THE ROYAL MATRIMONY
CHAPTER 36
UNEDITED
[KULANI]
Always. There’s always something. I was worried about Fikani’s hospitalization. I’m glad to know to know that he’s doing okay. What I do not understand is why his wife would do this to him? The harmless looking Mokgadi? There’s something terribly wrong with that man and I am not supposed to be laughing at this. When is he going to learn? One of these women is going to scatter his insides one day and we’ll have to bury him. The contrast between him and Kurhula is so polarized, it’s too incongruous for the brain to comprehend. While one is a problem-solver, the other actively goes out to look for trouble – addicted to chaos and unsoundness of mind. I wonder what he has done this time and I am not going to ask them for any details. I meant it when I said I am minding nobody’s business while I am here. It is going well so far.
I am contemplating ignoring this call until I am done having breakfast but this is my dad. I could never do that.
‘Daddy’ I answer and almost laugh because Kurhula’s voice always taunts me whenever I address my father in this manner. He has ruined me by asking if my dad knows that I call my husband with the same term of endearment I use for him when under the sheets. I am married to an imbecile and I wouldn’t have him any other way.
‘Dad?’ I call again. Did he pocket-dial me or something? I hear him shouting at the guard for not removing the car from the front yard. He’s frustrated and it has nothing to do with parking.
‘My angel’ he finally pays attention to me. ‘I tried to reach you last night’
‘My battery was low’ I lie. After notifying Kurhula, I deliberately switched my phone off because I wanted no disturbances while I slept.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask. I know my dad. Something is wrong. A sigh confirms my suspicions.
‘She said no’
‘Who said no? To what?’
‘Lydia. She said no to my proposal’
My lower lip reaches for the ground. Am I at that age now? The age where my parent calls to vent about their mjolo throwing hands? I have no idea what to say because what I want to say won’t be helpful right now. I want to tell him that I told him so. I told him that Aunty Lydia would break his heart and because he was so infatuated with her, he felt like I was being a pessimist.
‘Say it. Say that you’ve warned me’
Is he a mind reader now?
‘I won’t. I’m sorry it didn’t work out’ I’m somewhat truthful.
I genuinely feel sorry for him but this is for the best. The sheer imagination of Mhani Poni and Aunt Lydia under the same roof is giving me a headache. Also, Aunty was going to leave him bankrupt. She’s what I am to Kurhula decupled if not more.
‘Did she say why?’ I ask when he goes silent. I cannot imagine getting your heart broken at his age. My dad has cardiovascular problems. How could she?
He scoffs. He probably finds her reasoning ridiculous.
‘She said, verbatim, we don’t make that much sense for us to drag this to the altar’ he scoffs again.
‘That’s it? So, you two are over?’
‘Of course we are. What would be the point of proceeding past this point?’
After playing around with the egg on my plate, I realize that I will not finish this food. I have lost my appetite and it’s probably cold by now. To me, cold eggs are an equivalent of warm custard.
‘You’ll be fine, I promise’
‘I will. My eyes are now open to that cold-hearted, gold-digging, impudent, masculine-behaving woman’
After spending so much on her splurging habits, he’s only seeing her burrowing-for-money tendencies now? The same woman he was prepared to marry? A man’s ego is truly a thing of brittle nature. I’m stifling laughter because I cannot dare let it out.
‘Let me go take a bath. I was just checking on you’
‘Love you!’
He doesn’t say it back. I look at the screen and discover that the call has ended. Things are truly bad. It’s heading to ten in the morning and my father hasn’t gotten himself cleaned up? Aunty Lydia deserves jail time.
I lift my hand for the bill and the waitress approaches. She scrambles her way through packing my dishes away and the left-over orange juice spills onto my thigh.
‘I am so sorry!’ she attempts the get the beige napkin to imbibe the liquid out of my dress and I assure her that it’s okay. My skin is already cold from it.
‘Is there a problem here?’ an old white woman asks and the girl starts rambling, explaining herself. I suspect she’s the owner of this place.
‘Do you see why I insisted on a day off? Go bury your sister, Thuli’ the woman insists on taking off Thuli’s apron.
‘But ma’am, I need the money’
‘Just go home, we’ll talk. Besides, there’s not a lot of people here’
Bad news for them but good news for me. I came here at the right time. I’m seated by the window and I can just tell that the sun is capable of roasting human flesh today. The reflection on the pavement is blinding. Imagine that coupled with being overwhelmed by a crowd?
After Thuli leaves, the woman offers herself a seat across me and asks if I enjoyed my meal. I nod.
‘Waze wamuhle. I wonder ngizokufihlaphi’
I laugh. That was rather unexpected. Even her accent is fluently crisp. Her compliment came out grave though, like one from a worried grandmother.
‘Thank you. Who taught you that?’
‘This is Nelspruit, sweetheart. Anything is possible here’
Kurhula would judge me for finding this impressive. He’s forever irritated by people who celebrate attempts at African languages by people of her kind. Okay, everything is reminding me of him. I am a typical ‘My husband this, my husband that’ girly. I cannot help but insert him everywhere. Bontle never told a single lie about this. I miss her too. I probably would’ve dragged her here. Maybe not but by now, we would’ve went to so many places together.
‘Please don’t’ I politely ask when I see the lady leading a cigarette to her mouth. I am not subjecting my baby to secondary smoking. At the same time, I haven’t paid my bill and I am not prepared to leave yet. I feel a little proud of myself for saying that the moment it jumped into my head. Any form of confrontation tends to make me nervous, and I usually decide against it where strangers are concerned.
‘Shoot, I’m sorry. Force of habit’
‘Are you the owner of this place?’
‘I wish. It belongs to that jackal I call my brother. I’m just here to check on a few things’
‘Cool. Can I have the bill?’
‘It’s on the house’
Oh?
‘That’s very kind of you, thank you’
She nods and stands up. I eventually gather the strength to get up and when I get to my room, I find the door unlocked. This is odd…
Did housekeeping forget to lock or was someone tampering with the door? After walking in, I find that the room has been cleaned. I’m choosing to shrug it off and conclude that they forgot to lock up after they were done.
Upon unzipping my suitcase to find something else to wear, I realize that it has also been tampered with. Am I imagining things? I do not pack like this. Nothing seems to be missing but this is not my style of packing. I do not fold my clothes, I roll them. Or did I forget? Am I losing my mind? The thought of this scares me. I’m not impressed with how my brain works these days.
I dial Kurhula’s number and he answers on the third ring.
‘Mhana Vutlhari’
‘Baby, tell me if I’m not overreacting before I report this. First, are you busy?’
‘Report what? What’s going on?’
I explain the whole thing to him.
‘Where are you now?’
‘Still in the room’
‘I don’t think you’re safe there. Go back to the restaurant and wait for me there. I’m on my way’ he cuts the call.
I have asked the wrong person for advice. I simply wanted him to assure me that my imagination isn’t playing tricks on me before I get people in trouble for stuff they probably know nothing about.
…
[MOKGADI]
I don’t like this table. Every time we’re sitting here, surrounding it, it’s mostly not for good things. The uncles were here investigating Aunty Fanisa’s disappearance. Everyone who knows about that incident pretended to be clueless. Mlambya says he has given Liba what she has asked for but I still don’t trust her and I hate how unbothered he is about this whole thing. Knowing about this and keeping quiet makes me an accomplice.
‘What did you do with her?’ Mhani Xongi asks after ascertaining that it’s just the three of us after everyone left.
‘Someone will find her soon enough’ Mlambya responds.
What is that supposed to mean?
‘What do you mean? Have you not gotten rid of her entirely?’
By gotten rid of, she probably means buried like a stray dog.
‘That woman held a pivotal title in this house. We have to respect that’
Mhani laughs with great incredulity coating her voice.
‘Respect Fanisa?’
‘Not her, the position she held. There’s bound to be dire consequences if she’s dumped in a ditch like she’s not my father’s eldest sister’
‘There’s ways around that!’ Mhani argues with gritted teeth.
‘Until when? Until Vukosi has to deal with it? Over my dead body. We will give her the dignified burial she deserves so Aunty Lydia can be appointed formally’
Mhani is visibly exasperated. I’m silently watching them argue. My husband abruptly stands up and suddenly remembers that he’s in pain. He should’ve stayed in hospital but him being him, he discharged himself. He claimed that someone with more serious injuries or ailments needed that bed.
‘Did he lay a hand on you?’ Mhani asks when I stand to follow him.
‘No’
‘So what is wrong with you? How do you orchestrate an attack on your husband? Did I not show you where to report him when he begins misbehaving?’
I decide on silence. Ty has really done me in here. What was the reason for his outburst? Now I am trying to reach him and I cannot find him!
‘Mmakgotso, I really like you. Please live up to your name. Let there be no incident where I have to defend you to Masingita again, do you hear me? The power she holds over that man’s aunts could easily get you dethroned, you silly girl’
I nod and disappear from her sight. That woman’s stare makes me nervous.
When I walk into our bedroom, I find him changing his bandages. The old one is on the bed, bloodied and yellowed by bodily fluids. I approach him so I can help. He lets me, with a fixed gaze on my movements.
‘Is it not too tight?’
‘I’d tell you if it was’
I carefully tuck it in before pinning it on his side. His breathing is laboured.
The topic I want to approach is sensitive. I’m still trying to figure out where to start.
I stand on my toes and steal a kiss from his lips. He simply looks at me.
‘What is it?’ he asks. I clear my throat.
‘Please tell me you haven’t done anything to him’
‘To who?’
I beg him with my eyes to stop playing mind games.
‘His phone is off’
‘I’m in the house with you. How the fvck am I supposed to know of Tyson’s whereabouts?’
I’m relentless with my look. He sighs and throws an irritated glance to the side. He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials. It’s a video call.
‘Stone’
‘Viper’
Their energy is too formal and I don’t know why this makes me nervous.
‘Where is he?’
He shortly hands the phone to me, following Stone’s silence. I see Tyson’s unconscious face. There’s a thick column of blood oozing out of his nostrils. It looks like his hands are tied to the chair he’s sitting on.
My ears start drumming at the same rate as my violent heartbeat.
‘Is he dead?’ I ask. For his and Stone’s sake, he better not be. He cuts the call and meets my stare.
‘Not yet’
‘Tell them to release him’ I order.
‘Tyson broke the rules. This is not how the game is played and he knows that very well’
I shouldn’t have involved him in this. Think, Kgadi, think!
‘You won’t do it…’
‘You sound sure’
‘You won’t, unless you want this entire kingdom to come crumbling down in a flash’
I see a sneer, then a slow growing smile.
‘I love it when you act like the wife I deserve’
This isn’t a game, this is my brother’s life we’re talking about here. What he already knows is how Tyson would die for me. What he isn’t aware of is how I’d equally take a bullet for him too. Under all this sweet-smelling rubble that makes Mokgadi, lies the young Muffin who ran into the house to warn Ty to hide when she saw a police van approaching from a distance, only to discover that it wasn’t even coming for him like the last time she had seen it. She isn’t dead and she’d do it again.
I’m blinking tears but refusing to break the stare. Mlambya gently brushes my hair back.
‘Your brother is in this mess because you made the mistake of thinking you own me, Kgadi. I belong to no one. Not you, not Nqobile and certainly not Maureen’
‘Tell them to release him. If you want to hold anybody captive, let it be me. I’m the one who put him up to this!’ I confess.
‘What makes you think I don’t know that?’
‘You don’t understand. I literally told him to fvck you up’ I speak the vulgarized language that he seems to understand so he gets it quicker.
‘You’re not deaf. I said I know’
He takes out his phone again and I swallow multiple times as I’m being made to listen to my conversation with Ty.
‘There’s nothing you do that I don’t know about’
I suddenly feel like all the pores on my body are clogged. My skin is struggling to breathe.
‘You’re always listening to my conversations?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, I’m a very busy man’
‘You’re a psycho…’ the words leave my mouth before my mind can fully process them.
‘Takes one to know one. And the next time you get clever ideas such as this one, at least make sure that I’ve already fixed my will to include you first’ he speaks while carefully putting on his t-shirt.
Where are you going now?’
‘To meet up with Greig, just in case my pregnant wife decides she wants me dead again’
I really don’t understand how this man’s head works. He has my brother held hostage and the only thing ringing in his head is a meeting with his lawyer to fix his papers?
‘Mlambya…’ I call and he turns to look at me.
‘Kgadi?’ he casually responds.
‘Please don’t test me’ this comes out as respectfully as I can manage. I see that smile again and he walks out on me. My blood starts boiling again.
