The moon was high, the stars were bright, and the gentle swell of the @lantic — a spring tide of discarded ANC flags, gently surging up the concrete incline of the stadium — murmured its lullaby to the night.
‘I need time,” sighed Thabiso, letting her head drop at last on to Jacob’s shoulder as they danced barefoot in the papery shallows. ‘I need —”
‘You need me,” breathed Jacob. ‘I know you need me. You know you need me.”
She pressed her face into his chest, and smelled his just-showered freshness. ‘You can’t do that. You can’t come back after months and just pretend that nothing’s happened. You hurt us, darling. You hurt us badly. You and that — floozy!” Tears welled in her pretty eyes and ran down her cheeks where they glinted in her neat little grey beard.
‘Sheherezade Schaik and I —” began Jacob, but she shuddered free from his grasp.
‘Never say her name to me,” she hissed. ‘Not ever. I don’t want to hear it.”
‘For deniability?”
‘No, dammit! For love! For honour betrayed! For commitment soiled! For wrecking our family!”
‘She meant nothing to me,” he whispered, drying her cheek with a silk handkerchief. ‘A flirtation. Nothing more. Nothing next to what we have.”
‘Had, Jacob. Had.” She fixed him with a glare. ‘You ruined that when you had a relationship with her. And a generally corrupt one too!”
‘A fabricated phrase, darling,” said Jacob, moving swiftly to take her in his arms again. ‘Come, come. Stop this nonsense. Dance with me, and tell me that you need poor old Jacob, that you’ve always needed me.” He winked into the shadows, and a Bechstein grand rolled into view. ‘Play it, Smuts,” said Jacob. ‘Play As Time Goes By.”
‘You must remember this,” crooned the pianist, ‘a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh —”
‘The chorus!” mouthed Jacob. ‘Skip to the chorus!” Smuts paged ahead, finding the catchy refrain: Awu leth’umshini wam — A tricky change of key, he protested: a little too shrill for his liking. But Jacob was calling the tune these days, and it was time to face the music and dance —
They moved silkily through the darkness, and Thabiso felt herself succumbing to the old magic once again. Jacob was so quick on his feet, so cuddly as he sidestepped and backtracked, gently, lightly, tossed her off balance and then righted her again before she knew where she was. He was whispering in her ear, and she pressed herself to him.
‘Do you remember our song?” he breathed across her earlobe. ‘Do you remember how we sang it together in the gazebo at Dakar, as the stars fell into the sea and the Bedouin fires gleamed off Chester Crocker’s head? Do you remember how the world was ours for the grabbing when —”
‘Stop grabbing me,” she snapped. ‘Hands higher. Like so. Good.”
‘— when we were young, and you were still a brilliant young thing who smoked a pipe, and I was —Darling, you’re trying to lead again. Just let go. I lead, you follow, okay? One-two-three, one-two-three —”
‘I remember,” she sighed. ‘I remember. I —” She squeaked and sank to the ground, groping at a smarting toe. ‘Paper cut.”
‘An injury to one is an injury to all,” cooed Jacob. ‘Let me kiss each toe better for you.” He knelt beside her, and she fought her way free, giggling, and she remembered the happy months of the honeymoon, so long ago, before domestic drudgery began to take its toll, with its endless squabbles about money and his hurtful insistences that she either dye her beard black or shave it off. Those had been good times —
She started upright as a little figure waddled into view next the piano, rubbing sleep out of its eyes. Fikile Mbalula had thrown his toys out of the cot, and, woken by music and laughter out of a dream in which he was being elected Chairman of the Intergalactic Politburo, he had found himself frightened and alone. He had bellowed for the nanny, the lumbering and pious Cosatu, but she was away inciting anarchy in the volkstaat of Hout Bay, and so he had lain still. At last, the mobile over his crib, under which pretty non sequiturs spiralled after glinting malapropisms, began to disturb him, and he had come looking for his father. He goggled at the scene in front of him, and plucked at his baby-gro with a jammy finger.
‘Are you and mommy getting back together?” he asked. Jacob turned to Thabiso. She brushed herself down, flustered.
‘I don’t know, darling,” she said. ‘Mommy is a little confused right now. Mommy needs Daddy, but she doesn’t like him very much at the moment.”
Jacob grinned, the old winning smile. ‘Mommy just needs to work some things out. And Daddy isn’t going anywhere. Daddy is going to be around for a long, long time.”