the public’s perception to be that of ‘caring white employer’,” he had said, and with Pete at the helm he could continue to stay true to himself. He hated the idea of having to pander to race-policies. He was a wine farmer, what did he know about politics?
His late friend, Lee had been progressive. And it had nothing to do with BEE. He was way ahead of his time. John remembered him and his friends mocking Lee; particularly when he had made Boss Sarel the farm manager. Boss Sarel and the team were now producing their own wine under their very own label called Sarel se Suip. They were the darlings of the Winelands; along with his ex-wife, Jen who was now a sought-after interior designer.
Both Sarel and Jen had made it into the local glossy magazine, Visio.
He didn’t mind seeing Sarel in there, but he did mind seeing Jen splashed across three pages showing off an upgrade of a local boutique hotel and spa, and a picture with her and that fucking Greek immigrant, Myron.
“I’m sick and tired of being the laughing stock of the town,” he had told his therapist Frik, an ou ballie who seemed to understand where John was coming from. He had been referred to another therapist before Frikkie, but they just hadn’t gelled. He liked Frik. Regarded him as a man’s man; a rare find amongst a community of liberal-thinking-limp-wristed shrinks.
“I want to reclaim who I was before this fucking divorce. It’s time I stopped being a wuss,” he had said to Frik.
Frikkie agreed with him. According to rumour, Frikkie wasn’t free from scandal himself. Head of the psychology department and, by his own admission, two things students love: a professor and a psychologist.
“Well, what do you think you need to do?” Frik had asked.
“Stop moping, number one. Just let Pete get on with it and I’ll play ‘baas van die plaas’.”
Frikkie smiled. “Well you are the boss. And… start fucking again.” John liked to think Frikkie was living vicariously through his stories.
“That would be nice.” John conceded.
“Nobody told you to stop.”
John rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Yes, they did. You did, Frikkie. I’m a sex-addict, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean you have to give up sex,” Frikkie said, “then die of blue balls.” They laughed. “Do you miss her?” his therapist asked.
“Which ‘her’ are you referring to?”
Frik chuckled, “Jen, your wife.”
John reflected a moment before speaking, “I do. I must admit. I never wanted the divorce. She did.”
Frikkie looked up from his notes, “Do you think she wasn’t justified in wanting it?”
“Fuck, Frikkie. Are we going to get all deep now?”
Frikkie dropped his notes on the coffee table that served to distance him from his client. He reached for his pack of smokes. They had already established Frik could smoke if John didn’t object. John didn’t, although he himself hated smoking.
“If you could have her back, would you?” Frikkie lit a Camel with a regular match. No lighter. John ran his hands through his mop of hair. He had to think hard about this. Would he?
“No.” John said, stretching his legs. “Too much has happened. Look it’s fucking awkward at times socially. But I’ve got my mates and it will get better with their wives. They don’t like me much but that’s not an issue because they don’t like their husbands much either.”
Frikkie chortled.
“It helps that they don’t know about me and Frankie. That dirty little scandal was buried by our respective families along with Lee. Fuck, sorry, that sounds callous!” John said. “But it’s the truth.”
So hell-bent were both his children and Clive, Lee’s son, to cover up the affair between John and Lee’s wife, Frankie that