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reached out a hand to her shoulder and I blocked him, gripped his wrist and swung back his arm, got my weight against his back, pressed him up against the pillar beside Emma, but without violence. I didn’t want to attract attention.
    He made a noise of surprise. ‘Hey,’ he said.
    Emma glanced up. She was confused, her body taut with fright. But she recognised beard-face. ‘Stoffel?’ she said.
    Stoffel looked at her, then at me. He pulled back, trying to free his arm. He was strong, but uncoordinated. An amateur. I stayed fluid, gave him a bit of leeway.
    ‘Do you know him?’ I asked Emma.
    ‘Yes, yes, it’s Stoffel’
    I loosened my grip and he jerked his arm away.
    ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
    I stayed very close to him, intimidating him with a look. He didn’t like that. Emma stood up, holding her hand in the air apologetically. ‘This is all a misunderstanding, Stoffel. Nice to see you again. Please sit down.’
    Stoffel was indignant now. ‘Who is this guy?’
    Emma took his hand. ‘Come say hello, it’s nothing.’ She pulled him away from me. He allowed it. She offered her cheek. He kissed it quickly, as if he still expected me to do something unexpected.
    ‘Coffee?’ I asked in a friendly tone.
    He didn’t reply immediately. He sat down, slowly and solemnly, so he could restore his dignity. ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘Milk and sugar.’
    There was a little smile on Emma’s face, the anxiety forgotten. She glanced fleetingly at me, as though we shared a secret.
    The flight to Nelspruit was on SA Express’s fifty-seater Canadair jet. I sat beside Emma, on the aisle; she sat by the window. The plane was nearly full. There were at least ten passengers who, according to age, gender and level of interest, could qualify as members of Emma’s imaginary opponents. I had my doubts. To place someone on a plane as a tail is overkill, because the point of departure and arrival is known.
    Before we took off she said, ‘Stoffel is an attorney.’ I hadn’t sat with them over coffee. There were only two seats at the table and I preferred to stand for a wider view and a final chance to stretch my legs. I expect Stoffel wanted to know who I was and she had avoided the question.
    ‘He’s a good guy,’ she said now. And added, ‘We dated, a few years ago …’ With nostalgia that indicated a history. Then she took the flight magazine out of its slot and flipped it open.
    Stoffel, the ex.
    My assumption had been otherwise – I thought he was a business acquaintance, or the husband of a friend. He hadn’t struck me as the kind of man she would be attracted to. And their interaction was so … friendly. But I could picture it: they meet at one of the social or cultural watering holes where the rich gather after sundown. He is well spoken and intelligent, with a cutting self-mockery and a fund of judicial inside stories that he tells with flourish. His attention to Emma would be subtle, he would have a method with women, a recipe he had perfected over twenty bachelor years. She would find it pleasant. When he procured her number from a mutual acquaintance four or five days later, she would remember who he was. She would accept the invitation to the top-ten restaurant. Or the art exhibition, or the symphony concert. She would know from the start that he was not really her type, but she would give it a chance. By her mid-thirties she would have learned enough about people in general and men in particular to know that her type had complications. A woman like Emma would be attracted to the
Men’s Health
cover man – a finely sculpted Greek god only half a metre taller than she was. So that they would make a fine picture as a couple.
    Her sort was a metrosexual with a dark fringe, pale eyes and the perfect smile. The sporty, fit, outdoor kind that went jogging on the beach with his Staffordshire terrier, and parked his old, secondhand Land Rover Defender in front of Camps Bay’s hot spots, the spade prominent