Behind Every Successful Man Read online

  As you know, Xolani takes a bus to school by himself and comes back on his own. Nqobisa is out of school at two, but you can make arrangements for her to do her homework at school and be picked up and dropped at home at four as, by then, Xolani will also be home.

  Money.

  I have taken the debit card for our joint savings account, the one I normally use for groceries, as well as the Mastercard. I am letting you know because I don’t want you to think I am stealing from you. I am merely borrowing. Although I know you are entitled to refuse me any assistance I may ask for, especially given the unceremonious way I have departed, at this stage I need all the funds I can get – so this is me making a plea.

  I am moving into a hotel for a while and will call you as soon as I have made a plan of how I am going to do everything.

  I am so sorry, Andile. I really am. But I need to do this – if only to see what I am able to achieve. I hope you will not try to bring your threats of a divorce to fruition, but rather try to understand my decision and explain it to the children. Please try not to judge me too harshly.

  I am crying as I end this and I miss you and the children already.

  I love you and plan to ensure that you will all be proud of me and my decision at some later date, no matter how inconsiderate it seems now.

  Always your

  Nobantu

  He couldn’t believe it. How could she be so selfish, so inconsiderate. Hadn’t he expressly forbidden her to get into business? What type of a wife just left without telling her husband? What type of mother left her children without warning?

  He wouldn’t stand for this. He would make her suffer. He would make her beg to come back home. They would see how long her independence would last without money. He picked up the phone to cancel the credit card and the debit card to their savings account.

  Chapter 7

  7

  When Nobantu woke up in the early hours of the morning her head was heavy. As she turned her head, she caught sight of the empty vodka bottle beside her. This had to end, and end today, if she were to defy Andile’s wishes and make a success of herself. Besides, she needed every penny she had to make her business a success.

  As she downed two painkillers with half a glass of water from the bathroom, she told herself that yesterday’s vodka and orange was the last drink she would have until she made it.

  There were no children to get ready for school, no Andile to wake up for work, and so she found she had too much time on her hands. She decided to do some yoga stretches and some sit-ups. After an hour she felt rejuvenated. No more headache.

  After all the sweating, she jumped into the shower and began to plan what her day would look like. She would ensure that she was at Ackerman & Patel by eight o’clock. Sure, she hadn’t made an appointment, but she hoped there would be someone there who would be kind enough to assist her with registering her business. She knew she could start work on her label straight away, but she would never be able to sell anything if the business was unregistered. An apple from the complimentary fruit basket in her room was all she grabbed for breakfast before she made her way to Ackerman & Patel’s Rosebank offices. She just hoped she would be able to get everything done before her meeting with Tsholo.

  * * *

  The traffic on the freeway was heavy and she only managed to get to the offices by nine.

  On arrival, she immediately bumped into one of Andile’s old colleagues at the door.

  “Fancy seeing you here. How are you doing, Nobantu?” Henri asked her. A French-Canadian now permanently resident in South Africa, he was one of the longest serving members of Ackerman & Patel and had been partner for a while now.

  “I’m glad you saw me. I’m fine, but I’m here for some advice. Can I possibly get a minute of your time?” she asked.

  “If you were anyone else I would not have a minute, but as this is you,” he said, leading her by the hand to his office.

  His palms were sweaty and Nobantu hoped he would let go of her hand, but he only did so when they got to his office and he had to use his left hand to hold his briefcase while searching for his keys.

  “Business or pleasure?” he enquired as they sat down.

  “A bit of both. I need your advice regarding the registration of a small business I am starting,” she answered.

  Henri laughed. “Don’t worry about that. Do you have a business plan drawn up?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, taking a folder from her leather portmanteau and handing it to him.

  “Fine, let me take a look at it. In the meantime, would you like some coffee, tea, juice?” he asked solicitously.

  “I would love a cup of tea, thank you, but only if you aren’t going to charge me for it,” Nobantu replied.

  “Herbal or regular?” he asked as he summoned his personal assistant with a buzzer on his desk.

  “Just a regular cup of tea with milk and one sugar, thank you,” she said, smiling.

  He had just reminded her of the old joke about a guest visiting a bourgeois household who is asked whether she would like tea or coffee. On answering that she would like tea, the next question is regular or herbal, and on answering that she would like regular the guest is further questioned as to whether she would like Ceylon, Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong. Finally, annoyed by the endless choices, the guest responds that she has changed her mind and will just have water. Unfortunately, the guest’s frustration hasn’t come to an end, as the hostess then enquires whether she will have still or sparkling.

  Henri noticed her smile and asked her why she was smiling so mischievously. Nobantu told him the joke and he roared with laughter just as his personal assistant walked in to take the order.

  Henri perused the business plan while she sipped her tea nervously. He kept glancing at her chest as he went through the document, making her feel uncomfortable.

  Maybe she should have gone to someone else instead, she thought, but what if no one had time to talk to her and advise her? She would sit through it and hope that he at least offered her some kind of concrete help.

  When he had finished, he looked at her with newfound respect.

  “Nobantu, this is really very good,” he said, nodding his head, his eyes running over her full lips this time.

  She fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair.

  “One cannot quite believe that you have not been in business before,” he continued. “Listen, the help you need is minimal. It will take you less than two weeks to register, and if you want, I can take a look through my connections and see whether there aren’t some people amongst them that you can target with your marketing – parents to teenagers and pregnant mothers. How is that?”

  Nobantu couldn’t believe her luck. It really paid to know people. She was certain that Henri would never have given her the time of day, let alone taken the personal interest he was taking now, if she hadn’t known him.

  “So how much will the whole registration process and everything cost?” she asked, still nervous about the funds required.

  He stood up and walked over to her side of the desk. “For you, nothing,” he said, touching her gently on the shoulder. “Well, okay, not quite nothing,” he continued. “As soon as your first range is out, I want a few things for my children. Soweto Uprising. Why did no one ever think of that before? What a great name for a youth label!”

  While all the time beaming at the compliment, she raised her hands, as though to stretch, and managed to dislodge the hand on her shoulder that was making her uncomfortable.

  Henri noticed and a shadow came over his face as he once again became the busy lawyer. He looked at his watch and said, “Done, then. Leave this with me and leave your contacts with my assistant and I’ll give you a call as soon as it is all sorted. On your way out kindly also ask my PA to make a copy of your ID, fill out an application form, and I will get a junior lawyer to take the form and the copy to the Department of Trade and Industry in Pretoria with some other paperwork that also
needs to get there this afternoon.”

  She noted the dismissal in his voice, but was glad that she would have everything sorted out soon. She would, however, be wary of visiting him in the office again.

  Although married to a fellow French-Canadian, Henri was reputed to have a penchant for black women, and was rumoured to keep a mistress in a flat somewhere. His wife was apparently aware of it, but seemed not to care. Maybe they were one of those couples with an open relationship? She shrugged her shoulders. She was glad for the help, but she didn’t want to become one of Henri’s conquests.

  Chapter 8

  8

  Andile woke up before his alarm went off. He felt exhausted after a night of tossing and turning. He still couldn’t believe the letter that Nobantu had left for him. How could she do that to him?

  He dozed off, meaning to close his eyes for a few minutes, only to be woken by his daughter. “Daddy?” she called to him, opening the door to the bedroom. “Aren’t you going to work, and if you aren’t, who is taking me to school?”

  He looked at the bedside clock. It was seven o’clock. Blast.

  “I’m going to work, princess. I worked late and my alarm didn’t go off for some reason. Let me jump in the shower, get something on and I’ll take you to school,” he answered, piling up all the excuses he could think of in one breath.

  “But what about my breakfast?” she enquired.

  “Look, sweetie, you’ll have to make something for yourself. I’m late as it is. Can’t you just pick up something? Have some cereal while I shower. And tell your brother to hurry up too, so I can drop you guys at school,” he said as he dragged himself out of bed and towards the bathroom.

  Nqobisa rolled her eyes as only a pre-teen can do. “Daddy, don’t you know ANYTHING? Xolani goes to school by himself. He has just left and . . .”

  Of course Xolani went to school by himself. How had it slipped his mind? He recalled Nobantu’s letter.

  “That’s great, sweetie,” he said, cutting her short. “You can tell me all about it in the car. Now let me do what I have to do and you go eat.” And, with that, he closed the bathroom door on her.

  Getting out of the shower, he hit another brick wall. What to wear?

  By the time he got out of bed Nobantu had always laid his clothes out for him. Good thing his underwear was always in his bedside drawer, he thought, as he picked out a pair of pants and a shirt – he always kept a few ties and blazers at the office so he was sorted on that count – and began to dress hurriedly.

  When he finished, he went downstairs to find his daughter. She started giggling as soon as she saw him.

  He looked at her impatiently. “What?” he said. “Come on, stop giggling and let’s go.”

  “Daddy, did you forget to look in the mirror? Your shirt has a big stain on the sleeve,” she answered, with what looked to him like a you-are-so-helpless-without-Mom smirk.

  He looked at his shirt sleeve, and sure enough, the kid was right. Andile rushed back to the bedroom to pick up a clean shirt. Why the hell had Nobantu put this dirty shirt in the closet? Honestly, what type of wife does that?

  Then he remembered that it was he who had put it there last night as he changed into his pyjamas, and the stain was marinara sauce from the pizza he had eaten with the kids.

  In the car, his daughter confided in him that he had committed a cardinal sin because, “Mom says breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and you didn’t make us any, and you didn’t have any either, Daddy.”

  He was not in the mood for this. He almost felt like sinking to his daughter’s level and telling her, “So, go to your mother wherever she is then.” Almost felt like, but did not. He was the one in charge here. The adult. He had to look at the children as a business and deal with them accordingly.

  Nqobisa turned to him and said, “Daddy?”

  This did not sound good. “Yes, sweetie?” he replied, using every ounce of patience he possessed.

  “When is Mom coming back?” Nqobisa asked.

  Aha. The billion rand question. He wished he knew the answer to that one. He hadn’t yet told his children that their mother hadn’t gone to the Eastern Cape, but was probably somewhere in Johannesburg chasing rainbows. He had chosen not to say anything until he could get a second opinion from someone else on how to break it to them in a way that they would understand. Because he certainly did not understand.

  “Soon,” he responded vaguely.

  “Soon when?” she asked, needling away.

  Boy, was he glad to see the school gate up ahead! “Look, princess, Daddy has a meeting. We’ll talk about it later, okay?” he said, as he leant across and kissed her while opening the door for her with his other hand, thus ensuring that there would be no more questions, at least for the moment.

  “Don’t forget to pick me up at two o’clock,” she reminded him.

  He slapped his forehead, he had already forgotten. He would have to send one of the drivers with a note to come and pick her up and he told her as much.

  “He will bring you to my office and you and Khanyi can have some fun while I finish off work. Then we can go home together. What do you think?” he asked with an enthusiasm he did not feel.

  She looked at him with a sulky face. “I think it would be nice to have Mommy back today,” she replied.

  Spoilt brat. Didn’t she see how hard he was trying? He reversed his car at high speed, feeling annoyed, and almost bumped into another car that was coming into the driveway.

  He was late.

  He arrived in the boardroom, sans tie, fifteen minutes late. He swore he saw a look on a white investment banker’s face that said: We may be in Africa, but business does not run on African time.

  Well, screw him. It was quarter past eight in the morning and he felt exhausted. All he wanted to do was to get back home to his bed and here he was at the beginning of another business day.

  Crap!

  Chapter 9

  9

  While waiting for Tsholo to arrive, back in her hotel room in Gold Reef City, she decided that now was as good a time as any to call her friends and family and let them know where she was and what she had done. She was sure that if the head gardener had told Andile that she had gone emakhaya, Andile would have called her parents, and the chances were that her mother would have started to worry by now. While most sons-in-law complained about their relationship with their mother-in-law, this was not the case with Andile. In fact, sometimes she felt that her mother preferred him to her.

  Her mother’s cellphone rang twice and then she answered. Nobantu’s heart sank. She had been hoping for the coward’s way out, hoping that she could just leave a message.

  “Hello, Ma,” Nobantu finally responded to her mother’s multiple “hello”s.

  “Hhawu,” her mother said, sounding elated, “your husband was worried about you. So what time are you arriving?”

  Nobantu went through the process of explaining that she was not, in fact, on her way eCumakala, but was instead trying to figure out some things regarding her dreams.

  “Uyahlanya, Nobantu?” her mom yelled. “I said, are you mad? Was it your father’s sisters who bewitched you? After that great party that your husband threw for you, you just leave? Manje uhlala phi njengamanje?”

  “In a hotel, Mama,” she answered softly.

  “In a hotel? Which you are paying for with the money Andile makes? Hhayi-bo, there are people who are called ingrates and that is you. Why don’t you go and stay at your older brother’s house and save the money? Ha! And who do you think is looking after your children?”

  Nobantu sighed. Why was it so difficult for her mother to understand her need to have some sense of purpose?

  She tried to get her mother off the phone by claiming there was someone knocking at her door, to which her mother answered, “I don’t care, let me finish.”

  Nobantu let her finish. But she never heard another word her mother said, having chosen to put the phone on the dresser whi
le she took a trip to the bathroom to touch up her make-up. Upon her return her mother had finished speaking, but she had also hung up.

  It was rude of her to do that to her mother, she knew, but Nobantu really wished that she would at least try to understand her decision. Did her mother think it was easy for Nobantu to leave her children? She missed them so much. She would call her babies tonight and beg for their understanding.

  Just as she was about to pick up the phone, she received a text message from her mother. It read: You can’t avoid reason by ignoring me. If you have not sorted this mess out in three months, I am coming there.

  She wondered whether her mother would ever be able to stay out of her business. Feeling drained, she called Ntsiki.

  When Ntsiki heard the news – of her hoped-for and yet still surprising departure – she laughed aloud. Nobantu could picture her holding her cellphone between her head and shoulder and clapping hard as she always did when elated about something. At least one of them was happy. She chatted with Ntsiki until a beep announced Tsholo was on the other line and they said their farewells.

  * * *

  Tsholo was waiting downstairs in her car and wasted no time in taking her to the Deep. As Tsholo drove, Nobantu briefed her on what had occurred.

  Tsholo gasped. “You? Docile, perfect housewife you? Leave your husband and kids to pursue a dream? Tjhoo! Still waters certainly run deep.”

  Nobantu wondered whether she really had always appeared as Tsholo described her and concluded that she had. Everyone knew that she sought Andile’s approval on everything and anything. Yet, here she was, breaking free in her own way.