Behind Every Successful Man Read online

  Then the phone rang.

  “Yes?” Andile said, grabbing the phone and speaking nervously into the receiver.

  “Hello, Andile, it’s Nazli. Seems you and my hubby have been doing quite a bit of drinking.”

  Nazli was sweet, but he wasn’t in the mood to be given a lecture about his drinking. “Naz, listen,” he said, “I’m sorry, but I really have to go.”

  “Hold on, man,” Nazli said, trying to stop him from hanging up. “It looks like you left your cellphone here. Your wife called. She said she tried calling you at home, but Xolani told her you weren’t in.”

  Oh, God! Nobantu was the last person he wanted to talk to. This was grounds for divorce. He had left the children unattended while he’d gone out drinking. He could see it playing out in the tabloids. Sunday City would have a field day.

  “Andy, are you listening?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Eish! How did you drive home? I said, Nobantu said I should tell you not to worry about Nqobisa. She is with her.”

  Had he heard Nazli properly?

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Tjhoo! Andile, how many times do I have to repeat myself? Nobantu said I should tell you that Nqobisa is with her at Tsholo’s house. She’ll probably stay there for the rest of the vacation.”

  He wanted to go down on his knees there and then and thank whichever deity it was that had been looking out for him. But he didn’t. His son was watching. “Thanks, Naz,” he said. “Thanks so much. I’ll drop by to pick up the phone tomorrow, ja?”

  “That’s cool,” she replied. “Give my love to Xolani.”

  As Andile hung up, relief swept through him.

  “Your sister is alright. She is okay, boy,” he said, hugging his son as the boy beamed.

  PART IV

  Nobantu called him at home the very next day to ask if she could pick up Xolani for the holidays. Andile was delighted to have the opportunity of a week where he could do any extra work that might be needed, but he had the decency to sound concerned. “Are you sure it’s okay for you to have both kids at Tsholo’s place? You could always drop Nqobisa back home, you know,” he said.

  “I talked to her. She said it’s fine.”

  “Yes, but are you alright with it? Word has it that you are busy with your label.”

  She was surprised. If she didn’t know better she would say that Andile sounded supportive. “Whoa,” she said. “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”

  “Maybe I have seen the error of my ways,” he said light-heartedly. “Look, I’ll tell Xolani. If he is keen to come then maybe when you come to pick him up we can have a braai and a bit of a chat?”

  Maybe there was hope for them after all, she thought. She would test the waters and see whether he had indeed changed or whether this was just another front to get her to come home.

  “Then take out the steaks,” she answered in a firm voice. “I’m coming to pick him up. If that boy has been smoking marijuana, there’s no way we can trust him to be at home alone when you are at work. Yes, I saw your email today,” she continued, “but Nqobisa told me everything last night. At least he can come to work with me and help me with some admin.”

  “Fine. See you in a bit,” he answered.

  It looked like their reunion might be easier than he thought. And she had said “there is no way WE can trust him”. Had used the word “we”. A word she had avoided in the last three months.

  Nobantu told her daughter about the family braai and then spent most of the morning trying to figure out what to wear. By the time they left, she had changed and rechanged her outfit three times, finally deciding on a dark pink low-cut top that showed her bust to perfection and a white gypsy skirt.

  In the meantime, Andile had requested that Xolani marinade the meat for the braai. While Xolani was busy with the meat, he took a shower and spent some time choosing what to wear. He put on a pair of navy blue jeans and a light blue tank top – the weather was good and the top would show his arms to perfection. He knew she loved his arms.

  At first, when she arrived at the house, she felt like a stranger – it was strange enough having to ring the doorbell, especially as she had the keys in her bag.

  It was Andile himself who came to the door. He looked wonderful, she thought. His barber continued to do a really good job.

  “Hey, you two. Come on in, I’ve started the fire and Xolani has marinated the meat,” he said to the two women in his life, trying to sound as casual as possible.

  Nobantu looked ravishing, he thought to himself. How had he managed without her for so long?

  He put his hand out to her. It seemed they were both unsure how to greet each other and they met in an awkward half-embrace, half-handshake which was tempered by a kiss placed on Nobantu’s ear as she withdrew.

  Strange what three months can do, Andile thought as he noted their awkward greeting. And to think he had been waking up next to this woman for the greater part of fifteen years.

  Nqobisa watched as this drama went on, happy to see her parents together again.

  “Where is Xolani?” Nobantu enquired as they walked into the living room.

  “I’m here,” the gangly youth said, walking in as if on cue. “Hi, Mom,” he continued, as though she had just come in from the shops.

  “Come now, you can do better than that. Is that any way to greet your mother who you haven’t seen in a week?” she asked, opening her arms.

  He smirked but duly came into her arms. “Mom, this is embarrassing,” he said. “All this hugging and kissing is for kids.”

  Nobantu kissed him and playfully slapped him on the right cheek. “You’ll always be my kid, and don’t you forget it,” she said. “And, on a more serious note, Xolani, I heard about the drugs. Boy, what were you thinking?”

  Xolani wondered whether his mother was unable to stop being a mother for five seconds and just hang out with the family. “Mom, zol isn’t really a drug,” he mumbled.

  “Excuse me?” Andile asked his son. He wasn’t sure he had heard the boy properly.

  Xolani repeated himself.

  “Hey! Wena!” Nobantu moved closer to her son and started pushing him on the forehead with her forefinger. “If I ever hear you talking that ‘marijuana is not a drug’ crap again, I will get a belt and show you that you’re not too old to be beaten. Marijuana is not a drug! That’s exactly where all those cokehead advertising executives started. You know what your problem is?” And not waiting for him to answer, she said, “Your problem is that we have treated you with kid gloves for far too long and now you think we are your friends. We are your parents, Xolani. You are going to spend the next two weeks working with me, and when you get back to school, just to ensure that you are not still on your ‘marijuana is not a drug’ trip, I may pick you up on any day from school for a random drug test. Are we clear?”

  Xolani backed off. He had never seen his mother like this. In fact, none of them had ever seen her like this – she was always the congenial parent. Andile and Nqobisa stood with mouths agape, until Nobantu, not wanting to create greater discomfort, looked at both kids and said, “Okay, why don’t you go and start braaiing, Xolani? I need to talk to your father.”

  Xolani, happy to escape, answered, “Yes, ma’am, and I’ll call you two when I’m done.”

  Never one to miss a hint, Nqobisa said, “Um, yeah. Mom, Dad, I’ll just help Xolani with the braai.”

  Nobantu couldn’t help being amazed at the change in her daughter. Before, she would have insisted on staying with them and commenting on whatever they were talking about. She raised her eyebrows at her husband. “What have you done to make her such an angel?” she asked.

  Andile laughed, his eyes lighting up. She had missed his laughter. She began to laugh as well, sharing in his delight at this wild child who had suddenly become so grown-up. If Plastic Penny had been there, she would have called their laughter fou rire – crazy laughter.

  They only stop
ped laughing when the tears were streaming down their cheeks. They sat down holding hands, hands that had become intertwined during their laughter. They looked at each other. A few more tentative steps and maybe, just maybe, they would make it.

  PART V

  Chapter 18

  18

  She wondered why Andile had to be such a sly bastard. Why did he treat their relationship like a business deal? She had had a wonderful Sunday with him and the children, and when he had visited her showroom for the first time two days back her heart had even begun to thaw a little. And now this?

  “Bad news,” Ntsiki had said as soon as Nobantu picked up the phone.

  “What’s happened now?” Nobantu asked calmly. “Don’t tell me, you can’t get hold of any of the CBOs I hoped to get on board? Don’t worry, it’s still early. It’s only been a week, you know.”

  “I wish it was that simple, my friend. No. I just received a call from your mother. She’s at the airport, and she wants me to pick her up and deliver her to you. Turns out I should have cleared my calendar. Apparently, she told your dearest hubby to ensure I was waiting for her call, but no, not Andile. All he did was call me three days ago to ask me whether I would be in town and free on Friday at three. Sly bugger. By the way, I hope you are at work because, in your mother’s own words, she doesn’t want to go to ‘the house of that immoral cradle snatcher’ you are staying with.”

  Nobantu rolled her eyes. “I guess it had to happen sometime,” she said philosophically. “Yeah, I am at the office. Good luck with keeping your temper while she lectures you on the benefits of getting married.”

  Contrary to the way she had sounded on the phone, Nobantu was anything but calm. She was furious with Andile. Their relationship was just starting off on a different level. And now this?

  She was nervous, too, about her mother’s sudden appearance. Nobantu had always bowed down to her mother’s strong opinions. Now, for once in her life, she felt she was doing something she really wanted to do. For the first time she felt she was living Nobantu’s life the way Nobantu had always wanted to live it. She knew there would be a showdown.

  She told Mxolisi to take the children to Southgate to hang out. She needed to deal with her mother on her own.

  Nqobisa was in the sewing room, diligently pinning a pattern onto a piece of denim. “Mom, we’re still busy here,” she said, looking up from what she was doing. “Why do you want Uncle Mxo to go to the mall with us before we’ve finished?”

  Nobantu had never lied to her children and she wasn’t about to start now.

  “Because, sweetie, your grandmother is going to be here soon and I need to talk to her by myself. In fact,” she said, sweeping her gaze around the room, “it would be lovely if all of you could just take off right now.”

  “But I thought we were going to try to finish the jeans that we started this week. Didn’t we want them done for the Christmas season?” asked Tshepiso.

  “Don’t worry, we can all chip in for the next few weeks and finish on time if we put our minds to it,” Nobantu said.

  Thando and Tshepiso happily packed their stuff away, swapping stories about what they were going to be up to over the weekend.

  “And nou?” Xolani asked, coming through from the reception.

  It was a good thing the vacation would be coming to an end in another week, Nobantu thought. Xolani appeared to have a bit of a crush on Tshepiso.

  “Makhulu’s coming,” Nqobisa said. “Mommy wants to talk to her in private. Uncle Mxo’s going to take us to Southgate so we can watch a movie or something.”

  Xolani rolled his eyes at his mother. “Mom, if we absolutely have to go to the mall, why does it have to be that one? Can’t we go to Melrose Arch? At least there is more to do there.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Nqobisa said, jumping in, “Southgate is so ghetto. It’s like they know that people who shop there are poor and black. They don’t even have an Exclusive Books.”

  Nobantu put up her hand. “Askies, if I’d known that picking a mall was going to be such an issue, I wouldn’t have made a suggestion. How about The Glen, ke? I need you guys to be quite close, so that when I’m done with your grandma I can call you and you can come and see her.”

  This was obviously a better choice and Mxo happily bundled his charges into Tsholo’s spare car.

  Nobantu went into their kitchen and served herself some prawn salad that she had made the day before. She knew she needed a full stomach if she was going to spend time arguing with her mother.

  When her mother arrived, Nobantu quickly became nervous, asking solicitously whether her mother wanted something to eat, something to drink – water, tea, anything at all.

  To which the answer was a firm “No”.

  Alrighty then. Let the war begin, Nobantu thought.

  Ntsiki didn’t stay. “I have to rush back to the office and finish off some stuff,” she said as soon as she entered the building.

  Coward, Nobantu thought, as her mother plopped herself down in Nobantu’s office chair and ordered Nobantu to sit down as though she were a six-year-old. She felt like refusing, but she was after all a dutiful and respectful daughter.

  “No. Not there. Come and sit here next to me,” her mother said, drawing up a stool.

  Nobantu felt the resentment rise up inside her, but again she did as she was ordered.

  Her mother swivelled in the chair as she sat down, and rapped her knuckles against Nobantu’s forehead. “Just what goes on in this head of yours?” she asked.

  Nobantu flinched. Her mother had once again crossed the line. She was thirty-five, not five.

  “So, sana,” her mother asked, as though talking to an imbecile. “Why don’t you tell your mother what’s going on with you?”

  Now was her chance. In her business premises, surrounded by her dream that was slowly becoming a reality, she would talk to her mother.

  “Ma, have you ever wanted something so badly that you were willing to give up anything for it?”

  Her mother pursed her lips. “You have two beautiful children, a husband who loves you, a mansion that no other woman eCumakala, even the premier, can boast having. What more do you want?”

  “I want to feel like I am important. I want to feel that I am not just Andile’s wife, or Xolani and Nqobisa’s mother,” she answered in a timid voice.

  Her mother looked at her impatiently. “Hhayi. Stop these selfish, childish games. Most people do not have what you have, but you keep crying. What more do you want, apart from your husband and children? That is your job, Nobantu.”

  She didn’t know what happened, but something, somewhere deep inside, snapped. “See, there you go again, Mother,” she said, raising her voice. “You never listen to me. You just talk down to me as if I am still a child.”

  Her mother looked at her in surprise, but Nobantu didn’t give her a chance to respond.

  “I didn’t want to go to Wits,” she said, continuing where she had left off. “I wanted to go to Rhodes, but you pushed Wits on me. I would have preferred to study literature, instead of accounting, but you forced that on me too, telling me that accountants made bags of money while writers were always broke. I didn’t want to marry Andile at nineteen, much as I loved him, but again you decided that I should get married because you were worried about what people would say. It’s always about you, Ma,” Nobantu said, with tears falling down her cheeks. “You want me to live the life that you think you deserved, the life that Tata could never give you.”

  Her mother looked at her in silence. “But I have always done what’s best for you,” she said.

  Nobantu shook her head viciously. “No, Ma, you weren’t doing what was best for me. You have never done what was best for me. Doing what’s best for me requires consulting with me on the decisions that affect my life, not telling me how I am supposed to make those decisions. I am thirty-five now and I am finally doing what I want to do. And now, right now, I am trying to get you to support my dreams, but do I get that? No.
All you are worried about are the dreams that you have harboured for me over the years and how they seem to be going down the drain.” She shook her head, feeling spent. “The boys do whatever they want to do. Your youngest son is staying in a flat in Yeoville, claiming he wants to be a writer, and you support that – you even pay for him to stay there. Your oldest son came to my birthday party with a girl young enough to be your granddaughter and you never said one word to him about it. You don’t interfere in their lives. No. But you are always in my life. Sometimes it feels as though I never left home. I can’t do it any more, Ma. I need to see whether I can actually be someone apart from Andile’s wife. I need to see whether I can live my dream. So, for once, please look around and see what I have done. Look at some of the designs I have finished. Hear how I foresee this all coming to pass instead of just putting me down.”

  Nobantu sighed. She had been yelling. Nobantu Makana never yelled.

  Her mother clapped her hands resignedly. It seemed to have dawned on her that she was talking to another woman and not just her little girl. “Asiyazi,” she said, in a self-deprecating tone of voice. “What do I know, an old-fashioned woman like me?”

  “I am sorry for raising my voice as I did just now, Ma,” Nobantu replied calmly. “You know a lot. You raised me and the boys pretty well. You raised my son for the first five years of his life and supported my desire to finish my education. And now I ask that you support this dream that I have. I know I can make it, but making it will be all the more pleasurable if I have the support of my family.”

  “But what about your husband and children?” her mother asked, trying hard not to sound like she was judging Nobantu. “Are you planning to get a divorce for this dream of yours?”

  Nobantu smiled. Her mother was probably wondering what her church friends would say if her daughter got a divorce.