Behind Every Successful Man Read online

  Sure, most of them had not been HER friends on a day that had been HER birthday, but there were at least a few people invited just to celebrate with her and not just to powwow over a glass of cognac with her husband and his business partners.

  Of course her children had been there, although they soon left a scene which had too many old people for their liking. They had returned to stand next to their father as the presents were being brought out, but then disappeared again.

  Her mother had been there looking like a South African version of Hyacinth Bucket, with the pearls and her post-dinner cup of tea held just so.

  Nobantu had also been partially gratified to see her two brothers and their dates. Her older brother was married, but in the absence of his wife, who was on a business trip, he had turned up with a wide-eyed, giggly cheerleader-type. The only thing she had been missing was the outfit (although the flared micro mini could very well have passed for a cheerleader’s skirt) and the pompoms.

  Ntsiki, her best friend, was there too, with her beautiful date. It was a pity that her other best friend, Dave, was busy on some island being a make-up artist for some magazine or other and couldn’t be there.

  Nobantu had also been amused to note that Oupa’s ex-wife, Tsholo, was with a well-toned young stud – talk about one-upmanship. Unable to resist bragging just within Sunday columnist Thuli Norbert’s hearing, Tsholo had said, while looking with naked lust at the young stud, “Nobantu, darling, I have finally realised what the Bible meant when it said God made man in his own image!” She had then turned her gaze disparagingly towards her fifty-five-year-old ex-husband, Oupa. Thuli had loved it and had been unable to resist ending her column with Tsholo’s quote.

  Her presents from her husband – probably selected by one of Mister Charlie’s underlings (Andile was always too busy with business) – had been brought in just after dinner. As expected from a husband in the mining industry, there was a white gold bracelet, and a necklace to match, with diamonds and tanzanite elaborately spelling out her name. The second present was a trip for two – her and one of her friends (Andile would be too busy) – to the Atlantic Fashion Week the following January, complete with five-star accommodation and a chauffeur-driven car. Finally, at just the right time, a loud hooting sound came from the gate and all eyes turned in that direction. No question whose car this was, the latest Jaguar driven by none other than Charlie himself, with personalised number plates reading, for all to see, Nobantu GP.

  Nobantu cringed, wondering how much all of it had cost, as the sight of the car drew sighs of envy from almost every corner of the crowd. And for what? So her husband could flaunt his wealth prior to MAPAMO being listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange? It certainly had not been to celebrate her birthday.

  It wasn’t long after that that one of Andile’s female business clients had come over to where Nobantu was standing with her husband. In the manner of those at a party, she had attempted to get into conversation with Nobantu, enquiring, “So, Nobantu, what do you do for a living?”

  Andile hadn’t allowed her to answer, smiling as he jumped to respond a little too loudly, having drunk one cognac too many, “Eish, sisi, our Nobantu here does nothing. She is just a housewife.”

  She is just a housewife.

  The words had cut her to the core. She had excused herself from her party, only stopping to bid her mother and Ntsiki good night before she went and sat in her bedroom with a bottle of vodka and a jug of orange juice. She didn’t drink normally, only on important occasions, and then just the occasional glass of wine, but, goddamn it, this was her birthday and she could get wasted if she wanted to!

  “Happy birthday to you, Nobantu, you housewife you,” she said, laughing hysterically at her image in the mirrors that covered the doors of her walk-in closet before downing her vodka and orange. As the laughter turned to tears, she poured herself another glass with a shaking hand, and told herself that, starting tomorrow, her life had to change.

  The next morning, waking up from a drunken slumber to a snoring Andile, she had wondered just how her life had come to this. What had happened to her and Andile? When had they become the animals she could no longer recognise? She replayed their life together.

  Ever since she could remember, Nobantu had loved Andile. He had been her first crush when she was in primary school – he was a Dale College scholarship student then.

  In the throes of first love and girlish giggles, it had been Andile who had occupied her mind as she and her girlfriends fantasised about first kisses. In fact, she had not kissed her matric date because the young man she had attended the dance with paled in comparison with lawyer-to-be Andile. Andile, who had frustrated her by treating her like his little sister. And in retrospect, she understood. Her family were the type of royalty that mattered in a small town. Her father, a chief by birth and a lawyer by profession, had earned the respect of the community by defending ANC cadres during the apartheid era, thus elevating his royal status. Her mother, a schoolteacher, had been a key player in ensuring that the community never misunderstood the great family that they were dealing with. For instance, she would often invite the king’s son (and Nobantu’s cousin), the late Nkosinathi, to stay with them. In contrast, Andile had been brought up by his grandmother while his mother went to slave for some baas eMonti. But, despite this, Nobantu felt, in spite of his humble beginnings, that her mother had always encouraged her interest in Andile.

  The first year of university was what eventually led to the change in her relationship with Andile. Mandela had been released, the exiles had come home, the Constitution was being drawn up and Andile had relocated to Johannesburg. By now he was a highly thought of young lawyer doing articles with Ackerman & Patel – a unique Indian and Jewish legal partnership.

  In the meantime, Nobantu had completed her matric and had been accepted to study a BCom in Accounting at Wits. She would have preferred to study literature at Rhodes, but her mother had been very insistent.

  “Literature? Black people do not read. Hhawu, sana, go and study accounting and then you will be rich, what do you want to study literature for? And at Rhodes?” her mother had asked.

  “But, Mama, I have a passion for it and I want to be close to home,” she had stated, pleading with her father with her eyes to take her side.

  Unfortunately, her father had just shrugged.

  “If it’s reading you want,” her mother had continued, “you can always read for fun when you are trying to wind down. What type of job will you get with literature? Passion, ha! If we all did things we were passionate about, do you think the whites would have agreed to free Mandela? Don’t waste your opportunities by following a stupid thing like passion.”

  And so Nobantu had reluctantly agreed to go to Wits. What swayed her was the thought that she might see Andile while in Johannesburg, and she did.

  Sure, upon her arrival Andile had continued with his brotherly routine, but soon their relationship changed. After a while he became less of a big brother and more of a friend, as he took time out of his busy schedule to take her out and educate her about the city he now referred to as “my Joburg”.

  When Andile talked of Johannesburg, he always spoke of it with such intensity, such passion, that Nobantu knew if Joburg had been a woman, she would never have stood a chance.

  As it was, the city was just that – a city. Spending so much time together, it wasn’t long before he became her mentor, her confidant and eventually, inevitably, her lover.

  She had known then that they made a striking couple. With his tall frame and the type of physique that was carefully maintained three times a week in their basement gym, Andile made an impression on everyone he met. And she, she knew without conceit, was the type of woman that, with her classic dark look, made her one of the beauties of her time. Together they made the type of good-looking couple that every photographer wanted in their portfolio.

  Yet now, as she sat on her bed in what her mother termed a mansion, she wondered if she
had ever really truly loved Andile, or if it was the fear of the unknown and her unplanned pregnancy at the age of nineteen that had resulted in their marriage? As she put on her dressing gown and made her way to their en suite bathroom, her eye caught her framed MBA on the dressing table. Was this all there was to her life? she wondered silently to herself. Prepping her husband and children to go to work and school respectively. A workout in her gym. A shower and an hour indulging in her passion (Andile childishly called it a hobby), sketching designs for the children’s clothes she one day hoped to bring to life. Manicures, pedicures and lunches with Oupa’s vacuous second wife – whom her irreverent eleven-year-old daughter had nicknamed Plastic Penny because of all the surgery she had undergone. Then home to make dinner and, if she was unlucky, her husband would be there, never asking how her day had been, but whining tediously about his work, his partners or the white folks in business who thought he was just another well-connected black person while showing little respect for his business acumen. God! She didn’t care any more. She had started shutting him out mentally even before he opened his mouth. Fifteen years of marriage will do that to you, she thought, and laughed cynically.

  She recalled that the morning after her party she just couldn’t get the phrase Andile had used to describe her out of her head. She is just a housewife. Was that all he really thought of her? She had decided that she and Andile needed to talk. She needed to show him, remind him, that there was more to her, that she was a woman of substance.

  She had walked to the bed and roused him from sleep. “Hmm?” he had mumbled, partially opening his eyes.

  “Andy, wake up,” she had said, continuing to shake him awake. She had stopped with the babes, darlings and sweethearts long ago.

  Sleepy-eyed, he turned and yawned without covering his mouth. His breath smelt foul. Had there been a time when she used to kiss him with morning breath?

  “What’s up?” he asked, sounding a little more alert.

  “We need to talk.”

  He glared at her. “For Chrissakes, I have just got into bed. What exactly do you want to talk about that cannot wait till later?” he asked, glancing at the bedside clock.

  “If you weren’t so busy all the time, I wouldn’t have to wake you up to speak to you,” she mumbled.

  “What?” he asked, obviously unable to believe her tone after the grand old party he had thrown her the night before.

  She raised her voice, just so that there would be no mistake this time around. “I said, if you weren’t so busy all the time, I wouldn’t have to wake you up to talk to you now.”

  “So talk then,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “I have been thinking,” she started. “I have been thinking of getting premises and starting my business like I’ve always wanted to do.”

  Andile looked at her as though she had lost her marbles. Then, slowly, he started laughing.

  When he finally got hold of himself, he looked at her with tears streaming down his face and said, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe he had just been woken up for this, “Nobantu, we have talked about this. I know you are a trained auditor and have those little sketches of yours you call designs, but do not deceive yourself that you can crack it in the business world. It’s not that easy, and it would be twice as hard for you. You have barely practised your profession,” he said patronisingly, like a parent talking to an impetuous three-year-old. “Hhayi, man, why don’t you just concentrate on what you do best . . .” He paused and chuckled. “Being a housewife and a mother. Besides, no one cares about putting their children in designer gear.”

  “That’s where you are wrong, Andile,” she said, refuting his assertion. “If that were true, babyGap would not exist, let alone exist and be doing so well.”

  “Yes, but how many South African babyGaps are there?” he asked. “Nobantu, people in this country are too practical to waste money on designer clothes for children they know will outgrow them before the year is out.”

  “I don’t agree, Andile. I think most mothers want their children to be dressed in the very best. Besides, I plan to corner the teen market too.”

  “Well, whatever,” he said, waving his hand towards her, “you can just forget about it. No wife of mine is going to work. What would people say when they hear that my wife is working? That I am incapable of taking care of you and the children? No, Nobantu, forget it!”

  At the time, Nobantu had looked at him aghast, but in retrospect she wondered why she had hoped that he would take her seriously. They had had the same conversation a million times before. Maybe she had hoped that the goodwill that had resulted in the party the night before would continue into the morning.

  The previous time she had raised the subject, a few months earlier, he had even threatened her with divorce should she go ahead and defy his wishes. That time, Nobantu had cursed herself, asking herself why she caused so much trouble. Andile was right, of course, he gave her everything. She even had an untouched account where he had been depositing twenty thou monthly for the last five years in the event that “if anything happens to me, you at least have some ready cash, before you begin sorting out the entire legal wrangle”.

  She had been silenced then, certain that she did not want to get a divorce. What would her mother say, and, more importantly, how would she survive without the lavish lifestyle she had become accustomed to?

  Sure, she had the untouched bank account to live on, but how long would that last?

  Could she leave him, slum it, and become – horror – middle-class: no maids, no manicures or pedicures, no gardeners?

  Could she leave him for a business that might, as Andile had highlighted time and again, fail?

  But an idea once dreamt can only be deferred for so long. She was thirty-five. She knew that if she didn’t act now, she would forever ask herself “what if ?”.

  In the past, when she had complained to her mother about Andile’s archaic attitude towards gender roles, her mother had always questioned her, “Hhawu, sana, why are you so ungrateful? Many women are dying for what you have and you are complaining. Your husband gives you and your children everything. Look at your wardrobe, the trips you make. Which woman would not die to get a trip to Tahiti just to buy genuine Tahitian pearls . . . Meanwhile your father always claims to be too sick to take me even as near as Botswana,” she had said, shaking her head at her child. “No, my child, I did not raise you to be an ungrateful wife. Stay with your husband without complaining. Besides, you know what your Aunt Thembi says . . .” She paused to look meaningfully at her daughter. “ ‘Better to cry in a limousine than laugh in a taxi!’ ”

  Nobantu looked down at the two of them on the society pages and shook her head.

  Damn the limousine. She would regain the independence that had been hers in those first few weeks of university before she got into a relationship with Andile. There was more to her life than this. There was more to her than just a housewife and she, Nobantu Makana, would prove it, with or without Andile’s blessing, marriage be damned!

  Chapter 3

  3

  MAPAMO Holdings, now advertised as a one hundred per cent BEE company, was named after the first syllables of the last names of founding partners Andile Makana, Anant Patel and Oupa Mokoena. As befitting any company with serious ambitions, they had their offices in the fashionable business hub of Sandton – where all three partners had somehow managed to get themselves spacious corner offices. As he swivelled on his chair, Andile realised that as soon as the company was listed this particular leg of MAPAMO’s journey would come to an end. There would be more people to be accountable to; less responsibility on his shoulders. He recalled how it had all started.

  Andile had met Anant at Ackerman & Patel and they had become firm friends. Anant, an only child whose mother had died at an early age, had always spoken of the opportunities on the continent once the sanctions against South Africa were lifted, but his father was not keen to finance what he thought of as a pipe dream. Andi
le, however, had also seen the opportunities open to those brave enough to dare and wished he had some collateral that could guarantee a worthwhile bank loan to kick-start his and Anant’s dream.

  Anant’s father – Uncle Zaheer, as everyone from the cleaners to his partner called him – had been an excellent lawyer and businessman. He had been more aware than most that the glory was in criminal litigation but the money was in company law, and together with a like-minded Jewish gentleman, Emmanuel Ackerman, he had set up Ackerman & Patel. Their company consulted far and wide on all aspects of business – from production companies to television stations, from NGOs to big business. If anyone wanted to know the legality of anything to do with their business, Ackerman & Patel were there to advise and make pots of money in the process. With the political situation in South Africa slowly changing, their name had started appearing on every important merger and acquisition on the continent. In Africa, the best young legal minds, trained by major universities worldwide – from Oxford to UCT, from the Sorbonne to Yale – either worked for, or knew someone who worked at, Ackerman & Patel. Zaheer had hoped that his son would, with his strong business acumen, study law and join the family business, but Anant had been adamant in his refusal, preferring to become his own man and study finance instead. With a little technical advice from his father’s sister, a few good chefs and some funding from a disappointed but supportive father, Anant had started a top-notch halal restaurant in Johannesburg. He had hoped to eventually turn the restaurant into a chain, should profits permit, and his father still refused to give him that big loan that would get him started on greater things. While the restaurant was profitable, Anant always told Andile that he considered the profits chump change compared to what he knew he could achieve if he had more money. Their opportunity had come with the death of Uncle Zaheer five years to the day after the 1994 elections.