Kuki looked at her hand in his, and because they had already shared so much, found the courage to say, ‘I prefer a birthday that is a much quieter affair. A generous slice of chocolate cake is all I need. A generous slice of chocolate cake and … and … someone to hold me. Since my beautiful, golden-haired boy passed, what I have wanted more than anything is for someone just to hold me … to comfort me. I know this is an odd request, but I was wondering if you could hold me … just … hold me.’

Todd Carmichael gave her hand a squeeze. ‘And here I have been looking for someone to cleave unto me,’ he said.

Hours later, as Kuki looked at the remnants of a slice of chocolate cake in a saucer on the bedside table – her back pressed against Todd’s chest, feeling his heart beating – she revelled in being held so securely, as if she was something he wanted never to let go. Her eyes left the remnants of the chocolate cake and rested on a white rattle with a blue tortoise on it before she drifted off.

Cleave: what an interesting word … a unique word … a word with two contradictory meanings. A word that held on and let go in the same breath.

Cleave: that was exactly what she, Kuki Coetzee, née Sedgwick, would do in this, her year of independence.

The Red Aster

THE RED ASTER

Marion Hartley stood in her garage with a choice before her. She could get into the red Pulsar and drive off, not altogether certain that it would have a successful journey, or she could get into her red Aster – old fashioned, but very dependable – and arrive at her true destination. She did not trust this new breed of cars mass-produced for convenience. Definitely not built to last. Not built like her Aster, in which she could drive off as one last hoorah. What she would give to be able to drive around in all that luxury, comfort and … substance again.

She looked at the Aster shining as though brand new. She was oh so very tempted, but it had long been declared a collectors’ item and insured as such: a bona fide antique car. A keen buyer had, for years now, been offering her a fortune for it, but she would never part with it, not for anything, not for the world. She had been standing beside the Aster when she had first seen him – a man in a cowboy hat and boots in the middle of the City of Kings, a man she had not known she was looking for until she found him.