“It just endorses what I’m about to do, Pete,” he had said. “My mother told me some hectic stuff last night. Some hardcore shit went down. I’m stopping this now and I hope you’ll be able to do the same with your dad. This is not good for my dad. For any of us, really. Send love to Brig, and tell her I’m really sorry. I’m really, really sorry,” he said, his voice breaking.
When Pete finally got to Brigit’s flat, she hugged him tightly.
“Thank you so much for coming, Pete. You have no idea what this means to me,” she sobbed.
“I know, I know,” he said, wiping her tears from her face. “You’ve been through a shitload, Brig. And now Frankie and Dad!”
“Did you know about them?” she asked, searching his face, which◦– he knew◦– showed no hint of shock or surprise.
“I did,” he admitted. “Look, Ma knows too. This is really the straw that broke the camel’s back. They’ve been fucking each other for months.”
“The bitch! And to think that Lee wouldn’t touch me because he was married to her!” her voice petered out, and Pete took a step back.
“What? What the fuck you telling me, Brigit? That you made a move on Lee?”
He interpreted Brigit’s silence as an affirmative.
“Oh, my fuck! You must be Dad’s child,” he blurted out. They looked at each other, aghast at the tactlessness of what he had just said and, for a second, he worried that she was going to cry, but instead, she snorted. He started laughing, too, and then Brigit was crying and laughing at the same time.
When they finally calmed down, he spoke.
“Look, Brig, if anyone has no right to judge, it’s me.”
“Well, anyway, I never did sleep with Lee. He was a true gentleman. I now wonder if he batted me because he knew I could be his daughter.”
Pete shuddered. “Can you imagine if he, you…”
“Stop it!” Brigit put her hands over his mouth. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“What are we going to do, Brig? Dad has a problem, let’s face it.”
Brigit just shrugged.
Pete inhaled deeply before speaking. “Ma and I had a serious conversation last night. She had a proposition she wanted to discuss with me, regarding the farm and her assets. I met with her attorney, Leonard Mazwai, after the service today. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go for it, until now.”
He could see Brig had no idea what he was talking about.
“Go for what?”
“Go for the jugular.”
The next morning, Pete waited for his father in the kitchen.
“What the fuck do you want here?” he barked.
“I’ve come to have a conversation with you. One that’s long overdue. And I’ve come back to work here, on the farm.”
Pete had been waiting for this day: John’s day of reckoning. He was no longer intimidated by him. In fact, his father’s misdemeanours had made him lose all respect for him.
“I don’t want you back. You and everyone else can just fuck off.”
Pete waited until Gladys took her leave before launching into his attack.
“Brigit told me how she ran into you and Frankie yesterday: the grieving widow and grieving best friend.” John tried to interrupt, but Pete stopped him. “I’m not finished. I’m really not here to judge you or try to save you from yourself. It’s too late for that. What I am here to do is to take over Ma’s share of the farm.” John was silent and then he was in Pete’s face, grabbing his collar. “Don’t you fucking think of it, you cu…”
Pete head-butted his father with such force that he fell back against the kitchen counter. “You can fuck whoever,” he hissed. “Fling your reputation in the dirt, I don’t give a shit. But you won’t sink this farm in the process. This, I give a fuck about, so let me tell you about our new arrangement. Partner.”
Leonard Mazwai and Jen had come up with a solution regarding the divorce and the splitting of the assets. As Jen and John were married in community of property, John would be forced to allow Pete◦– who would be Jen’s employee from now on◦– to take over her share of the farm. This meant that Pete would ostensibly hold a fifty percent partnership of the land, the buildings on the farm, the vineyards and the business itself. He would draw a salary from this, and his share of the profits would go to Jen. His mother would open an account for Brigit into which she would split her share of the profits.
John would be “pushed” (Leonard’s word) to leave his share of the farm to his daughter. No other spouse or future children, following the divorce, would be entitled to Jen or John’s portion of the farm. This was considered a fair exchange in lieu of Jen’s capital, which John had used to upgrade the farm and the business during their marriage.
Pete would be employed as Financial Director alongside his father. He would have signing power and they’d have equal say over everything.
“So, you see, Ma’s making sure that she’s in on the profits of the business while taking care of us and making sure that we will eventually be the rightful owners. She’s making sure she gets paid, for a change. And she’s got our interests at heart, too. Which is more than I can say for you,” Pete finished.
He left John in the kitchen, in his shirt, underpants and socks, to consider how much his life was about to change. But before doing so he said, “By the way, don’t you ever call me a cunt again.”
Thirty-seven
While spending a week away at a game lodge, Jen had begun to glue together the broken pieces of her life.
It was a rocky start to her so-called freedom, and it certainly hadn’t given her the much-needed rest she had hoped for.
The time alone had forced her to reflect on her past. She’d felt bitter about John and the humiliation he had caused her. She’d derided herself for being such a weak and subservient wife. She was to blame for the kind of woman she was◦– or had become◦– and she reproached herself for the example she had set for her children. It’s no wonder Brigit has no respect for me. I never once took a stand or showed any backbone.
Although she knew that John’s problem was pathological, she couldn’t help placing the blame on her inadequacies. She had never counted sexual prowess as one of her qualities, but she had been sure that she was no dead weight in the bedroom, either. She reflected on her perceived prudishness. She could never measure up to Frankie, who had made it her mission to be sexy. Her body, her clothes, her swagger◦– everything had been carefully honed to entice and please a man. No wonder John had strayed into her taut, toned arms. Who could blame him?
Especially since she, Jen, hadn’t given much thought to her own figure. John had begged her to have her breasts lifted and had nagged her for years to go to gym. He had basically been telling her that she didn’t excite him.
God! Had she forced him to stray? Maybe his sex addiction was all her fault?
She thought a lot about her parents, too, remembering how her father had stripped her mom of her dignity and pride. Why had she not shown strength of character by leaving him? Surely, if she had taken a stand against him, she would have shown Jen that women do have choices and, moreover, that women have power? Her mother was also to blame, then; she was the reason Jen had believed she had nowhere to go.
She fell into a deep, dark hole during that week. In fact, she didn’t venture out of her suite at all, not even to the restaurant, nor on any of the lodge’s complementary game drives or guided hikes she had been so looking forward to.
Jen spent all day in a darkened room, agonising over her past◦– her lost youth and her sad childhood◦– all the while berating herself for allowing her mother to persuade her to withhold the truth from John. To marry him, through fear! She hated herself for having been swayed by the expectations of others.