Behind Every Successful Man Page 3

  Approached by his father’s partner with a business proposal, Anant took the opportunity with both hands. The proposal:

  “Listen, dear boy, save for a few coins left to charity, your father left everything to you. What say you sell me, and some interested investors, the half of the company that now belongs to you, because unlike your father, Yahweh bless him, I know you have no interest in this company.”

  Anant had asked for the offer of purchase in writing, knowing well what a shrewd lawyer his Uncle Emmanuel was. He might not grossly cheat the son of his partner, but he might put a couple of hundred thousand over him. Anant needed to discuss it with Andile so he could cover all the loopholes, and besides, this could just be the opportunity that would allow the two friends to set up on their own. After consulting with Andile, Anant was able to get a higher price than initially offered as well as a sentimental clause that requested that Uncle Emmanuel keep the Patel on the masthead in memory of Anant’s father.

  “Dear boy, did you ever think I would remove it?” Emmanuel had said, finding amusement in the sentimentality of this otherwise level-headed child.

  With the papers signed, Andile, now a junior partner, had tendered his resignation eight years after he had first joined Ackerman & Patel, which brought much sorrow from Emmanuel, who was well aware that, of the many young lawyers in his company, here was one young man who was more than simply well-versed in the landscape of the country and its laws.

  With Anant’s capital and Andile’s legal brain, it may have looked like they were set, but Andile wasn’t convinced.

  “We are going to throw most of this money down the drain if we don’t get another person in,” he had advised.

  Anant had been aghast. “For what? We have everything we need.”

  “Not quite, my friend. We need connections. Governments and businesses don’t give contracts to nobodies just because they have good legal minds and a bit of money,” he had said pragmatically.

  “So, do you have anyone in mind and, if so, what can you tell me about them?” Anant had asked impatiently.

  Andile remembered that day. How he had taken his time pouring himself some Johnny Black, knowing full well that he was annoying the hell out of Anant. And then he had told Anant about Oupa Mokoena. Oupa, a fifty-something-year-old former Umkhonto we Sizwe intelligence operative, had done a stint at Robben Island before going into exile. He had great links with both those in power and the exiles. A likeable chap with a penchant for jazz, single malt whiskies and beautiful women, he was working in a senior position in government. Andile had met him at some chisa nyama in Alex and they had formed a mutual admiration society.

  After being told of their plan, Oupa – like every ambitious person who “did not fight the apartheid regime to starve” – had resigned from his job and joined the two younger men.

  With Anant’s money, Oupa’s connections and Andile’s legal brain, it was not long before MAPAMO Holdings became a well-known name in the world of mining. They had started in the platinum industry, but with South African soldiers eventually being found on Congolese soil, it wasn’t long before they diversified into diamonds and coltan.

  Andile figured that if they shut up shop today, all three of them would still have more money than they knew what to do with for the rest of their lives. But with more African countries to be conquered – a Ghanaian guy he had been talking to at one meeting had referred to South Africans as the neocolonialists of the continent – they weren’t going to stop now. They needed more funding and being listed on the JSE would allow them access to the working capital they required for the next big step. Of course, there was no shortage of people interested in investing in MAPAMO, but if anyone had any doubts, they would have seen what a big player he was in the society pages last weekend. Yeah, Nobantu’s party had been a good touch, he thought, nodding his head.

  It was almost five-thirty. In another thirty minutes, Andile would meet his partners so that he could break down to each of them just what was due, using the figures he had received from Anant. Sure, he could have asked his secretary to draw up a memo, but he thought it better that they sat down and toasted their good fortune which was, with the listing on the JSE, just about to get better. It was at that moment that his cellphone, the one with a private number, rang.

  “Makana speaking,” he answered curtly. He had perfected the art of sounding like a very busy man when answering his phone. It made people get to the point and it scared off telemarketers.

  “Yes, sir, this is the principal at —— Convent. Are you the father of Nqobisa Makana?”

  The principal was white and had pronounced his daughter’s name as Nikobisa. Andile was impatient with white people who mispronounced black names. They always made such a to-do about black people who were unable to speak good English and yet, four hundred years after they had arrived, they still couldn’t pronounce their fellow countrymen’s names. This is why he had deliberately insisted on his children having names with clicks in them and no middle names. Reconciliation? Then reconcile with my official language as I have reconciled with yours, he thought.

  “Nqobisa,” he corrected the principal. “Yes, I am her father. Has something happened to my daughter?” He would sue the Catholic Church if anything had happened to his daughter. Thixo! Please say she is okay, he prayed silently.

  “No, sir,” the principal answered.

  Andile sighed in relief, but his relief was short-lived.

  “But she is the only child left at school and my attempts at getting hold of her mother have proved futile. Could you come and pick her up?” the principal requested, with what sounded like Christ-like patience.

  “Sure. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Andile answered, hanging up.

  Why had his daughter not called him herself? Had she lost yet another cellphone? More importantly, he wondered, what had happened to Nobantu? She did absolutely nothing all day, how come she couldn’t even manage to pick up their daughter? He had a few choice words to say to her.

  He dialled her number, but the phone just rang. And rang. And rang. Until: “This is Nobantu Makana, I am currently unavailable, but if you leave a message I will get back to you at my earliest convenience.” And then the beep.

  Chapter 4

  4

  Always the first member of the household up, Nobantu was up at dawn two Mondays after her party to prep her husband and the children as usual.

  As she got up, Andile asked her sleepily, for the umpteenth time, “Why don’t you just tell the maids to come in earlier instead of waking up at the crack of dawn to get everyone ready?”

  And she answered as she always did, “Because they aren’t our slaves. They deserve a forty-hour working week like everyone else. Besides, I am sure I can manage to make breakfast for the three of you.”

  Andile heaved a sigh and went back to sleep.

  The actual reason for her morning routine was that she loved mornings. It was the only time she had to herself.

  Another chilly winter’s day in Johannesburg, she thought, as she peeped between her bedroom curtains. She put on her dressing gown over her nicely cut nightie – her family tailor in downtown Johannesburg was a dream – and left the bedroom quietly, not wanting to disturb a now softly snoring Andile.

  While the coffee brewed, she went to unlock the doors for the servants, ending, as always, with the front door, where she would meet the security guard on duty with the daily newspapers. She never understood why whichever security guard was on duty always brought all the papers to her – she never took anything but the broadsheet, leaving the tabloids for the maids and the gardeners to tsk-tsk and tjhoo over. But so it was.

  “Morning, Mama,” he said, as they met at the door.

  She wished they would just call her Mrs Makana. Being called “mama” by men and women clearly older than her made her feel uncomfortable.

  “Ewe, bhuti, everything okay last night?” she asked. Not that she ever expected anything to have happened. Not
only were there the high walls with an electrified fence on top, but there were also two security guards less than a hundred metres from their gate manning a boom.

  On returning to the kitchen, she started dicing the fresh fruit for her daughter’s breakfast muesli. She poured herself a cup of coffee – black, two sugars – and settled herself at the breakfast table in the kitchen to peruse the paper. Nothing new. A couple of murders in Durban. A hijacking in Johannesburg where the car owner was left in some godforsaken place wearing only his underwear. Port Elizabeth had made the papers with a cash-in-transit heist. Some cabinet minister was still being slugged for his dishonesty in parliament (strange people, journalists, holier than thou, as though they actually believed there were any honest politicians). A Springbok coach had been hired, a Bafana coach fired. Proteas had beaten Sri Lanka.

  After finishing her coffee, she poured her husband a cup – black, three sugars – and walked to the bedroom to gently shake him awake.

  “I’m already awake,” he said as she shook his shoulder gently. He always said that. She wondered why, if he was awake, he always waited for her to bring him his coffee before getting out of bed.

  “Good morning to you too,” she said as she went to wake up the kids.

  At precisely six-thirty, as always on weekdays, everyone assembled in the kitchen to have their breakfast. Nobantu dashed to take a quick shower and dress so she would be ready in time to take Nqobisa to school. She used to drive both children, but Xolani had stopped wanting to be driven to school when he started high school, preferring to take the bus.

  She shared a perfunctory goodbye kiss with her husband as they walked to their separate cars – she to drop off Nqobisa, he to go to work. As they left the property, Xolani was also walking towards the gate.

  When she returned from dropping off Nqobisa, she went into the kitchen to clear away the breakfast things and place the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Her husband never understood this little habit of hers – the maids would be starting work at eight – but she always cleaned out of vanity. She didn’t want the maids to think she was a dirty woman. As she cleaned up, she thought back to a telephone conversation she had shared with Ntsiki the night before.

  “Look, I am tired of you whining about your life, about how Andile doesn’t let you live your dreams. If it bothers you so much, why don’t you get out?” Ntsiki had asked, sounding annoyed.

  “Ntsiki, you don’t understand. Who will take care of the kids? You know Andile is always so busy,” she had answered, pleading with her friend to understand.

  They had had this conversation many times before, but Ntsiki never seemed to understand. Maybe it was because she wasn’t a mother, Nobantu thought. She was about to say more, but Ntsiki had shut her up. “Listen, Nobantu,” she had said. “I am your friend. I love you. But I am tired of hearing you complain about this situation. Sure, you worry about the kids, but you are the one telling me how worried you are about what Nqobisa said at that party you took her to a few weeks back. Is that really how you want your daughter to perceive you? Would you not in fact be doing your daughter a favour if you pursued your dreams?”

  Painful memory. Ntsiki really knew how to get a dig in. Some time ago, Nobantu had taken her daughter to the party of a school friend. The hostess had enquired of Nqobisa, in that patronising manner that adults have, “And you, young lady, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  Nqobisa had looked at the woman with the confidence that only an eleven-year-old at a private school can have, and said, “I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe I’ll own a company like my father or be a doctor like my Aunt Nazli.” Then, shrugging her shoulders, the little madam had continued: “But I know what I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be like my mother. She does boring stuff like going to the salon and getting her nails done all day. She just waits for Dad to pay for everything.”

  The woman had looked up and, catching Nobantu’s eye, had had the decency to be embarrassed – she too had a salon-going profession.

  “Ja neh, but Ntsiks, how will I do it? If I start working from home and Andile finds out about it there will be hell to pay. He has talked about getting a divorce over it. I’m not sure I want to get divorced.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Andile would never divorce you, you know that. And if he does, well, maybe then he wasn’t worth keeping in the first place. All you need to do is give him some sort of a shock. Get out of that house like yesterday, do what you have to do and then negotiate on your terms,” Ntsiki had told her impatiently.

  By the time the maids came in, the plan that had been forming in her head since her conversation with Ntsiki was crystallising.

  Maybe she had needed her friend’s words – a bit of a kick in the backside – to get her going. Ntsiki had said exactly what she had been thinking all along – after all, had she not spent the whole of the previous week perusing the books in Andile’s study, trying to put together a business plan?

  It was time to stand up to Andile and become a human being in her own right. Sure, the money in the joint account was minimal, a few tens of thousands, primarily for household expenses, but maybe she could use that to pay for a hotel room while she tried to find somewhere to stay as well as premises for her business?

  Thank heavens for Andile’s emergency fund, which would be her seed money for the business. She smiled to herself. Had he known what the emergency would turn out to be, he may not have been so quick to make those monthly deposits. As it was, only she had signing rights to the account, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t touch it.

  “Sorry, Mama, the laundry soap is finished and I wanted to start on the washing while MaNomatter does the bedrooms, so . . .” Dudu, her newest maid, said, interrupting her thoughts. A month at the Makana household and she was still very timid.

  Nobantu sighed. She had forgotten to get the shopping list from the maids last week and find out what was missing, busy as she was drawing up her business plan. She would have to go and do some shopping.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot to do the shopping. Why don’t you start with the dusting and the living room and I will go shopping immediately?” Nobantu suggested.

  “Yes, Mama,” Dudu answered with downcast eyes.

  Nobantu knew she couldn’t really trust Dudu’s shy nature. Nobantu had fired the girl before her – who had always seemed respectful – after she had overheard a conversation between the maid and Nqobisa.

  Nqobisa had walked in and demanded a cup of tea from the maid because, “It’s four o’clock already and I have to have a cup of tea before I start my homework.”

  Not knowing that Nobantu was in the vicinity, or even at home, said maid had answered the request with, “Lalela! You don’t pay my wages, so do not think a little thing like you can boss me around. Your mother does not even pay me enough for all the running around I do for you people. You and your family with a company that was probably started with drug money.”

  At which time Nobantu had seen fit to walk in on them both.

  She had fired that maid on the spot, but not without reprimanding her daughter and lecturing her on the nature of respect. She was becoming too much of a little madam, that one.

  Nomatter, fortunately, was different. A widow from Alex, she had been with the family since they’d moved to Sandton, a year after Andile and his partners had started MAPAMO. She doted on the children as though they were her grandchildren.

  Nobantu drove to the mall. She knew that, with everything else, Andile would not have time to shop. She chastised herself for still considering him when he obviously didn’t care about her, but decided that since this may be the last time, there was no harm in quitting her role gracefully.

  Upon returning home, she went to her bedroom, took out four suitcases and started packing. She laughed loudly as she noted how difficult being rich was – it looked like she had so many essentials. She needed to take everything she needed now because it might be a while before she was back in this house. All pac
ked, she started jotting down all the numbers she would need from her cellphone in her little notebook. She was leaving the phone behind. She knew Andile could track her via her cellphone if he was prepared to spend the money, and she feared he might succeed in talking her out of the brave action she was about to undertake. Finally, she sent Dudu, who was busy cleaning the closet in their bedroom, to go and call one of the three gardeners to help her carry her luggage.

  The Malawian gardener, Chimwemwe, who was also their head gardener, arrived, hat in hand.

  “Yes, Mama?” he said, sounding obsequious as always. She didn’t trust anyone who could make himself sound that servile, but he was a good gardener and that was all that mattered.

  “Can you help me carry these suitcases to the Range Rover, please, Baba?” she asked.

  As he obliged, he asked, “Are you going home to the rural areas?”

  She nodded. She was damned if she was going to tell Chimwemwe where she was off to – particularly when she wasn’t yet sure herself.

  She sat down and wrote a note for Andile, which she put under his pillow together with her cellphone. This completed, she went to her dresser and picked up a file of all the design sketches she had done over the years, gave one cursory look at the bedroom she had decorated so meticulously, turned and walked out of the house.

  It wouldn’t have had to be this way if Andile had been reasonable. Yet, in spite of his lack of reason she would miss him. She knew she would also miss her daughter, but most of all she would miss her son. Her son, at sixteen, was so grown-up sometimes he felt like the only friend she had in the house. Sure, a mother is not supposed to have favourites, blah blah blah, but if someone could show her a mother who didn’t have a favourite child, she would gladly show that someone a mother who was a liar. She could have resented Xolani for trapping her in a marriage at a young age, but she did not. He was a good boy.

  As she got behind the wheel of the Range she smiled, in a feeble attempt to hide the frustration she felt at her marriage. She smiled, too, looking at the file on the passenger seat beside her, in the knowledge that today was the first day of the rest of her life. After starting the engine, she flipped young Ms Dana’s The One Love Movement to track three and sang along: