Читать книгу My Only Story - Deon Wiggett - Страница 8

It is a Saturday when everything changes.

I am at our home in Johannesburg’s leafy north. It is November 2017 and the start of the southern-hemisphere summer, so I celebrate in my usual way: smoke a couple of blunts; read a little; swim a little.

I am an advertising copywriter for a small ad agency, which I own and should quite enjoy, but today in the swimming pool I am doing my best to forget it. It makes me anxious, like many things do.

My husband, Riaan, is awesome and seldom anxious. And now he is off to the airport to go to San Francisco.

‘Why are you leaving so early?’ I ask as he kisses me goodbye. ‘You’re just going to have to sit around and wait.’

‘You mean there won’t be a big rush at the end, like when we’re together?’

‘It adds some excitement to proceedings,’ I say, as I normally do when Riaan is being overcautious.

‘Love you!’ he says, and hugs me.

‘Enjoy Silicon Valley!’ I say, and in a flurry of well wishes and interested cats, Riaan wheels out of the house on his business trip.

I should be getting ready too as a sun-drenched afternoon slips away. I should phone my parents, and text Riaan something sweet, and, really, I should be leaving now for the same Mexican restaurant for the second night in a row. The restaurant is out of the way and average, but it is where the two halves of a divorced couple are hosting parties on successive nights – not out of spite, but sheer coincidence.

I do not feel like average Mexican food, but skipping the second night would be a dreadful betrayal of Divorcee Number Two.

I am now out of time to phone my parents. In real life, my dad is chatty, but on the phone he has the word economy of a man writing a telegram: ‘How are you?’, ‘How’s work?’, ‘How’s Riaan?’, ‘Here’s your mother.’

And then my mother comes on to take no conversational prisoners. In the next hour, she will bring me up to speed on her twelve fledgling olive trees, her challenging new quilt, and whatever her curious eyes have spotted in the past week.

I’ll phone tomorrow, I have decided by the time I step naked from the pool.

When I finally get into an Uber, I am thinking about the start of summer, and about making more informed choices from last night’s menu. I forget to text Riaan while he is still here.

It is the final evening of my regular life.