HAVING an X-rated dream about your varsity ex-boyfriend, involving a tube of chocolate body paint, probably doesn’t count as moving on, right?

I wake up early on Monday morning, feeling all dazed and disoriented. Where did that come from? I’m flooded with guilt for a moment, until I remember I’m single now and can dream about whoever I like.

I take a shower, get dressed, and pour myself a bowl of Alpen. Images from the dream keep floating in front of me. I hope this isn’t going to carry on all day. I’m supposed to be interviewing Farouk at lunch time. Not that he’s a mind-reader or anything, but I doubt I’ll come across as professional if I’m continually having flashes of him naked.

If only Steph were awake, I know she’d talk some sense into me. But she’s still fast asleep. Our body clocks are totally out of synch. Steph does her best work at night, like a vampire. She’ll get a sudden burst of energy at about 11 pm, and work furiously on her PhD until 4 am. Then she’ll fall sleep until noon. I, on the other hand, like to start my day bright and early.

The doorbell rings just as I’m putting my bowl into the dishwasher. I peer through the peephole and see that it’s Ajala.

“Hi there!” I unlock the security gate. “You’re just in time for coffee. Black with no sugar, right?”

“That is very kind of you, Trinity,” he says in his formal way. “I apologise for intruding on you at this hour, but I have business that has suddenly become quite urgent.”

“Well, come on in and tell me all about it.”

Ajala lopes in and sits on an armchair. He’s carrying something in a Woolies canvas carrier bag.

“Your friend Stephanie is not here this morning?” His eyes flick towards the bedrooms.

“She’s fast asleep.” I have to raise my voice over the sound of the coffee grinder. “Steph isn’t what you’d call a morning person.”

“Are you sure she is not likely to wake up?”

“Not unless a bomb goes off. She’s a heavy sleeper.”

“So, it’s just us?”

“Yup.”

I bring him his coffee and sit opposite him with my own mug. I’m kind of hoping this visit doesn’t go on too long. I hate getting to the office after eight o’clock.

Ajala seems a bit uncertain, as though he’s not completely sure what he wants to say, so I give him an encouraging smile.

“I need to ask you a favour, Trinity.”

“Oh, sure. Anything.”

“It has become undesirable for me to keep a certain item in my flat any longer.” He glances at the carrier bag. “Do you think it might be possible for you to keep it here for a while? Just until such time as I need it again.”

“Of course!” I say, reaching for the bag. “What is it?”

“It is … a gift. A gift for my mother. She is staying with me for a few weeks and I don’t want her to find her present lying around.”

“Oh, right. Yes, my mom can’t resist snooping for birthday presents either.”

I reach inside the bag and pull out something smooth and solid. It’s about the size and shape of a bag of sugar, but heavily wrapped in duct tape. I’m tempted to ask what it is, but I don’t want to seem nosy.

“You’re going to have to wrap it better than this before you give it to your mom,” I warn him.

“I definitely will,” he assures me. “And you will keep it somewhere safe in the meanwhile, won’t you?”

“Of course.” I lay it on the coffee table while I clear away our mugs.

“I was thinking more in terms of a cupboard than out here in the open,” he says as I come back from the kitchen. “My mother might spot it if I brought her here to meet you one day.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll put it in my bedroom cupboard – don’t worry.”

There’s a pause while Ajala looks meaningfully from the package to me, and back again.

“You mean … you want me to do it right now?”

“Sorry!” He shrugs apologetically.

“Okayyy …”

I can’t help giving him a funny look, but I take the package to my room anyway and shove it into my cupboard. “There. Happy now?” I smile as I come back down the passage.

“Thank you very much, Trinity. You are a good friend. I will leave you in peace now.”

But as we get to the door, he casts one last look towards my room.

“You are sure your friend will not wake up?”

“Positive. This is the middle of the night for her.”

“Okay, then. Goodbye … and thank you.”

“Cheers.”

I lock the security gate behind him. Right. Now I really do need to get to work.

*****

I’ve got a brilliant new strategy for dealing with Farouk.

I have finally found a way to immunise myself against him.

The mistake I was making was in trying to ignore the attraction I felt. I thought if I pretended it didn’t exist, it would just go away by itself. So, of course, it just got stronger and stronger.

What I’ve decided to do now is to acknowledge this and accept it for what it is – a simple biological fact. That way, I won’t get caught off-guard, and it won’t have so much power over me.

I arrive at the News Café at half past twelve on the dot. I chose this venue for the interview because it’s convenient for both of us. Farouk’s mentor’s chambers are in Sandown Village, which is right next door to the Media Inc building where I work. I’ve actually been half-expecting to bump into him for ages, but I haven’t yet. Wherever he has his lunch, it isn’t here.

As I walk though the door, I find him asking a waitress for a table for two. He spots me immediately.

“Trinity! Good to see you.”

“Hi, Farouk.”

I hold my breath as his fingers rest lightly on my wrist and he pecks me on the corner of my mouth.

I’m totally ready for it. I’m braced for the shiver that ripples through me and the sense of having been branded by his lips. So, why does it turn me to jelly anyway?

Stupid hormones. Stupid brilliant new strategy. It doesn’t work at all. Typical.

As we take a table near the back, I give Farouk a swift top-to-toe assessment. I’ve never seen him in an actual business suit before. I run my eyes over him, taking in the highly-polished brogues, the well-cut suit, the cotton shirt in his favourite shade of blue, the red silk tie.

He looks so grown up, that I almost feel shy. Whatever happened to my pony-tailed varsity boyfriend?

Then he smiles, and immediately the years disappear.

“I hear you broke up with Ethan. Sorry that didn’t work out.”

This prompts a tiny laugh from me. “You always did get straight to the point, didn’t you?”

“And you always tried to avoid uncomfortable subjects.”

“Not always,” I say, after a little pause. “How did you hear about my break-up, anyway?”

“I’d tell you, but then your friends would kill me.”

“Steph! I knew it. And Tyson too, probably.”

“Let’s just say I heard it from a number of different sources.” Farouk’s eyes crinkle slightly at the corners. “So … apparently he asked you to marry him.”

I nod, feeling almost embarrassed on Ethan’s behalf. “Yes … well, that was a little impulsive of him.”

“Impulsive? It was completely crazy. You haven’t known each other long enough to get engaged.”

“Ethan didn’t think so,” I say with dignity. “He thought nine months was more than long enough to get to know a person. In fact, he fell in love with me at first sight.”

Farouk just smiles irritatingly. “You can’t know someone after such a short time. Not really know them.”

I’m saved from having to answer by the arrival of the waitress – pen and pad in hand.

“I’ll have the Prego roll with a Windhoek lager, and my friend here will have the small nachos with a glass of dry white,” Farouk says briskly.

The waitress turns to me for confirmation, but I am literally speechless with indignation. How dare he order for me? I should make her change it just to spite him. But it’s lunch time and she’s really busy … and I was going to order the nachos, anyway.

So I let it pass.

And immediately hate myself for my weakness.

“Now, that’s what I mean about knowing someone,” Farouk says smugly. “Ethan would probably have ordered you a salad, right?”

“Ethan would never dream of ordering for me in a restaurant!” I say through gritted teeth. “I do my own ordering, thank you very much.”

But Farouk isn’t having any of it.

“Oh, please. Like, you haven’t ordered for me about a million times? What about all those Saturdays when you used to phone for pizza because we’d spent the whole afternoon in b– .”

He seems to realise just in time how inappropriate this is because he suddenly stops talking.

There’s quite a long silence.

“Anyway …” he says stiffly.

“Yes, let’s get on with what we came for.”

He clears his throat. “The Rivonia Concerned Residents’ Association. That’s why you wanted to see me, right? You’re doing a story about their case against the nightclub.”

“Exactly.” I give a professional nod. “I’d be grateful for anything you could tell me, because at the moment I’ve got nothing. The whole thing makes no sense to me. There have been nightclubs in Rivonia for years now, but they’re all pretty much contained within a certain area. It’s not as though they’re spreading out into the suburbs.”

I show Farouk that I’m switching on my sound recorder, and he nods.

“I just can’t understand why they’re getting into such a twist about this particular club,” I continue. “I’ve been there, and it’s really nice. It’s the kind of place you could go with a group of girlfriends and feel totally comfortable. There are male as well as female dancers, and no full nudity. Also, I’ve spoken to some of the employees, and they really seem to like working there …”

I trail off as I realise that I’m doing all the talking. I’m supposed to be interviewing Farouk, not the other way round. He’s just sitting there with a slight smile on his face, watching me trying to convince him.

“I can see you don’t agree with me,” I say defensively.

“Look, I’m sure it was like that on the night you were there.”

“But …?”

“Well, you need to consider the possibility that what you were exposed to was a carefully orchestrated PR campaign. This wasn’t just a case of your neighbour showing you around his business. This was the owner of one of the most controversial clubs in Joburg putting on a show for the media. You might think of him as a friend, but he probably thinks of you as his tame media liaison officer.”

This is so close to what Steph said that it makes me feel more than a little uncomfortable. But then an image of Ajala popping in for coffee comes to mind, and I immediately feel better.

“We are friends,” I say confidently. “That’s a fact. And anyway, what is he supposedly trying to hide? What am I missing here?”

Farouk’s smile fades a little.

“This is off the record, okay?”

“Sure.” I switch off my recorder.

“There are a number of ugly rumours doing the rounds. Stuff about prostitution and under-age girls. There’s also a persistent rumour about drug trafficking. It’s all very nasty. My mentor’s clients in the residents’ association are just ordinary family men who don’t want these things happening on their front doorsteps. They didn’t go out looking for trouble, but they’ll do whatever it takes to keep their wives and children safe.”

“I see.”

I give a slight frown.

Wives and children?

Where are the women in all this? Does this so-called residents’ association only consist of men? I’m almost tempted to say something, but I don’t want to sound nitpicking.

“Could you get me a face-to-face meeting with your clients?” I ask instead. “Maybe if I speak to them directly, I’ll understand their concerns better.”

“I’m sure I could set something up. Just let me …”

Farouk catches sight of someone behind me and stops talking.

“What?” I say. “What is it?”

“Isn’t that your ex-boyfriend over there?”

“You mean Ethan?”

“Yes, Ethan. What’s he doing here?”

I turn my head and gape in amazement. It is Ethan. He’s standing at the entrance to the restaurant, holding a cardboard box. His eyes are flicking from table to table. He’s obviously looking for me.

“Did you tell him you were coming here?” Farouk looks totally bewildered.

“Of course I didn’t! We broke up, remember? I thought he never wanted to see me again.”

“Well, he’s just spotted you and he’s coming over. He doesn’t look too happy. If you ask me, he’s been getting in touch with his inner Glenn Close.”

*****

As Ethan comes towards us, I can see exactly what Farouk means.

His eyes are all narrow and gleaming, and he looks to be in a real bunny-boiling mood. I clear my throat nervously as I realise how this must look to him. We only broke up six days ago, and here I am already meeting Farouk for lunch.

“Hi, Ethan,” I say weakly.

“I knew it.” He puts the box down heavily on the table. “I knew there was something going on between you two. I really wanted to believe you when you said you weren’t dumping me for this guy, but deep down I knew it wasn’t true. You didn’t waste any time, did you?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” My nervousness is quickly being replaced by irritation. “I told you there was nothing going on between Farouk and me because there isn’t. This isn’t a date, it’s an interview.” I wave my sound recorder under his nose. “See? I’m interviewing him for the story I’m working on.”

Ethan makes a humphing sound and looks anything but convinced.

“One month,” he says portentously. “That’s how long I give it for you to get back together with him again.”

I catch Farouk’s eye. He looks genuinely surprised, as though the thought had never crossed his mind.

Oh God, this is excruciating.

Why can’t Ethan just go away? He looks so odd, standing there behind a big cardboard box. What’s in it, anyway?

“What are you doing here, Ethan?” I ask, as patiently as I can.

“I came to see you, Trinity. I went to your office first and they told me where you were. I wanted to talk to you. I thought we’d left things a bit up in the air the other night, and needed to talk it through some more. Although obviously that’s not possible now.” He shoots a dirty look at Farouk. “But mainly, I just wanted to give you back this stuff you left at my place.”

“That really wasn’t necessary,” I sigh. “I told you I’d come by and pick it up. There was no need to make a special trip.”

He smiles grimly. “I can understand why you might not want to do this in public, Trinity. But now that I’m here, we might as well get it over with.”

He pulls out a box of Tinkies and plonks it down on the table in front of Farouk.

“There!” he says triumphantly. “You didn’t know about this, did you? I bet she conveniently forgot to tell you this part.”

Farouk looks at the Tinkies with mild interest and takes a sip of beer.

I’m thinking that now would be a good time for the earth to open up and swallow me. I close my eyes and wait. When it doesn’t happen, I open them again to see Ethan tapping the box accusingly.

“Tinkies!” he says. “Tinkies hidden all over my flat. She’s been bootlegging them into my place for the past six months. And why? Because I choose to eat healthily.”

“Trinity!” Farouk says reproachfully. “Is this true?”

I give a tiny nod.

“Have you no self-control?”

“You don’t know what it was like!” I blurt. “Egg-white omelettes – day after day after day. I couldn’t help myself.”

Farouk turns to Ethan. “I’ll see that she gets the help she needs, man. Maybe … I don’t know … a support group or something.”

Ethan nods gravely. “That makes me feel a bit better. Let’s face it – this is not normal behaviour.” He turns to me. “Goodbye, Trinity. It really is over now.”

Then he stalks out of the restaurant.

Farouk and I look at each other. He shakes his head slowly, and a terrible urge to giggle comes over me.

“That does it.” He reaches for his phone. “I’m calling Tinkies Anonymous.”

This cracks me up completely.

“Oh God!” I wail, between snorts of laughter. “I’m such a bad person. I shouldn’t be laughing at him. It’s so mean.”

Farouk’s poker face sets me off again. He has the knack of keeping a perfectly straight face, and you can only tell from his eyes that he’s laughing on the inside.

“Trinity …” Suddenly he sounds serious again. “What did you ever see in that guy? It’s been driving me crazy, trying to figure it out. Okay, he’s good-looking. And pleasant. And clean, and sober, and solvent.” He counts the points off on his fingers. “But is that really enough for you? Is that all you need from a relationship these days?”

I shrug. I’m not at all sure I want to answer this question. But Farouk won’t leave it alone.

“Seriously, Trinity. I need to know.”

I take another sip of my wine.

I know I’m not the most self-aware person in the world. I’ve never been in therapy and I don’t read self-help books. But I know exactly what it was that attracted me to Ethan.

It’s not something I can say out loud, though. Not without opening up a huge can of worms. We’re supposed to be in the middle of an interview here, not a personal discussion.

But suddenly I hear myself saying it anyway.

“He believed in forever, Farouk. And he made me believe in it too. If two people love each other, they stay together. In Ethan’s world, it’s as simple as that. I must admit I found it … refreshing.”

Farouk’s face is as hard to read as ever, but I can feel the tension coming off him in waves. He swallows once or twice and pushes his fingers through his hair. He looks as though he’s about to say something.

I hold my breath.

Could this finally be it? Is he at last going to tell me why he walked away four years ago?

But then his expression changes and he breaks eye contact. Whatever he was about to say, he’s changed his mind.

There’s an awkward pause.

“So …” he says at last. “You want a meeting with our clients. That should be easy enough to arrange. They’re very media-friendly. I think they’re hoping that if enough public pressure is brought to bear, the club might close of its own accord and save them the expense of a trial.”

“Well, if that’s what they think, they don’t know Ajala,” I say at once. “He’s a very determined guy. Definitely not one to cave under pressure.”

“I suppose I’d be wasting my breath if I warned you again to stay away from him?”

“Absolutely,” I say briskly. “He’s a friend of mine and he’s part of my story. Staying away from him is the last thing on my mind.”

Farouk takes two business cards out of his wallet and hands them to me, along with a sheaf of papers. “These are the guys you need to talk to. They’ve been mandated to handle all media inquiries. I’ll let them know you’ll be contacting them.”

I look enquiringly at the papers he’s given me.

“Those are copies of all the papers that have been filed to date. They’re pretty self-explanatory. You’ll be able to see exactly what our case against them is.”

Coolly, I give the papers a pat. “Thanks. This is a big help. I’ll be calling your clients later today, if that’s all right. If they’re as hungry for media attention as you say they are, I want to get to them before anyone else does.”

*****

I get back to the office just before half past one, determined to spend the afternoon as productively as I can.

First I’ll help Kallie with the afternoon traffic reports. Then I’ll Google the two contacts Farouk has given me, to find out exactly who they are. After that, I’ll phone them to set up an interview.

And in between all, this I’ll be going to go through the legal documents Farouk has given me. If there’s anything I don’t understand, I’ll ask Michelle, the court reporter. She should be back in the office some time after four.

It sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? The busy schedule of a conscientious journalist.

So, why do I keep slipping into a daydream, and snapping out of it again, only to find myself staring blankly at the computer screen?

This is all Farouk’s fault. If he’d just been straight with me, I might have been able to concentrate now. Instead, I keep thinking about what he seemed on the point of saying. And what I’d have responded to what he might have said. And what he may have said to what I would have said to what he might have said.

Ugh, this is doing my head in.

For four years now, I’ve managed without getting closure. Why does it suddenly seem so important now?

I minimise the web page I’m supposed to be reading, and check my email instead. I’ve just thought of someone who might be able to help me. Farouk’s older sister, Gemma. He’s not as close to her as he is to his middle sister, Meriam – but I definitely don’t know Meriam well enough to contact her out of the blue.

I type in Gemma’s email address, which I know by heart.

Hi Gem,

Listen, why did your stupid brother break up with me? I really need to know.

Love to you and the kids,

Trinity

It’s amazing how much better I feel once I’ve sent it. I know she might only get back to me in a day or two, but at least I’ve taken the first step.

I flip back to the web page I was reading, finding it much easier to focus now. The two names Farouk gave me were Ignus Wessels and Dipesh Kumar. I’ve Googled them both, separately and together, and come up with surprisingly little.

There’s an Ignus Wessels who won the Under-14 200m hurdles for Brentwood College against Dainfern in April this year. That’s probably his son. It’s a funny coincidence, because Brentwood College is my old high school.

I’m about to try refining the search, when my incoming email alert pings softly. Immediately, I flip back to my inbox.

Yes!

It’s a message from Gemma.

Um … you broke up with him, remember?

Frustration courses through me. This is just maddening! Why does everyone think I broke up with Farouk? It’s time to set the record straight.

I did NOT break up with him!!! He broke up with me. He’s the one who accepted a scholarship to the other side of the world. Did he ask me to go with him? No. Did he ask me to wait for him? No. He just left.

Why, what has he been saying?

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I go back to my research.

It looks like Wessels and Kumar work together. Their names come up a couple of times in connection with a company called Offshore Asset Management. Wessels seems to be the chairman, while Kumar is the finance manager. If you cut through the promotional gobbledygook on the company’s website, they are basically investment consultants for wealthy individuals.

The contact details are all for an office in Rivonia. I can’t find any clue to their residential addresses, and neither of them is listed in the phone book. But I’m thinking it’s safe to assume that they live in Rivonia.

My email pings again.

He hasn’t said much – you know what he’s like. But we definitely all thought you broke up with him because he was going to Oxford. Anyway, does it really matter who broke up with who after all this time?

Does it matter, I wonder?

Only to me, apparently. To everyone else, it’s a non-issue. Farouk was leaving the country. We broke up. Simple.

And yet in my mind I keep going over those conversations we had just before he left. Okay, they weren’t so much conversations as long silences. What was going through his mind all that time? I thought I knew at the time, idiot that I was. I thought he was figuring out a way for us to be together, despite the scholarship.

Boy, was I wrong about that one. He was probably just imagining himself punting down the Thames with some gorgeous intellectual girl in a floaty white dress.

Breathing heavily through my nose, I stab a reply.

okay no i suppose it doesn’t matter does it. i mean i just lost the love of my life who cares right. he just announced one day that he was taking up a place at oxford didn’t even tell me he was applying. not would you wait for me trinity. not would you like to come too. just cheers and have a nice life. heck why would anyone still be worrying about that????

I hit SEND and watch the message disappear from my screen.

Oops. I think my grammar went a bit wonky there. In fact, I probably sound like a raving lunatic. Thank God it’s only Gemma. I can trust her not to split on me to her brother. Especially about that whole “love of my life” bit. I cringe inwardly. Why did I write that? Why?

Anyway … too late now. Back to Wessels and Kumar.

I open the Google results page, where I’ve had a measly six hits for their names. No matter how many different combinations I try, I haven’t managed to come up with anything more than this. For such prominent members of the community, they’ve got surprisingly small cyber-footprints.

Even I have a bigger cyber presence than they do. If I don’t count the hits that relate to my father, there are still a lot more than six. And, let’s face it, who am I in the greater scheme of things? Nobody. Exactly.

But, look, here’s my Facebook page, my MySpace page, a couple of YouTube clips, a list of Brentwood College alumnae, a list of Rhodes University alumnae, a half-marathon I once entered when I was living in London, some articles I wrote for the Rhodes Reporter.

The point is, I exist. I’ve only been around for twenty-three years, and I’ve done virtually nothing – no Nobel Prize, no Hollywood movie, no hip clothing line – but I do have a reasonable cyber presence. And so does just about everyone else I know.

So, why don’t these guys?

Maybe it has something to do with their age. Judging by the photos on their company’s home page, they’re both in their mid-forties. People of that age probably don’t engage much with the Internet.

I’m about to dial Ignus Wessels’s cellphone number to set up an interview, when my email pings again.

You get a time-out in your bedroom for that tantrum, Missy! Someone’s got some seriously unresolved issues. Sounds like you need to talk to my brother, not me.

Good luck with getting Mr Inscrutable to open up to you! Seriously though, you really need to talk to him.

XX

I sigh. That’s exactly what I tried to do at lunch today. Except he totally stonewalled me. How do you talk to someone who blocks you at every turn?

This afternoon is turning into a real washout.