Behind Every Successful Man Read online

  What he didn’t know was that Nobantu would call the children from her cellphone as she waited outside in the car, refusing to enter the house that had, more and more, begun to feel like a prison. She missed him. Of course she did. But she wasn’t going to be the one to break the impasse. If he loved her enough, he would come to her, promise to be supportive, and beg her (not order her, as he had done) to come back home.

  But Jozi is small at the best of times. Smaller still if you’ve been married for fifteen years and all your friends are the same. Two months after Nobantu had left Andile, they were both invited to Plastic Penny’s baby shower.

  When Tsholo had been married to Oupa, the whole of Jozi knew he was a Lothario, but he was wise enough to attempt to keep it from his wife or, when caught, to lie and lie well. But then Penny had come into his life and things had changed.

  Penny had arrived on the South African social scene as a runner-up in one of those reality television singing contests. After the contest, with one song ill-received by the South African public, Penny would have easily faded from the minds of the nation had she not insisted on conducting a very public affair with a very married Oupa. Then photographs of Oupa and Penny in compromising positions had been leaked to the tabloids. Although Oupa, in love with Penny, insisted to this day that Tsholo had hired some “private dick” to follow him, those who knew Tsholo were certain it had been the work of Penny, who was tired of being a mistress to the millions and wanted to be married to them. Humiliated, Tsholo sued for a divorce and before the ink had even dried on the papers, fifty-something-year-old Oupa had married twenty-year-old Penny and the younger woman had moved into the Forest Town mansion she’d always dreamt of – a Soweto girl done good.

  Oupa, the former Romeo, had managed to stay faithful to Penny for most of their three-year marriage. A year earlier, though, rumours that maybe he wasn’t as faithful as the country thought had started to do the rounds. Some claimed that, to secure her position, Penny then became pregnant. Whatever the truth of the matter, there could be no doubt that Penny was taking her future motherhood seriously. She hadn’t even gone to Brazil on her annual plastic surgery pilgrimage in order to show the “world” that she could be a responsible mother.

  It was amazing how someone who hadn’t achieved anything in their own right, someone who was just famous for being famous, like Penny, could have such a huge impact on the national psyche and the national shopping trends, but there it was, Penny led and South Africans of all races followed. Born to a Soweto supermarket mogul, Penny, with her little French words, learnt at one of Jozi’s private schools, and her designer jeans, was an enigma to many and annoyed many, but despite this the general public flocked to buy papers and magazines whenever she was featured.

  It was to the baby shower of these two colourful characters that both Andile and Nobantu were invited.

  Who goes? Who stays?

  Oupa was Andile’s partner, there was no way he could credibly miss something like a baby shower.

  And Penny and Nobantu?

  Well, they weren’t exactly friends, but they had shared many a girls’ lunch, shopping excursion and spa treatment. Besides, Nobantu’s marketing strategy for her new business was firmly based around Penny’s baby and she really needed to ensure that Penny’s child, when he or she finally arrived, would become a loyal brand ambassador.

  She arrived after him. It was her turn to have the children and she had wanted to spend a little more time with them before she left them to a game of ludo with Tsholo’s boyfriend, Mxolisi.

  She saw him before he saw her. He was standing on the veranda, engaged in conversation with Anant, Oupa and a bunch of other men. In a pair of Levi’s and a woollen jumper that looked like it had been casually chosen for the occasion, he was doubtlessly the best-looking male there – and if there were any argument about that then she was sure no woman could argue that he was the only man with presence. He looked in her direction as she walked up and, for a while, everyone was silent. An awkward silence. Everyone knew their story.

  It was he who broke the ice.

  “Come, folks, you don’t need to be uncomfortable just because my wife has arrived. The two of us are uncomfortable enough without you people adding to it.”

  Everyone laughed unconvincingly, but the temperature in the room had gone up a few degrees.

  They had both tried to avoid each other, but one can only do that for so long. He felt drawn to her; he had forgotten how beautiful she was. Was it a case of absence making the heart grow fonder?

  She tried to keep busy, even going as far as helping the caterers sort out the cutlery, but everywhere she went, she felt his eyes on her. She looked up at him once and caught a look of naked lust on his face. He was quick to turn his head and appear as though he was engrossed in a conversation with the boys – a conversation whose origin he could not quite remember.

  “So, how are you doing exactly?” he asked her when they gravitated towards each other once again.

  “Absolutely fine. Couldn’t be better. And you?” There was no way she was going to let him know that she missed him.

  “Oh, wonderful, I believe I have finally got the parenting thing down pat.” There was no way he was going to let her know that he missed her.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I am just going to the bathroom to freshen up.”

  She knew she sounded lame. Who announces to their husband that they are going to freshen up at a baby shower? She felt like a schoolgirl. Flustered. She walked away wishing he would follow.

  He looked at her as she walked away. Damn it, she was sexy. How had he gone for so many nights without making love to her? How could he not be turned on by a woman who looked the way she did?

  He followed her.

  He found her staring at her reflection in the mirror, standing confidently as though she had known he would follow.

  As soon as he closed the door on them, it felt like the early days of their courtship again. It may have looked like some third-rate movie, but it felt just right. To be walking towards each other. To be in each other’s arms without exchanging a single word. To be kissing lips that felt so familiar yet so strange. It had been too long.

  It was explosive.

  If this is what he would get every day when she got home, he would compromise with her on every little thing she wanted, he thought.

  She smiled. She had forgotten that sex with him could be enjoyable, more than just a duty. She had missed him.

  She bit into his shoulder as she reached the climactic moment. Wanting to yell, but fearing that the outside world would know what was occurring – they were probably suspicious, no need to confirm their suspicions.

  After getting her breath back, she began to tidy herself up in front of the mirror, trying to look virginal although she was certain that everyone at the shower would know what they had been up to.

  “So?” he asked as she washed her hands. “Can you come home now?”

  What? Did he know her so little? Did he think she could not live without sex?

  “NO!” she said emphatically.

  “No?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Yes, Andile, I said no. Did you think that good sex was all you needed to offer me and I’d change my mind and come back home?” she said. Looking angry, she walked out of the bathroom, banging the door behind her.

  Had he failed to say it correctly? He was going to take a leak, then he would follow her and explain that he was willing to get her back at any cost, whatever her terms might be.

  When he got back to the crowd, she was gone.

  PART III

  Chapter 11

  11

  It had been three months since Nobantu had left the marital home. Three months of late arrivals at the office and presentations forgotten at home. Three months of lonely nights in bed. Well, there had been that one night at Oupa’s house that had almost made him change his mind. Thank goodness she had left befo
re he made promises he would have been hard pressed to keep.

  In Nobantu’s defence, she had not been a totally absent parent. She had continued to call the children and, with permission from Tsholo, would take them every weekend, but it wasn’t the same. In the early days of single parenting, he had caught himself thinking that had he known what a taxing job parenting was, he would have made sure he was castrated – okay, a little extreme, but anyone with a pre-teen daughter who thought she knew it all could probably relate to how he was feeling.

  It had been ages since he had been able to go for a round of golf with the boys, taking advantage of the time when the children were with Nobantu to just wind down and rest. Until Nobantu left, he had never understood what she meant by wanting “me time”. Now Andile understood what was meant by parenthood being a full-time job. Maybe if he had known this earlier, he mused, he would have been more supportive of Nobantu. But then he shook his head. He could do this. He had survived the worst of it. Sure, he had been given a hint or two by Nobantu on discipline and he had called his mother-in-law once or twice when it all seemed unbearable, but he could confidently say he had done the rest on his own. He knew, with a certain clarity, that he was now experienced enough to survive anything that parenthood handed him.

  How wrong he was.

  It started one Friday night after work. As he sat having his post-work drink – as had become his tradition (it was the only time he could be by himself and relax) – his son entered his study. It had been an exhausting day. In fact, it had been an exhausting three months.

  “Don’t you knock?” he asked, a little pissed at being disturbed.

  “Molo, Tata. Sorry to disturb. I just wanted to say that I have taken the fish out for dinner. Should I make it or are you going to do it?” Xolani asked, sounding like the family butler.

  “No, you go ahead,” Andile answered gruffly.

  Maybe he should have gone to do it – Nobantu wouldn’t have left it to the boy, but the simple fact was that boy was a better cook than him. Thank heavens for Xolani. His maternal grandparents had raised him well during his formative years.

  Andile wondered where he and Nobantu had gone wrong with Nqobisa. Maybe it was his fault, he thought, in a moment of silent mea culpa. Nqobisa who, when he had picked her up from school, and offered to take her to Capello’s for a father-daughter moment – the kind she had relished when her mother was around – had responded, “I’m not hungry, Dad, and I don’t want you paying for me to go to a restaurant. All I want is for you to support Mom, so that she can come back home. A lot of my friends’ moms have businesses. What’s the big deal?”

  He had answered by telling her not to question him. He was the parent.

  She had sulked all the way home. For the nth time, he wondered why she couldn’t be more like her brother. His wife had always told him that he spoilt Nqobisa, but he had always found her smartass remarks spirited, instead of calling them what they were – downright bad behaviour. After all, the girl could charm the devil herself and when it hadn’t been him disciplining her, it had been easy to let her get away with it. Now, it was up to him to start disciplining her. He would hate for her to turn out as one of those BEE princesses, who had no direction and spent all their time spending daddy’s money in every decadent way they could think of. It was time to show Nqobisa just who the parent was. It would be difficult, but he would have to do it (only God knew when Nobantu would come back home).

  He stood up to take a walk to the far side of the garden to smoke a cigar and clear his head.

  It was a warm, dark night, with only a sprinkling of stars visible through the clouds, so he smelt it before he saw the figure standing by one of the flower beds. Sure, he had only smoked it once and found it distasteful, which had resulted in him always wondering just what many reggae artists and a significant portion of South Africa’s population found enticing about it, but he knew the smell. Yes. It was without a doubt the smell of marijuana.

  “Wenzeni?” he asked, walking in the direction of the smoker, who quickly threw the blunt down and attempted to swallow the smoke, resulting in five minutes of back-patting as the little idiot choked.

  When he had recovered, Xolani looked up guiltily at his father. Then, a moment later, the look turned defiant. “You and Nqo fight all the time and I have to act all grown-up,” he whined. “Mommy isn’t here and you don’t seem to want her back, so I just got this from Baba Chims to relieve stress.”

  Ha! The little bugger must think he was a fool, trying to get with that psychobabble rubbish that seemed to be on every talk show in the country. Did the boy actually think it would work with him? Did he think that just because his father was worth a few million he had lost the common sense he was born with?

  Andile had been brought up in a time when the rod was not spared in the disciplining of a child, a time when children, no matter how old, never attempted to explain bad behaviour to their parents.

  “Shut up and get in the house right now, you little bastard. I want to find you in my study,” Andile growled violently.

  His son rushed to comply. He had never seen his father like that before.

  * * *

  Andile knew he had to calm down before going back in the house. He needed to think clearly about how he would discipline the boy whom he had always considered the golden child.

  He would talk to Baba Chimwemwe tomorrow morning. He considered firing him, but Chimwemwe had green fingers, was great with the plants and was also a tireless worker. Docking some of his pay was a better idea. It would teach him a lesson and stop him from passing his Malawi Gold on to the child. After all, the man had a family to look after and he could have simply been giving the boy marijuana in an attempt to get in Xolani’s good books.

  He lit his cigar and wondered where he was going wrong as a parent. He had seen the way the kid had been holding that joint, it was certainly not his first smoke. Now, more than ever, he needed Nobantu. What other drugs was the boy doing? And was his forward little sister, with her cheeky personality, doing drugs too? One never knew with these children. Hell!

  He finished his cigar, walked into the house, went straight to Nqobisa’s room and opened the door aggressively. His daughter was reading a teen romance novel. “Dad! Don’t you knock?” she asked indignantly, attempting to hide the book under her pillow.

  He gave her a look that silenced any further protest. “When I am visiting your house, I will knock. This house belongs to me and I don’t need to knock,” he said. “Now, get out of bed, I want to talk to you and your brother in my study.”

  She stood up unwillingly and marched out of her room.

  Xolani was sitting on the couch in his study. Andile nodded to Nqobisa to join her brother and then, in his first role as Parent CEO, he went to sit behind the desk in his executive chair.

  He started with Nqobisa. She was too clever by half.

  “So, Nqobisa, tell me, how long has your brother been smoking zol?” he asked in a no-nonsense, Daddy-knows-everything manner.

  She looked at him in surprise. He was certain that, of all things that she thought they had been called into his study for, this was the last thing she had expected him to ask.

  “Yes, I know, surprising, isn’t it,” he continued. “Now answer me before I put both of you in rehab.”

  “Tata, she just saw me the other day,” Xolani, protective brother that he was, jumped in before she could respond. “I begged her not to tell and gave her two hundred rand.”

  Andile silenced his son with a look. “Xolani Makana. When I am talking to you, I will address you. Right now, I am talking to your sister. Nqobisa, don’t keep me waiting. Answer.”

  “Two months, Daddy,” she answered, cowering against the couch.

  “Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. And in those two months were you getting your two hundred rand on a regular basis or was it a once-off payment to buy your silence?”

  “It was once, Daddy,” she said, having the decency to lowe
r her eyes in shame.

  Then, going in a totally different direction, he asked Xolani, “Is dinner ready?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Okay, let’s all go and eat. We’ll discuss your punishment after dinner.”

  * * *

  It was a silent dinner.

  As Andile dug in – damn, this fish was good, the boy was a great cook! – he noticed that his children were barely eating. With his plate wiped clean, he stood up and offered to take the plates through to the kitchen.

  Xolani and Nqobisa looked at each other silently as they passed him their plates.

  “Anyone for dessert?” he asked as he walked out with a jolly swagger.

  They both shook their heads. Probably trying to figure out just how long the torture was going to last.

  Andile returned with a bowl of fruit salad and ice cream. This was fun. He was relishing the role of executioner.

  He ate his dessert slowly, until he was certain that he could see both of them squirming in their chairs.

  “Alright, now for your punishment,” he said finally.

  He saw both of them breathe a sigh of relief. They probably thought that anything was better than this torture. He shrugged. They may feel differently after he told them just what their punishment would be.

  “This pertains to your savings accounts and the money that should go in there this month,” he continued. “Here is the thing. Today is the twentieth and because of your actions . . .” he paused to increase the impact of what he was about to say, “you both are on zero balance. You will continue doing all your chores. The amount of money you will get at the end of the month, if you get anything at all, will depend on how impressed I am with your behaviour.”