Royce (55 page)

At night she poured out her worries to Royce, “Oh Royce this is my fault I didn’t mean to hurt you and come between you and Tammy.  I mean if I hadn’t only gone to you at The Club, if I had chosen others, if I had been smarter and wore a condom, if I had just thought things through you’d still be happily married and so would I.  We wouldn’t be running for our lives like this,” she said crying.  Royce held her, “Oh baby, baby none of that is your fault,” and he looked at her, “Remember I was there too.  I made those same decisions and I will not let you think the foolishness of Tammy or my father is our fault.  We are not responsible for their actions.  They’re doing this crazy shit and we can’t control them no more than we can control the weather…Oh baby don’t let them get to you…I know we’re the ones having to pull up stakes and run but as long as I have you and those kids by my side I can handle anything baby.  I’m willing to go through anything for that,” he said holding her. 

She sniffed and cried, “But I never even met him, you wouldn’t let me Royce, why would you do that?”  She asked still crying. 

Joy wanted an answer to that, and Royce had to think for a moment, it was simple and also complicated, at first he wanted to take her, but he didn’t think it would go well.  He knew his father’s feelings on this, so he put it off, and then time went on and she didn’t push it he let things be, it wasn’t all racial.  Some of it was but he knew his father thought he shouldn’t have married  his mistress.  He’d said it on more than one occasion, “Okay so you  got a woman on the side, a lot of men do that, but you don’t throw away the family for it, the family comes first always,” he remembered his father saying. 

“Well…I knew they didn’t approve,” he said and Joy looked up at him, “Why because I’m black?”  She came back at him, “No…because…,” she waited, “Because they think I threw away my family for my…mistress,” he said and even in the dark he saw her mouth drop.  She pulled away from him, “What! Royce is that what they think?”  “Yes Joy and I didn’t want you to hear that from them or to feel that.” “Oh my god Royce!  Is that why your father hates me… he thinks I was your mistress!”  And Joy ran into their bathroom and slammed the door and he could do nothing to coax her out.  He heard her crying and all he could do was sit there and wait.

And because of this emotional roller coaster he needed horses or he would go insane.  This time he didn’t have to travel far.  There quaint little village was up in the mountains but down the mountains about an hour and a half away was Bologna, a very large populous metropolitan city.  He met Rocco, a man selling ex race horses; he missed Whirlwind and wanted something fast.  Rocco told him all about Italy’s long race tradition with tracks all over the country and horses either raced with a chariot or galloped and he was fascinated.  “These horses are thoroughbreds, very good quality signore.  They do not run in the Palio di Siena if that’s what you had in mind, no pure bred horses allowed signore,”  Rocco said.  “Palio de Siena, I don’t understand, non comprisco?”  “Si, signore it is a big race twice a year, a race for honor of your contrade.  It is fun but fast and dangerous,” Rocco said.  Royce didn’t understand but he bought two beautiful chestnuts, one for him and one Joy, he named his No Mercy and Joy’s was Windstar.  And the next week in Bologna he found horses for the children and a pony for Autumn she named Daisy Star Shine and the stable was full.

Jameson watched them, she was crying all the time and Royce just looked sad and he didn’t understand it.  This one had gone down ideal, they didn’t have to shoot it out like the last two times. Conrad had come in, Deon was safe at Oxford and Gibeau was in Africa so he hurriedly bought surveillance equipment and bugs and because Joy wanted to see a city with canals for streets he sent them to Venice and set up in the garage to hear what was going on.

Then he listened.  “Oh Royce I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!  I wish I could speak to Tammy and your father and make them understand that!”  She cried and his heart broke and went out to her and he heard Royce soothing her.  “And to think I was your mistress!  Oh my god!”  She bemoaned and Jameson knew that was true, but that didn’t warrant this.

After listening to her worries and blaming herself he couldn’t help it he watched her all the time.  Even with her sadness she was blossoming into a beautiful mature woman.  In South Africa she wore nothing but cowboy boots and jeans, she looked like Royce half the time, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and little or no makeup, but here she changed.  She started wearing her hair out.  She brushed it and let it flow wavy down her back and she started wearing cute comfortable modern dresses.  She went to Issa’s salon and had her nails polished and her eyebrows arched, and she wore a little makeup every day and everyday he saw her take her basket and walk down in the village.  She’d stop and talk to the villagers at the market, “Buongiorno bella Joy,” they all said and she’d smile a sad smile and stop for a moment to small talk.  Then she’d go to the stone wall that looked over the edge of the high cliff and she’d stand there looking out at the beautiful expanse and shade her eyes and just stand there her expression sad, serene and beautiful.

Since Mr. Harrington had the horses to occupy him he was her shadow now and followed her everywhere.  After weeks of her tears he went to her as she stood looking out wiping tears, “Are you troubled ma’am?”  “Oh Jameson I don’t understand this…but I did this, I’ve done something I shouldn’t have to cause this,” she wiped tears.  He took her in his arms and held and soothed her, and he couldn’t help it he smelled her hair and loved her body pressed to his, but she was so sad and that broke his heart; he’d heard her at night crying and questioning.  “Ma’am I can’t believe whatever you did is as bad as this?”  “I’m too ashamed to say…”

He held her and looked into her dark soft eyes, “Did you order the assassination of a woman and her children?”  She cried and shook her head, “Well then what he’s doing is far worse and I don’t care what you did it doesn’t warrant this,” he held her tighter and Jameson stayed that way holding her until her tears subsided.

And as with the changes of the seasons she changed too, the air turned fall crisp and the fields behind the villa turned into a sea of green, tall green grass the horses loved to graze, run and frolic in and Royce and Autumn seemed to love it out there too and she let go of her sadness.  Now she stayed in the kitchen.  She loved the brick oven and made the best pizza and fresh pasta Jameson had ever had.  With her housekeeper Natalia's help she was always learning and preparing something new and she began to smile again.   Jameson would stare at her, he had to often force himself to turn away, but most of the time he couldn’t.  Her inner and outer beauty seemed so well meshed now.  She seemed to have accepted her fate and loved life.  She was soft, serene and beautiful and as different as a caterpillar to a butterfly from the woman he heard fucking her brains out every night.

Every night he heard her go to Royce and he to her and they seemed to need each other with a ferociousness and Jameson heard their deep cries and ravenous lovemaking and he was nearly losing his mind and this time he found Issa.  She was older, a divorcee and in her forties closer to his age and he liked that, no more young girls like Lita and Naledi.  She ran the spa Joy went to.  He’d go to her most nights so ravenous and do things to her with such passion and heat that he blew her mind that she often said, “What’s gotten into you?” 

Fall crisp air and green flowing grass turned into golden fields and now a cold nip was in the air and Joy had a nip too.  Jameson often heard her angry outburst.  Joy was furious at Royce’s father, how dare he do this to them!  How dare he come after them like they were things to be disposed of.  “What the hell is wrong with your father?”  She demanded of Royce, “What kind of cold callous person is he Royce to do something so vile and evil,” her anger flashing.  Royce went to her.  “I know baby this is stupid as hell that he would do this to me, to us.  My father is…my father is…He’s not cold Joy, but he is demanding, strict and he has expectations of…his family…We had to live up to high expectations.” “Well hell Royce I had to live up to high expectations but my parents aren’t trying to kill us!”  She said indignantly and Royce knew she was right and he was angry too.

Joy was on a rampage and his fear went up and he worried himself ragged that she might leave him, and he almost laughed at the insanity of his thoughts, that he was more afraid of her leaving than any assassin his father sent after them.  But he also loved her anger, she had a right to be angry, he was angry too, angry that his father would do this.  And because of Joy’s anger and the passion it brought out in her and him he needed more and he went to Jameson again.

“I want to buy a racehorse and I think I can do a pretty good job of training a winner.”   After Rocco filled his head with the races the past year they’d all gone to see where No Mercy and Windstar use to race and they had to see a Palio di Siena or II Palio, the race was intense and all about pride, the jockeys rode bareback and represented a contrade or a district and had strange names they didn’t understand like Chiocciota - snail, Lupa-she wolf, Tartuca-tortoise, Oca-goose, or Valdimontone- Valley of the Ram, but Royce didn’t want to participate in that race he wanted thoroughbreds like No Mercy and Windstar.  So the next couple of weeks Jameson drove him all over Italy until in the southern tip in the Apulia Region he found the perfect colt he could train.

Against Jameson’s wishes Royce named him Joy’s Fury, “You don’t want to do anything that will connect you to…” “I’ve done what you asked I go by Roberto Fennini here, no one knows me okay!  And I want to name him after Joy,” he wanted to name him after her beautiful righteous anger, he loved her anger, it was well deserved and well placed, right at his father.  And he loved the passion it brought out in her, in him, it made him feel alive, it was the fuel he needed and seeing a horse barreling around a track his nostrils flared, his muscles straining, the thunder of his hooves released his anger.  No Mercy taught him that, he’d released his anger more times than not on the back of that horse.  And Jameson gave in. 

When the golden fields turned into a blanket of white and back again they’d been here two years and both seemed to let go of their worries and concerns and settled into life in Italy.  It was just past the New Year and the mountains had been blanketed in white for weeks and they’d just celebrated Epiphany where Le Bifana brought gifts for the children.  Jameson loved this time of year, the village and the mountainside covered in white, it was a postcard.  A quaint little village with snow on the roofs and smoke coming from chimneys.   He donned his jacket and was doing his usual surveillance.  He liked to walk through the village, keeping his ears open and in the process check on the children.   He never forgot why they were here and they weren’t confined in the middle of nowhere like in Cape Town.  The village had a nice population of young folks so the three older children were always out and about and checking on them became a necessity.  He walked through the main square past Issa’s salon, he glanced at it, but he knew he couldn’t see inside. 

He decided to check on Lindsey first.  When they first arrived she was sixteen and growing into a beautiful young lady and now she was eighteen and like her mother in so many ways, but like all the teenage girls in the village after school they came home and took off their school uniform and changed into trendy stylish clothes and Lindsey fell right in.  She straightened her thick curly hair and wore short skirts and tights on her long legs, her thick dark hair gorgeous flowing from under a cap or bandana.  He saw the Italian boys looking at her and making plays for her trying to get her to notice them and he saw her ignore them and he’d purse his lips.  He was glad they’d done what they did to Sayeed but he’d done a number on her self esteem.  Lindsey was beautiful, stunning actually to all who looked at her, but she couldn’t see it. 

Lindsey hadn’t forgotten about Mr. Abdullah.  She knew from the moment he said she wasn’t worthy of Amar she knew it was because she was too dark.  She’d heard it in the way he said it and she heard it when they moved here and people found out she and Justin were sister and brother, “How come she’s so dark?”  So she knew her dark skin was the problem and the boys acting like they liked her didn’t change anything.  She knew they were pretending to like her, she was the darkest one in the village, but Amar. 

Amar was the one who didn’t care about her dark skin.  He’d defied his father after that meeting and he defied his father after he snatched her down off the school steps.  She saw the way his father looked at her, like she was a bug to be squashed and she was so scared, but Amar he kissed her so sweet that day, even in front of her parents and his father.  And then without missing a beat he came to her and before long they were right back the way they’d always been, up close and personal, her smiling and looking at him with his dimpled smile, and his eyes always smiling and showing exactly how he felt about her.  He liked her, he really liked her for who she was, dark skin and all, and while they sat as one the conversation always turned too, “When we get to Cambridge.” 

Even though her mother and Mr. Royce tried to shield them from knowing she knew.  Men with guns were after them and that’s why they moved so much.   She knew from what she heard at school about a trial and a hit man, she knew the night she saw Jameson and heard gunfire in her house and she knew when she saw a gunman firing from a helicopter.  So she thought it would be better if she and Deon were together.  “I’ll apply to Oxford and Cambridge but I want Cambridge, it’s not as stuffy I think,” and Amar said without blinking an eye, “Well then I’ll go to Cambridge too,” and before long it was, “When we get to Cambridge….”   That was the plan, finish school and then go to Cambridge together.  But she’d left without saying goodbye, and she hadn’t spoken to him in two years and she didn’t know if he remembered their plans or if he remembered her or if he still wanted to be with her.  She didn’t know and even as she held on and was planning to attend Cambridge she felt in her heart Amar had forgotten her.