Blood Rose
repressing the anxiety riffing down his spine. He fed Fritz. Clare would be back in half an hour. He went to watch for her. The sitting room was sparse, the way she liked it. The wooden floor a pale expanse that merged with the waves hurling themselves against the boulevard. He sat down on her sofa and picked up the pile of books she had been busy with before he had arrived the previous evening. There was a book on desert plants, the pollen of a forgotten cutting staining the index. A history of the Richtersveld, the harsh area around the Orange River. A novel about an early and murderous journey into that desert: Coetzee’s
Dusklands
. She had made notes in her guide to southern African seabirds. He snapped it shut, amused at the thought of Clare with binoculars around her neck, bird list in her hand.
    In the kitchen, Fritz glared as Riedwaan waited for the kettle to boil. He took his coffee through to the spare room. Clare’s suitcase was open on the bed, half-packed. Clothes lay in methodical order, waiting to be placed in the suitcase. He picked up a dress, ran the silky black material through his hands and held it to his face. She must have worn it recently, because his touch released the feral tang of her sweat that lay just beneath the perfume she always wore. Jealousy surged through him. Who had she gone out with in that dress? Who had made her sweat?
    He put it down and picked up a bra and a matching pair of panties – expensive, silky, low on the hip. Who were these for? Riedwaan could hear her mocking voice: for me is what she’d say. She was right, but her self-containment made him feel adolescent. He folded the dress again. He folded the bra and put it back. Her panties he slipped into his pocket. A memento for while she was away.
    In the kitchen, Riedwaan put tomatoes on to grill and eggs to boil. He watched the last city lights go off. Cape Town in the light of the morning looked to him like a stripper past her prime. The lines were good, the breasts firm, but it was silicone and make-up that gave the nights their charge.
    The front door opened. Riedwaan’s hand curled around the filleting knife on the sink. ‘Clare,’ he called.
    ‘You missed the best part of the day.’
    Riedwaan looked at the knife in his hand in surprise. He passed a drying cloth over it and reached for a ripe melon.
    Clare came in dripping, cheeks scarlet.
    ‘I’m not going to kiss you.’ She evaded him. ‘I’m sweaty and disgusting.’
    ‘Just how I like you.’ Riedwaan sliced the spanspek. He didn’t think much of fruit, but Clare loved it.
    She picked up a slice and bit into it. ‘Perfect.’ She opened the window and put the skin on the sill for the birds waiting there. ‘Come and talk to me in the shower.’ She stripped, dropping her sweaty clothes into the washing machine.
    ‘In a minute,’ said Riedwaan, watching her disappear naked down the passage.
    Clare stood under the shower. She loved the jet of water hot on her face, washing the sweat away. It took with it, though, the imprint of Riedwaan’s warm skin on hers. She was going to miss him, being away for a month. She massaged shampoo into her blonde hair, working it down to the ends that hung below her waist. Damn. She had meant to have it trimmed before she left.
    ‘You distract me with your clothes off.’ Clare had not heard Riedwaan come into the bathroom. ‘Especially when you look guilty like that. You thinking dirty thoughts?’
    ‘I’m not telling.’ Clare reached for the soap and scrubbed her shoulders.
    ‘I can do that for you.’ Riedwaan watched her deft hands lathering her body.
    ‘You’ve seen all this before.’
    ‘I’m not going to see it for weeks,’ he pleaded.
    Clare rinsed her hair. It coiled over her shoulder like a snake, the water making it almost as dark as Riedwaan’s. She switched off the tap and stepped out of the shower.
    ‘I didn’t know you were interested in birds.’ Riedwaan did not take his eyes off her.

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