Looking for Love (23 page)

“
That’s all you need to remember.” Andrea shook the ice around
at the bottom of her glass. “They’d better delay our food orders
because I’m concerned about you, Ella. What’s getting to
you?”

Her voice had
softened somewhat. When would Ella learn that Andrea only got
intimidating because she cared? She’d just always found it hard to
deal with.

“
You can tell us.” Carol hadn’t
let go her hand and gave it another squeeze. Her blonde bob looked
so perfectly tailored today and curved inward toward her chin,
giving her that soft yet mature look that was all Carol. “We never
hold back from one another. Why hide it when we only want to hear
you out?”

Pauline lifted
up her hand in a halt signal. “Hold on.” She gazed at Andrea. “If
we’re going to get all bossy and intimidating with her when she
tells us, obviously she won’t want to open up.”

“
She is right here listening to
your conversation about her.” Ella laughed through her tears. “She
has decided… Okay, I’m going to tell you but you’d better keep your
strong opinions to yourself. I see no other way out of this
situation.”

They turned to
her with their full attention. She closed her eyes to cut off their
gazes for a moment and to work out how to say it. She had to get
them on her side.

What exactly
was
her side?

“
I can’t stay in the same city as
Ross anymore.” She glanced at Pauline. “He loves me and I’m not
ready to give him everything, yet I can’t break his heart and tell
him goodbye forever. So the only way I can see to get him out my
life is to go away.”

“
You can’t just be friends?” Carol asked. “Have you asked him
to back off romantically?”

She covered
her face to hide the rush of emotion crumpling up her face. “I
can’t.”

Andrea stroked her back while
Carol kept her hand in a tight squeeze
, allowing the sobs to finish their
course. At that moment, the waiter brought their food through. She
dried her wet face and tried to eat. Then she noticed everyone
looked at her; none of them had picked up their knives and
forks.

“
It’s all or nothing. I can’t find another man until I let go
of Ross. I can’t exactly get married while I have a tight
friendship with another man. So, it’s either let him go totally or
jump right in.”

“
Jump right in?” Andrea asked.

“
Make him mine. Give him my all.”

“
Sounds like a lovely idea,”
Pauline said.

She narrowed
her eyes at her.

Pauline
laughed. “For you, not me. I’ve given up my stupid crush on him
long time ago. I never loved him as much as you do.”

Everyone turned to Pauline like she hadn’t
just said that with the most casual tone, as if it were a
well-known fact. Ella couldn’t answer that one. Did she love him?
Could the sexual feelings be classified as love?

“
So, you’re too scared to break
his heart and tell him it’s all over, so you’d rather go away from
him?” Carol
now tucked in to her batter-fried hake and
chips.

“
I want to do it in a way that
doesn’t make him think I’m deliberately pushing him away. I know it
seems dishonest but I can’t see any way out of the
confusion.”

“
Confusion?” Andrea’s eyes were
soft, but she always cut to the c
hase with her words.

“
Well, he kind of makes me want him. I can’t be around him
anymore. I want him.”

“
Want him?” Carol asked.

“
Argh! You guys are so slow. I
want his body.”

She
stuck her tongue out at them. The
tension broke and everyone packed up laughing and took the intense
focus off her face and onto their food.

“
You certainly are confused,
Ella,” Pauline said. “Think I would be, too. How did this
happen?”

“
I suppose I got a bit jealous at
the way he spoke to you, and then there was that kiss he gave me
shortly after we started the business. I told you about it,
Pauline. He kissed me again on the farm in the middle of a huge
thunderstorm. And well, I kind of kissed him when I went to his
house the other night to break the whole thing off so I could go
for Dirk because every time Dirk kissed me, I would think of Ross.
The crazy thing is, I never ever saw Ross in that way before and
never dreamed I would. And now, I can’t keep my hands off
him.”

“
Well, I can understand how you
don’t want to take advantage of him seeing he loves you and you
just want his bod,” Carol added to the tease.

“
No, exactly.”

“
But maybe you do love him.” Andrea remained serious in her
tone—no tease with her.

“
I can’t love him.”

“
Why not?” Pauline asked.

“
It wouldn’t work. And don’t ask
why. We’ve just been friends for too long. I have to get
away.”

“
There must be another way.” Carol stroked her chin. “We have
to come up with something.”

“
What?” She wished there was even
though a new job opportunity shouldn’t be missed. Or should it? Her
dad lived in Durban, too. Could be an opportunity to get to know
him better. They’d spent so many years apart. “Anyhow, enough of
that. Let’s talk about something happy.”

They nodded and went
quiet
and
chewed and topped up with drinks, although Ella couldn’t ignore the
heavy vibe hanging around their table. She should feel really
grateful they didn’t want her to leave. Instead, all it did was
confuse her more and add to her misery.

***

Nothing could have
prepared
Ella
for the moment of sitting in her father’s house, waiting for him to
enter the room. They hadn’t seen each other in over ten years.
Someone had tied her stomach up in a ball of twine, so tight, like
to end off a pompom. She couldn’t even take in the feel of his home
because she busied herself swallowing back the nausea and bracing
against the swaying in her head. She didn’t want to know the home
he’d spent the last how many years alone in. Alone because of his
own stubbornness.

The haggard-faced maid
who’d brought her in
had gone to call him. He’d obviously done well for himself that he
could afford a full-time servant and a double-storey house with a
pool in the La Lucia area of Durban.

Would he
criticise her for never making the effort before now to come see
him? Not like he’d tried to visit her.

Why had she
thought she should visit him before she moved down to live in the
same city as him? He didn’t have to know, did he?

Tear
s picked her eyes. She really did
want him to know. And that was the hardest thing to
admit.

When he walked in, all the memories from
her younger childhood, the painful teenage years without him, and
the reality of the present converged in one painful throb in her
head and an awkward shaky smile on her face. She held herself from
swaying forward.

“
Ella?” He jumped down the stone
steps to the indented living room area of his open-plan house and
hugged her straight away. A sliver of hope entered her as his warm
hug encompassed her for a brief few seconds. He stood back and
surveyed her with a pleased smile. “You look just like your
mom.”

Why did he
sound happy about that fact?

“
She’s changed a lot. It’s been
years.”
The
words came out strained.

“
We’ve been in touch recently.”

“
Oh, I didn’t know. Why?”

“
Your mom and I aren’t enemies.”

“
You certainly acted like it.”
She bit her lip. Sometimes, she could keep things bottled up
inside, but other times, the anger made it burst out in one fell
swoop. She hadn’t planned on a confrontation today. So much for
that.

“
It’s wonderful to see you. Are you here for long? Can Liz make
you some tea?”

“
I don’t know if I can get it
down.” She tried to swallow the bile lodged in her
throat.

He sat on the couch and she settled a foot
from him, unsure what to feel. Her heart wanted to sing a happy
tune and to shout angry words at the same time. Instead, she
clamped her hands in her lap and merely stared at him, taking in
the visible signs of age—wrinkles, misshapen middle, greying
temples and bald patch.

“
Your mom says you’re doing well.”

“
What did she say?” How come Mom
hadn’t told her they’d been corresponding?

“
You’re working and running a business part-time.”

“
I’m looking at moving here. To
Durban. Getting a transfer to another branch.”

He nodded, his gaze fixed on
her. Could that be love in his eyes? She’
d always known he’d loved her, but
the letters had ceased between them. Partly her fault, partly his,
but she couldn’t deny how easy it had been to blame him all those
years for the separation of her parents. And blame herself.
Somehow, she’d sensed for so long that the divorce had been her
fault.

“
I wanted to let you know I’ll be closer by. We can maybe see
each other more often.” She dropped her gaze to hide the fears and
mumbled, “I’m sorry I haven’t made the effort much
lately.”

Lately? Maybe
the last five years.

“
Me, too, my girl. I think we’re
too similar. We won’t bridge the gap—we’ll wait for the other one
to do it first.”

She shot her
head up and nodded but the tears wriggled down her cheeks
anyway.

“
Why are you crying?” He sat
closer to her and hugged her from the side. “I’m sorry, Ella.” He
stroked her arm. “I didn’t want to interfere.”

“
What do you mean?” Ugh, she sounded all snotty and
whiny.

“
Mom had a certain way of
bringing up kids. Didn’t want my way to interfere with hers. I
thought it best to just love you from a distance. Heck, it was
tough. I missed you every single day.”

“
Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
What must I say? Mom doesn’t want me around. I didn’t want to
mess up your thoughts of her. You were living with her. I didn’t
think you should hate the parent you’re living with.”

“
But you could have told me once
I left home and stayed on my own. I would have visited you more.
And anyway, who said Mom’s way was the only way. She messed up a
lot. We fought every day when I was a teenager.”

“
Yes, but I would have made it worse. I’m a hippie. I like
everything free and easy and your mom likes order and structure. We
would have messed you up.”

“
Rubbish. It would have brought a balance. I needed someone who
wasn’t so rigid. I needed a shoulder to cry on.”

He roughly
pulled her head onto his shoulder. “Well, I’m here now, my sweetie.
Now please tell me what’s wrong?”

Sobs came as all the pent-up emotion of
years burst out. How could her father have held back for so long?
If things had been different, she would have found certain things a
lot easier to cope with—like all those broken relationships. Mom
had only brushed them off as bad moves on Ella’s part. Dad may have
listened more.

“
What do you want to tell me?” he
asked once she’d gone quiet and pulled away, only to look around at
his stylish, arty home.

Allowing her emotions to simper
down, she took in the
warm colours, atmospheric light effects, and
unusual ornaments and trinkets. Pleasant to the eye and not too
cluttered.

“
I want to ask you something.”
She peered at him after drying up the evidence of her
outburst.

He nodded, softness in his older gaze. Her
father had always held a special place in her heart. How could she
have considered him a stubborn loser, a heartbreaker? Maybe her
girlhood idealism of him had held some merit, after all.

“
Why did you leave Mom?”

“
I thought she would have told
you by now.” He turned away and stood up, walking to the low
bookshelf taking up one whole long wall. He picked up a book and
paged through.

“
I want to hear your side of it.”

“
I’ve told you before in the letters.”

“
Not really, Dad. All you said was that you couldn’t live
together. Mom said about the same thing. Why not?”

“
Parenting was one of them.” He
glanced at her then went back to fiddling with the book.

“
So I split you up?”

“
No, we couldn’t agree on many
things.” He turned to her.

“
Yet, you loved her, didn’t you?”

“
Yes, I loved her.” He brought
the book with and then she noticed it was a photo album of her
childhood. Tatty, well-used
, and holding pictures right up until the
present.

“
If you loved her, why didn’t you make it work?”

“
We both tried. Believe me, we
did.”

“
Maybe if you’d had
The
Album
.” She
shrugged. “But then, of course, I wouldn’t exist.”

“
The Album
. What’s that?”