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‘You can’t compare him to Gerry, for heaven’s sake.’
‘No, I can’t,’ I agree. ‘Gerry is a cheating philanderer.’ He might have a certain charm, I want to shout, but that’s not enough to compensate for him being a complete bastard. ‘What do you see in him?’
‘At least he works,’ Nina says. ‘He holds down a job. He’s not living off me, sending money back to some needy family in some dodgy country. He’ll be gone, Janie. You won’t see Dominic for dust. The minute he’s fleeced you, he’ll be gone. Everyone thinks so.’
Behind me, I hear the changing room door close quietly. Instinctively, I know who it is and I fly to the door and rush out into the corridor. Sure enough, Dominic is standing there.
‘Dominic . . .’
‘I heard what she said, Just Janie.’ His eyes are filled with sadness. ‘I heard it all.’
Chapter Seventy-Six
‘Please,’ I beg him. ‘Don’t take any notice of her. She’s being vindictive. Jealous.’
I retrieved my gear, completely ignoring Nina, and then I marched Dominic out of the Sno!Zone, holding tightly to his arm, avoiding the others too. My blood is boiling. I can’t ever recall a time in my life when I’ve felt so very, very angry.
During the drive home, Dominic is virtually silent. He stares out of the window, a bewildered, hurt look on his face.
I’m so upset myself that I can hardly concentrate and if I’m not careful, I’ll end up in a ditch. It’s raining now and the irritating clack-clack of the windscreen wipers is making me grit my teeth. I try to focus on the road, but I could weep. I could weep and then I could scream.
‘She didn’t mean it,’ I tell him as I crunch the gears.
‘I think that she did,’ Dominic counters.
‘She might well have done,’ I concede, ‘but she’s wrong. None of what she said is true. I know that. You know that. That’s all that matters.’
‘In my village at home, I was a man of good standing. The elders respected my opinions. They were proud that I had been to school. All of the community looked up to me. As a Maasai warrior, an educated one, I was a person to be admired, envied. Here,’ he says, ‘I do not know my place.’
‘But the people in the village love you,’ I remind him. ‘Look at all the old ladies clucking around you like mother hens. They don’t think that you’re here to take me for all of my money.’
Goodness only knows, there’s hardly anything left of it for Dominic to take.
He looks devastated and it’s such a shame when we’d had a great evening and Dominic had proved to be the star of the show.
‘This brings great shame on me. If this happened in my home, if my reputation was so tarnished, I would be forced to go out and live on the plains alone.’
‘It’s not the same here. It’s not like that at all. Here we just think “fuck it” and carry on. Really we do.’
‘My family, my loved ones, would want me to leave. They would be happy for me to take my humiliation from their door.’
How can I make Dominic see that this is a storm in a teacup and that I really don’t care what my friends think of him, whether they like him or not? But I can see that it is weighing heavily on his mind, on his heart, and that nothing I have to say will ease this blow.
‘If I bring shame on myself, then I will bring shame on you too. The villagers, your friends, will not love you any more.’
‘I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Please don’t dwell on this. I don’t want it to spoil what we have. I’ll leave my job and do something else,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been thinking about it anyway. They all drive me nuts. Then I won’t have to see Nina or any of the others. We can make new friends, friends in the village. When you start to work, you’ll make friends there.’
‘What if they all think that I am a bad man? What if they all think that I want to take your home and your money away from you? Will they always look at my skin, at my clothes, and treat me with suspicion?’
‘They won’t.’ I grab his hand and squeeze it. ‘They won’t.’
He doesn’t look convinced.
‘Nina has issues. That’s all. She can’t trust Gerry and her relationship is breaking down. She just can’t bear to see anyone else happy.’
‘She is your best friend.’
‘Was my best friend. If she’s going to be like this then I don’t want anything more to do with her.’
‘You should not break friendships.’
‘I’m not the one breaking it, Dominic. She is. By being a complete cow.’
