As he tried to catch his breath, he thought of the day of the quarter finals, how he had watched Darryn’s tall, brown physique break into the water, how gracefully he moved. There was something mesmerizing about watching Darryn. JP wondered why he was always so combative, and why he had insisted on bringing up JP’s family at the party. Of all the things he could’ve said, Darryn seemed so convinced that JP’s life was perfect. What a joke! He deserved to be thrown into the pool for being so presumptuous. JP did not regret it for a second, but he apologized anyway in order to keep the peace.
He remembered how Darryn had walked into the clubhouse on his first day with an attitude of superiority, and was clearly judging the rest of the team. He would never come to their parties, always keeping himself at a distance with Mario. And he wondered why no one liked him.
JP was determined to show Darryn that Darryn was no better than the rest of them. Just because Coach Tyson seemed to favor him over the rest of the team didn’t mean that they were not still better swimmers than he was. JP had been practising more aggressively over the past few months, determined to improve his time, but the way Darryn moved in the water was still incredible. He seemed so at home when he was swimming, like it was effortless.
JP stood up then, feeling the breeze pick up as he watched the lights at the bottom of the pool. He stood in his swim shorts and stretched his legs one at a time. Finally, he dove into the pool, pushing like a bullet through the water, thrusting himself to the opposite side with clean, easy strokes of his arms. He reached the opposite edge and pulled himself out. Not quick enough, he thought. He could do better.
JP walked towards the entrance to the house. He removed his wet swim shorts and dried his body. He wrapped the towel around his naked waist and moved into the house. It was completely still. JP admired the beautiful new sculpture which his mother had bought since his last visit. It was a large stone piece in the shape of a bow and arrow. His mother always had impeccable taste, and the lavish and beautiful house that his parents owned was a testament to that fact. The living room he walked through was decorated with an expensive chaise longue, a magnificent white sofa and a flat screen television that filled most of the main wall. A fireplace was on the far wall, and impressive abstract artwork was placed around the room. JP thought again about Darryn’s words: Why don’t you just go back to your little cushy life where mommy and daddy pay to make everything right? Even though JP could acknowledge that his parents had money, things were not as easy as Darryn implied. People like him always thought that those with money had nothing to worry about. It was an arrogant position that made JP angry.
JP took a shower and threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. He reasoned that his mother must have been at one of her work functions, and that his father was still not back from his most recent trip to Europe. He enjoyed coming home to his parents’ house some weekends, but there was a part of him that was still disappointed when he did not get to see them. His grandfather, of all people, was the one who called him the most, and that was only to shout at him about not being good enough to take over the family business or not acting like a ‘real Terreblanche man’. JP wished that he could tell the old man off, but he knew that he would be completely directionless if he didn’t have the family business to look forward to, and he would not be able to survive without his grandfather paying for his flat and giving him an allowance.
He sat down on the couch and turned on the large TV, flipping between sports channels and trying to get his mind off of everyone who was causing him stress: his parents, his grandfather, and Darryn Fredericks. He needed some escape from all of it. None of the sports news or matches on TV interested him, so he turned to the film channels. He stumbled upon one of his favorite films, an old romantic comedy that he had loved since he was a child. It starred a very glamorous actress who spoke with an affected accent. Her character was being forced to quit her job and stay home by her domineering husband, but she stood up to him and ran away with another man that she had fallen in love with. He had a soft spot for romance films, and he often indulged in them when he was alone. Of course, he could never tell the rest of the swim team about this.
He turned around with a start when he heard the front door open. His mother stepped in, wearing a black cocktail dress and long, stylish earrings. He walked towards the doorway and said, “Mom, you’re home. How are you?”
“Oh, JP, I didn’t know you were coming here this weekend. I’m fine, my child.” She removed her earrings and walked into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine. She gave JP a weak smile.
“I called you a few days ago. I thought I might see you at my quarter final race. But you were probably busy.”
“You called? I don’t think the maid left the message. Did you say you were coming through this weekend?”
JP frowned slightly at his mother’s reaction. “No,” he said, “I just thought I’d surprise you and get away from campus for a bit. Is it a bad time?”
“I’m just tired tonight. I’ll be off to bed soon. You’ll be able to see to yourself, won’t you. You can ask the maid to help you get settled tomorrow, if you are staying for an extra night.”
JP hesitated, and answered, “No, I’ll probably leave tonight. I just wanted a bit of an escape. Is dad still in Europe?”
His mother’s eyes finally moved to meet his, and she seemed reluctant to answer him. “I imagine as much, JP.”
JP was confused by his mother’s reaction, but decided not to pursue the point. He tried to change the subject: “I won the quarter final race. I’m moving on to the semi-finals. I can give you the date if you’ll be able to come.”
His mother took a sip of her wine, and answered, “Let’s talk about it another time. I won’t be able to remember dates right now. It’s been a long night.”
JP, feeling dejected, walked towards the couch again, and said, “Okay. I hope you feel better soon. I’ll just finish this movie and I’ll head back to campus.”
His mother cleared her throat, took another slow, deliberate sip of her wine, and said, “You know, JP, perhaps we should have a talk.” She rubbed her slender neck, exposing her sharp jaw. Her face was expressionless. “You are a man now. You deserve to know what’s happening. Your father and I are getting a divorce. You must have guessed that our marriage was not working. He has been in Europe more and more over the past few years, doing God-knows-what, and I’ve been stuck here in this house, with nothing but my fundraisers to keep me busy. I’ve decided to change that. I’ve met another man. That’s who I was with tonight, before you came. You deserve to know these things now because you are not a child anymore. We’ve always tried to treat you like an adult, regardless of how your grandfather spoils you. I wanted you to know before you found out another way.”
JP stared at his mother in stunned silence. She had unloaded a lot on him.
“You can’t be surprised by this,” she said. “It has been coming for years now. I don’t have the energy to pretend like I’m still waiting for your father to come home.”
JP went to sit down, still unsure of what to say. The truth was that he wasn’t surprised. He knew that his parents barely tolerated each other in recent years. But he had become so used to the pretense that the crash of reality felt overwhelming for him.
His mother spoke again, her voice still cold and disaffected: “You need to start looking after yourself more. If you want to end up like your father, working yourself to the bone for your grandfather’s company, then you need to make the decision to do it fully. But don’t just expect things to come to you. I’m telling you this for your own good. Things don’t come easy in this life. You need to make sacrifices one way or the other. I sacrificed a lot to give you the life you’ve had. I stayed with your father for all these years. I didn’t come from money, you know that, and being a Terreblanche, having everything that comes with that name, means that you need to put up with things you don’t want to put up with.” His mother’s eyes narrowed, speaking of ye
ars of repressed anger. “I did it because I knew what I wanted. If you want to stay in your grandfather’s good graces, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll need to make some sacrifices of your own.”
JP walked out of the room without responding to her. He grabbed his car keys and left the house, feeling a rush of conflicting emotions. His mother seemed like an alien creature to him then. She had always been distant, and had always treated JP like he was somehow unpleasant to be around. But he had kept trying to be closer to her. His father was away for most of the time over the past few years, and he had no one else to look to for a parent’s attention. But he had never seen her like that, so visibly displaying all of her disdain for the Terreblanche family, for her own life. Wasn’t it her own choice to be there? JP thought that she was trying to blame everyone else for her own dissatisfaction. He felt angry towards her. But he also felt like something inside of him had broken, like an illusion had finally shattered. He reached his car and sat in the driver’s seat, taking out his phone and sending a message to Peet: Let’s get a drink. Meet at Percy’s Pub? He had to find some way to release the anger that was building inside of him.
Chapter 7
JP drove his slick black Mercedes well above the speed limit, feeling the adrenaline rush of pushing his car as fast as he could around the bends that led to Ridgemont University from his parents’ home in Ridgemont Estates. He tried to numb and ignore his emotions, pushing away thoughts of his mother’s coldness towards him and the fact that she was divorcing his father. He couldn’t believe how angry it had made him to hear what she had said. Of course he knew that he had to make sacrifices to get what he wanted! He wasn’t a child, but she seemed insistent on treating him like one. He cursed her under his breath, pushing his hand through his short blond hair and feeling anxiety tighten around his shoulders. He wanted to go out and get wasted tonight, and be around his friends. At least with them he didn’t need to think about anything. He could just be reckless.
He pulled up at Percy’s Pub with a screech of his tires. Percy’s Pub was one of the most popular watering holes on campus, and was often the first stop for students on their nights out. He could see that it was overflowing with students as he stepped out of his car, and walked across the busy street to the entrance. The pub was the usual dingy, dimly-lit students’ hangout, and JP and the rest of the swim team were often greeted warmly whenever they went there for a few beers, leveraging their popularity for being on the swim team to get free drinks at times.
Peet and some of the other guys were waiting for JP as he climbed the three stairs in front of the entrance. The pub was only about ten minutes’ walk from the main campus buildings, which meant that students often became obscenely drunk by the time they left since they could basically crawl to their residences on campus. JP noticed that many students were not far away from reaching that level of drunkenness, even though it was still only 11 p.m. A red-haired girl had climbed onto one of the tables outside and was dancing seductively in her heels as her friends cheered her on. JP looked away because it seemed like she was destined to fall on her face. Inside, the students were packed like sardines on the tiny dance floor and crammed behind the two bars, holding out R100 notes. It was still early in the second term, so many students were free from academic obligations and took the chance to party.
JP sat down at the table with Peet and the others, and downed the shot of tequila that Peet handed to him. He grimaced in disgust, and bit into the lemon that was on a plate in the center of the table. “Why the long face, bro?” Peet asked, only seeming half-interested in the response.
“Just a bad night. Stuff I don’t want to worry about now.” One of the other guys on the team brought them a round of beers, and JP took a gulp of his.
“Well cheer up, okay? You’re bringing down the mood in here. Don’t be such a sourpuss,” Peet said. JP didn’t react. He knew that this was simply Peet’s personality. He kept Peet around because he didn’t have to worry about any extra layers with him; there was only fun, drinking, girls and swimming with Peet. Nothing else mattered. There was no room to be whining about feelings. Even though JP mostly preferred it this way, there were times when Peet annoyed him, and he wondered why he couldn’t hang out with someone who had at least half a brain.
Emma walked into the pub then and came over to where JP was sitting, squeezing in next to him at the table and rubbing herself against him. She tried to kiss him but he was having none of it. He only really spent time with her because Peet and the rest of the guys thought that she was hot, but she was just like the rest of the girls he kept around in Ridgemont. No matter how much fun they were to hang out with for a night, there was always something missing. He never really felt connected to them. Maybe he would just be like his father, he thought, who married someone he didn’t really love and then eventually just left her behind. Maybe he had more of his father in him than he cared to admit.
Emma became annoyed with JP’s indifference and walked over to the dance floor, finding another guy to dance with. JP watched her with a disinterested expression. No matter how hard he tried to push away thoughts of everything he was going through, he couldn’t shut them out completely. He was hurting, and the drinks were not helping him as he imagined they would.
Peet was making some or other joke as JP continued to stare blankly at the dance floor, and Peet got up and punched him on the arm. “Why aren’t you listening to me, hey? Where’s your head tonight? You’re being a drag.”
“Whatever, man. What were you saying?” JP retorted.
“I was saying we ran into someone the other night at Best Burger – Coach Tyson’s little girlfriend Fredericks. He works there. He was being really cheeky with us, hey guys?” Peet asked of the others at the table. They simply laughed in response. “I almost got out of the car and slapped him, but I just made him give us free food instead. You should’ve seen his face. He nearly cried.”
JP felt guilty then. He remembered how he had pushed Darryn in the pool after their altercation at the club house. He thought about how much Darryn caused himself to be an outsider, always antagonizing the other guys on the swim team. He remembered Darryn’s arrogant words: you’ll never be as good a swimmer as I am. JP was training harder than ever, but he feared that Darryn was right, and no matter what he did he was not cut out to be a part of the intervarsity team.
“You know,” Peet started, “he’s always acting like a bastard around us, especially you, JP. He seems to really hate your guts for some reason.”
“He’s an idiot. Doesn’t even belong in Ridgemont,” JP said. “He should’ve stayed in Wellesley Park where he came from.”
“Exactly! There you go, JP! Say it like it is!” Peet exclaimed, clearly glad that his friend was agreeing with his sentiments towards Darryn. “You know what, if you want we can go back there and make his life really difficult for him. Might be fun. What do you say?”
JP, without thinking, said, “I don’t care. Do it. Maybe he deserves it.”
Peet gave a satisfied smile. “We’ll plan something really fun for him then. A gift from you.” They went on drinking, and JP felt an uneasy sense in the pit of his stomach. He was worried about what would happen to him. Would his father relocate to Europe permanently? Was his mother serious about this new man in her life? And if he couldn’t get his head right and do better with his grades, he also had to worry about his grandfather nagging him. The old man paid the bills, but often it felt like more trouble than it was worth to take his money.
After an hour of drinking, JP was very drunk, and was laughing along with the asinine comments and juvenile jokes that Peet and the others were making. He felt like his mind was finally shutting down, and like he could forget some of the stress that he was carrying. He finally got up to dance, and found a girl staring at him. It was one of his gifts in life that his good looks always meant that he had company when he needed it. He moved up to the girl and danced sensually with her. He closed his eyes and tilted his head
to the ceiling, feeling the throbbing of the music and the numbing effect of the alcohol invade his senses as the girl he was dancing with rubbed her hands over his chest. He lost himself in the moment.
Suddenly he felt someone pull forcefully on his arm. A tall guy was staring him down, fury written all over his face. “What are you doing with my girl?” he demanded.
JP lifted his hands in protest, but he had to duck to avoid the swinging fist of the tall stranger. He was in trouble, and he made a dash for the exit. It wasn’t the first time that his good looks had gotten him into trouble, so he was used to the mad dash to get away from angry guys. He pushed through the crowd and finally reached the terrace, looking around for Peet and his other friends. He spotted them laughing at him from behind a window, clearly entertained by his predicament. JP decided that he needed to escape as quickly as possible and couldn’t try and go inside to find them again, but as he stepped away he felt heavy hands grip his shoulders. The tall stranger had him in a death grip, ready to turn JP into mincemeat. “You slimy bastard! Stay here and fight like a man!” he said.
JP had no idea what to do, and he felt his body being lifted right off the ground by the giant. His fingers were clawing into JP’s shoulders. Suddenly, he was airborne, as the girl’s boyfriend tossed him across the terrace. He landed with a terrible, shattering crash, falling through the main window that bore the logo of Percy’s Pub. He felt an intense pain in his head, and the music came to a halt.
“What the hell is going on here?” JP heard after a few seconds of silence. “I’m calling the police!” the distant voice said.
JP noticed the girl and her boyfriend run off together, and immediately afterwards he saw Peet and the other guys from the swim team running away and laughing at him. Peet’s voice rang down the street, “Sorry bro!”
Against the Tide Page 4