I’m lying on the beach at Vipingo Ridge’s Beach Club in Kilifi having soda water, pretending not to watch the couple under the next umbrella. They had been having an argument, one of those that couples have in public but imagine nobody notices.
The beach club only recently opened and so it’s abuzz. A big table has been taken by some white folk in linen and shorts, one of whom, my friend tells me, is one of the owners of Vipingo Ridge.
It looks like the tail end of that relationship, I think. The man looks jaded and unbothered, he stares out at sea while the woman snips at his ears. The woman looks misunderstood and unheard and frustrated. I — to anybody watching — look nosy.
I wonder what the fight is about this time. Maybe something so trivial but one that everybody feels so entitled to. It’s about principle at this point. And about scores. And about who is right. About payback. And about who will back down first.
They had ordered what I assume is a seafood platter that looked very sumptuous, now ignored on the low wooden table before them. He lies back, his neck taunt with anger, his forehead like stretched drum skin. She’s sitting up, her body turned to face him. She’s in white linen shorts. She’s gorgeous, so gorgeous, I’m thinking, “if that was my woman, nothing would come out of my mouth but ‘yes, baby,”. And I realise that that’s what the man said before he started dating her. Now it’s strife and hurricane. They settled into some silence, that horrible silence lovers get into sometimes. The breeze blew in and the sky remained blue.
The Beach Club seemed like the last place to want to fight in. But then again, where is the right place to fight in? I closed my eyes and felt the golden sun trickle between the palm trees. I was glad nobody was fighting me. Once in a while I’d look over at the couple, sigh and sip my drink.
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