This one is... closer to home.
--
I sipped my beer and stared out of the window, listening with half an ear as Tom and Pete bitched at one another about a fantasy game series they were both over-invested in. Outside, a small mixed group of friends and friends-of-friends sat by the pool, dangling their feet in the water and basking in the sunshine.
Kate's parents had gone away for the week so she'd organised a get-together - a relaxed, afternoon drop-in-drop-out drink and snack fuelled meet-up for all of her spindrift friends - in the lovely surrounds of her parents' enormous house, or Château McKenzie as the rest of us always wistfully called it.
I grinned at Kate as she flitted through with another bottle of pilfered wine, and raised my beer in smiling benediction as she laughed at the three of us - the "Three Kitcheneers" as we had long ago been named. No matter the venue, the three of us would somehow find the kitchen and turn it into our fiefdom.
Mainly, of course, because it was usually quieter, so Pete's duff hearing wouldn't exclude him from our chats.
That and we could hide from the girls we were all too shy and introverted to talk to.
Kate breezed through again.
"Boys, you're being antisocial," she lectured us in passing and we all waved sarcastically. She made for the front door and collected three women that I didn't recognise.
The first two seemed nice enough, but it was last of them - a tall, athletic brunette with a lovely face and a wonderful tomboy haircut - who caught my eye as they walked past; she noticed my glance and gave me an amused wink in passing.
Her brief flash of humour captured my attention right away. Then I snorted at myself for misreading her reaction as interest; she was almost certainly simply another card-carrying member of Kate's Lesbian Army. Fun but unobtainable, for obvious reasons.
But all the same I watched her when I could, admiring (and, I'll admit it, somewhat intimidated by) the way she so easily insinuated herself into conversations with people she didn't know, befriended them, and then moved on.
She had a light, easy laugh that rang out often; and an infectious grin that was almost never absent. She mingled happily, sharing her time in small parcels that she offered to everyone.
Later on she came over to me, and introduced herself as Flick (short for Felicity), and I, awkward and tongue-tied, let her know that she could call me Jamie instead of James.
And for the next two hours we just talked about nothing, and I was mesmerised her - by the particular blue of her glorious eyes, the copper highlights in her hair, and the way she'd reach out to touch my arm when she wanted to emphasise a point.
She gave me a warm, extended hug when she left to make 'another engagement', and I was genuinely sad to see her go.
Kate, however, had been taking notes. From then onwards, whenever she had a hand in organisation she'd make sure that Felicity was included.
And that I was there as well.
.:.
Spring rolled over into summer.
Felicity became a regular feature at parties, barbecues and any outdoor activities such as park runs, beach days or climbs up the mountain. We worked out that she was a family friend of Kate's, and that she'd come back to Cape Town after finishing her degree because she'd chosen the slow life down south rather than the money and career prospects of Johannesburg.
She was a riot at our parties - she had a large collection of terrible or risqué teeshirts and delighted in wearing the most questionable of these for laughs. She could pun like nobody I'd ever met. Quick witted and always sunny, she became a natural party locus - always surrounded by friends, never alone in the corner. Everyone came away happier from spending time near her, she radiated joy and was almost never down.
And she always had a smile and time for me. She'd corner me in the kitchen, quiz me about my day or week depending on when last we'd seen one another, and I'd repay the compliment, using what little bit of conversational ability I had to winkle little things out of her like her surname (Smith), the date of her birthday (August 10), her favourite movie (Ghostbusters) and her favourite colour (Daffodil yellow).
We became good friends and from there evolved to close friends; she'd call me if she was going anywhere interesting with the kind of people she knew I'd get on well with, and I'd call her if I was going bouldering or beach-walking and wanted simple, friendly, low-maintenance company where I didn't have to pretend to be deep or interesting, where we could walk or climb or run or swim in relaxed and comfortable silence without the artificial need to speak unnecessary words to one another.
Felicity was game for anything - as she put it she'd try everything once.
Our friends began to refer to us as Mr and Mrs Smith, and she'd laugh at them. I'd call them all sorts of rude names, upbraid them at volume, and question their ancestry with all the care and attention to detail that they all expected and demanded from me.
Of course, everyone listened to me, nodded sagely in agreement, and went right on calling me Mr Smith.
And Felicity would laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
And, eventually, so would I.
Late summer rolled around, and our group set up a weekly evening sundowners gathering on the prettier Atlantic-side beaches of the city; Clifton and Llandudno became our favourite haunts, and Felicity would nearly always be there, and when she was she would always take up position next to me. It didn't matter if she arrived late, a spot would be left free for her beside me by whoever else was there - an act of near-religious faith that she would be along 'soon'.
I have many memories of her, laughing in the dusk, watching me and, sometimes, others as we talked shit into the early evening and watched the southern stars come out over the cold Atlantic waves.
Felicity and I began discussing more private things with one another. I'd bitch to her about work and she'd bitch to me about the career that she hadn't yet managed to launch. We'd gripe at one another about boys, about girls, about the various shoot-downs we both suffered in our abortive quests to find 'the one'.
I knew I could always rely on her to listen to me, and I took liberties with that generosity that would sometimes make me cringe later in remembered horror. But Felicity would just smile at me with those cerulean eyes of hers, and give me the advice I needed even if it was not the advice I wanted at the time.
In hindsight, I can't remember a time she was wrong.
Sometimes, though, I'd catch her watching me. And while she'd mostly be smiling, sometimes I thought I saw the flickers of shadows - hints of some deep-held darkness that she would not voice to me.
And to be fair, I spent a lot of time watching her too.
Watching. Wondering.
Wishing.
.:.
Autumn came, and the days grew shorter. I'd meet her and a group of her friends for morning walks through the forests above Newlands, the sole guy in a gaggle of young, fit women. I'd get amused looks from other trail runners or walkers, but the girls would be too busy joking or dramatically reenacting Significant Events Of Male Stupidity for one another, and I would be too busy laughing at them to care or even really notice.
I became friendly, then flirty, with one of them - a blonde strumpet named Amanda.
I was starting to wonder if she perhaps liked me, if I should ask her out - when suddenly, without ever finding out why, the invites to the walks with my 'harem' flickered out overnight.
I was upset by that, and spent many hours wondering what the fuck I had done or said (or not done or not said) to offend five different women at once.
But Felicity still met up with me - between us nothing seemed to have changed, and I was unbelievably grateful for that.
I mentioned it to her once in passing, and she simply responded with a quiet, somewhat abrupt "It's awkward with friends."
The penny dropped and I learned my lesson. I'd tested our friendship. I wouldn't do it again.
From that day on I steered well clear of our common ground, and did nothing with anyone who was even remotely part of our social circle. I began to frequent online dating sites, and went on the occasional dinner or coffee with the more interesting or eloquent women who would occasionally contact me.
Not many did; I was fit and tall, but neither trendy nor interesting enough to warrant much attention beyond a brief first glance.
When Felicity asked I'd tell her what I was up to, but I stopped volunteering anything out of fear of upsetting her again. And I noticed that she stopped sharing the more personal bits of her own life with me.
It took me a long time to work out why she'd done it.
All I felt at first was a vague sense of betrayal; of something lost that I'd come to regard as mine.
But then, I've never claimed to be an intelligent man.
.:.
She found a new job, and her career took off. She kept her haircut, but the style of clothes she wore morphed from the linens and teeshirt she'd always loved to smart business attire, and I had to admit that she looked fantastic in a suit. She flushed bright pink, pleased as punch the one time I mentioned this, and her farewell hug that evening seemed to linger far more than normal. But by the next time I saw her things were back to normal again.
People had drifted away over the months and years, but the core of our social group would still meet regularly - at restaurants, at wine farms, and sometimes on the beach when it had been too long and we all just wanted to be around one another and remember our 'golden years' as Kate once laughingly called it.
Felicity would sit beside me, long legs crossed neatly, sipping her wine with an amused smile as she listened to the conversation around us.
She was quieter these days - not as boisterous, not as likely to drink too much and drag me out of the kitchen to dance to bad disco with her as she once had.
The hugs she gave me became less frequent, but longer. The looks she gave me were sometimes hard to interpret.
Our phone calls became less frequent, then intermittent, with strange silences in them that left me confused and sad after I'd said goodbye.
I bitterly wondered if she was growing bored with me.
Then a job came up in Johannesburg, and Felicity left Cape Town like a ship slipping her moorings in the night. She left me a short but emotional voicemail to say goodbye, telling me to take care of myself, and that she'd see me around... sometime.
And I spent many hours of that evening perched on a rock, high up on the flanks of the mountain, staring woefully out at the city as the darkness drew in and the lights came on, feeling lost and strangely alone.
The next time I saw Kate, she looked at me like I'd grown a third arm, and wouldn't answer any question that even touched on Felicity and her wellbeing.
"Why don't you ask her?" she'd said, acidly, before turning her back on me.
And I'd stared after her, no wiser.
.:.
Months passed in their usual way, and I focussed my energy on work to distract myself from her absence. Somewhere along the line I fell in with some sailors from the Royal Cape Yacht club.
I discovered that sailing (and post-sailing socialising) kept me amused, suntanned, fit and, strangely enough, completely out of trouble of any sort. I was surrounded by bluff, honest men and women who had nothing to prove to anyone but themselves, and their influence weathered a lot of the rougher, more childish parts of me away. I no longer chased other people's leavings in the hope of filling the gaps in me.
I could look at myself in the mirror now without even an echo of self-consciousness. I knew who and what I was, and I needed nobody's validation. I'd made peace with the gaps in my life. Time would smooth the edges of them away as it had with me.
But I wasn't happy. I was not content.
I missed Felicity like the sun on my face.
I finally worked up the courage to phone her, and caught her in a restaurant with her new social circle; she was offish (and waspish and many other -ishes), but pleased to hear from me nonetheless, especially when I grovelled for not calling her sooner. She told me she'd think about forgiving me for being such a shit friend, and I smiled as I heard the familiar bubbling laughter in her voice. She stole a precious five minutes of her evening to give me a quick summary of what she was up to and to get the same from me.
"Call me sometime," she said softly, before she said goodbye.
And I promised myself I would be a man and do so.
