I was desperate to tell Diana about a way, way more interesting series I was reading. Mum had bought me the first book during the summer holidays, and we read it together on the verandah of the farm for hours at a time. We had just started on the second book, which was beginning to look even better than the first.
‘So, it’s about a wizard, right, and his name is Harry, and he gets chosen to go to school with lots of other wizards and witches,’ I said. Diana’s eyes widened and she shook her head. ‘It’s not like … scary witches,’ I reassured her, sensing her fear. ‘They’re good witches. And they make all these cool potions and stuff.’
‘Potions and stuff?’ came the chilling voice of Mrs Hicks from over my shoulder. ‘I don’t remember the books I handed out having any witches in them.’
I spun around to face our teacher and could not help but notice that her paper-white bob of hair was rather witchlike itself.
‘Sorry, Mrs Hicks, we had just finished reading the last chapter, and so I was telling Diana about another book I read at home over the holidays called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s quite a big book, and it’s not just a kid’s book – grown-ups read it too,’ I gushed, hoping the fact my conversation with Diana was still literature-based would appease her.
‘If you finish reading within the period, then you fetch me and I will give you a new book to start on. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Mrs Hicks.’ I was afraid she would give us a lunchtime detention, writing lines or collecting rubbish, but she simply dropped another book into my hands and walked away.
The teachers at Bishopslea were rather strict, except for Miss Kamangira, the new twenty-five-year-old computer teacher. She was very nice and sometimes even let us play computer games if we finished the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing lesson early. All the other teachers – Mrs Hicks, Mrs Muduma, Ms Pratt and Mr Davidson – were frightening. The boys over at Prince Edward had it worse though; at least we never received the ruler (or the strap!) from our teachers. Mum said she was subjected to corporal punishment when she was at Girls High School, but that was a government school and in the 1970s. The worst incident at Bishopslea I bore witness to was the time that Rudo Rusere refused to join in the hockey game, instead choosing to sit and sulk on the edge of the field. Ms Pratt hit a ball in her direction, just to get her attention, maybe to get her to stand up, but had put more force into the stick than intended, resulting in a deep bellow of pain as the ball ricocheted off Rudo’s unprotected shin.
After reading class we had our spelling test. I earnt a gold star due to getting all ten spelling words right – plus the two extra surprise words that Mrs Hicks added at the end. The euphoria of my spelling success was dampened by an hour of maths class. My eyes wandered up from the open textbook to Diana, who was resting the side of her face against her bicep on the desk, as though scrutinising the numbers more closely would draw out the answers. She was a lot better at maths than I was, so maybe there was something to it.
I scanned the rest of my classmates, heads down and knees tucked under desks complete with inkwells, harking back to a period of education before my time. Unless we were at Hogwarts, I thought.
I glanced to the front of the classroom, where a small portrait of President Mugabe hung above the blackboard. He was an ugly man, with his square face and anaemic toothbrush moustache. ‘The black Hitler,’ as I’d overheard one of Mum’s friends call him.
‘Why doesn’t someone just kill him?’ I asked Mum once, while she intently watched him speaking on ZBC news. ‘I’d do it myself … if I had the chance,’ I’d said, searching her pale face for a reaction.
‘Well, then you’d be as bad as him, wouldn’t you?’ She turned the television off and faced me. ‘Unfortunately, he’s not the only baddie out there. He’s got a lot of friends in the ZANU-PF, so even if he was gone …’ She mulled over the thought. ‘Even if he was gone, nothing would change.’
I shook my head to break the stare of the 2-D president and attempted to return to the equations in front of me.
When the bell for lunch rang out, I cringed. This was always the worst part of the day. We had to have several minutes of eating in silence before another small bell would sound and conversation would burst through our mouths as if masking tape had been peeled from our lips.
I never asked why we had to sit in silence. It seemed to be just one of those things, like saying grace or always guessing ‘thirty’ when a woman around my mum’s age asked how old you thought they were.
Today I sat opposite Diana and next to a girl called Mazvita Mpisaunga. Mum always told me to be careful about what I said to Mazvita. Apparently her mum was a hotshot barrister who worked for the members of the ZANU-PF party. I found it strange that there were people I spent time with every day who had connections with the same corrupt government that Mum and Nana and Grandpa – and everyone else I knew – were always complaining about.
With boiled vegetables still digesting in our stomachs, we set off to meet the sports teacher, Ms Pratt, who year-round rocked the same pair of knee-length cargo shorts, with a silver whistle around her neck. The cross-country course entailed running the perimeter of the school, all the way around the huge grounds, behind the kitchens where maize stalks grew higher than our heads, cutting through the driveway where parents were collecting the nursery-age kids, past the chapel and then back to the sports fields.
Diana was much faster than me. She’d been vetted to compete in the inter-school cross-country competition, even being told she had the potential to run for Zimbabwe. When the whistle blew, she’d have to speed ahead for show, but I always found her waiting for me when we were out of sight.
‘Did you see Ms Pratt cut her hair even shorter?’ Diana asked, as she resumed her run alongside me.
‘Yup.’
‘And …?’
‘And I think it suits her,’ I said, swerving right to avoid stepping on a small anthill.
‘Are you kidding? She looks like a man. Soon she’ll be Mr Pratt.’
Ms Pratt was actually quite nice when she didn’t have a whistle around her neck, so I felt bad calling her a man. One of Mum’s co-workers at the stock exchange was a lady who was good friends with Ms Pratt. And I had got to know them both quite well through their involvement in the charity show Mum was organising. It was to consist solely of iconic musical numbers, and was going to be performed at the Prince Edward theatre. ‘Only for amateurs,’ Mum would repeat, as she convinced several of her friends and work colleagues to jump on board. ‘I’m not the performing type,’ they would protest. ‘Even better!’ Mum would exclaim. ‘The less likely you are to take to the stage, the more likely people will come to watch you, the more money for charity! I can’t even sing myself.’ With this spiel, she had gathered a range of different people from all corners of her life to take part. Ms Pratt’s friend was a pianist and Ms Pratt herself had helped out by painting and assembling large pieces of the set.
I was too out of breath to explain all this to Diana, so I let out a small ‘ha-ha’, which was less of a laugh and more of a pant at that point.
We rounded past the chapel, and Diana broke into a sprint to make up for lost time.
‘Smell ya later,’ she called out to me with her cheeky laugh, leaving me behind in a cloud of dust. I thought about Ms Pratt and her friend from Mum’s work and wondered …
‘Hey! Reynolds! Why don’t you focus on running faster yourself and not slowing down your mates?’ Ms Pratt barked at me as I passed her.
‘Yes, Ms Pratt. Sorry, Ms Pratt,’ I replied over my shoulder as I willed myself to pick up the pace. Diana was right, I thought to myself. She does look like a man.
On the fourth lap I could feel blood rushing to my face, and my knees wanting to cave in. I had not exerted myself this much in afternoon sport before.
‘You’re so red,’ remarked Diana, who had not yet broken a sweat.
‘You’re just lucky you can’t get red,’ I retorted through shallow breaths.
‘Don’t hate me ’cause you ain’t me,’ Diana sang cheerily, as she began side-stepping and running backwards to mock me.
I spotted Rudo Rusere in the distance, who had been sitting in the shade behind the chapel since the first lap, pulling up fistfuls of grass and scattering it onto her legs for her own amusement.
‘It’s the last lap, Rudo,’ I called out, and she moved onto her knees, pushing with both hands on the ground to gain the momentum to stand up and join us.
Diana had to run ahead now, so she waved behind her and started sprinting. It didn’t take her long to overtake the pack of girls in front of us and arrive at the finish line several paces ahead.
I was too exhausted and slowed to jog next to Rudo.
‘Ms Pratt is the worst,’ Rudo said glumly, clutching her chest with one hand as she ran.
‘More like Mr Pratt,’ I joked.
‘That’s a good one.’
When Mum collected me at four-thirty I let out the question that had been burning since the first cross-country lap.
‘Mum, is Ms Pratt a lesbian? Like Matt and Zayn?’
‘Matt and Zayn aren’t lesbians,’ Mum said.
‘They’re not?’
‘No, Hannah. Matt and Zayn are gay men.’
‘Aren’t gay and lesbian the same thing?’
‘Well, sort of. Lesbian just means two women who love each other.’
‘So …’ I started again, becoming impatient. ‘Is Ms Pratt a lesbian?’
‘Yes, Ms Pratt is a lesbian. And her partner is Lisa, who you met the other week. But you have to promise me that you won’t go telling people at Bishopslea, alright, Hannah?’
‘I won’t,’ I lied, knowing I would have to tell Diana.
‘Okay, good.’
The car hummed along in traffic, and we sat in silence for a few minutes. The thought of breaking a promise to Mum had started to make me feel a little guilty, and I hoped she would tell me it wasn’t that important.
‘But why can’t I?’
‘Why can’t you what?’ she asked.
‘Tell about Ms Pratt?’
Mum let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Because this isn’t London, or New York, or San Francisco. This is Harare,’ she said, as though this answered my question.
I hated when Mum would forbid me to do things, without bothering to tell me why. Last year I’d been assigned a project on endangered African animals, and I’d chosen the black rhinoceros. At the time Mum offered to help me create a diorama that I could use to aid my presentation. She moulded miniature rhinos out of grey clay and I painted them black. She also made figures of little poachers, which I painted black too. Mum said this was ‘offensive’, but I didn’t see how – the poachers were black. I’d seen them myself on a camping trip in Hwange. A beaten-down, green Nissan had pulled into the reserve, carrying a crowd of stern men with rifles strapped across their chests. Grandpa had said they’d come for ivory.
‘Why can’t I paint them black?’ I’d asked.
‘It’s just not appropriate,’ she replied.
This was one of many things that were inappropriate for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom. I’d introduce Gogo as my ‘maid’ to friends, but Mum referred to her as the ‘housekeeper’. I checked the dictionary and I was sure the two words meant pretty much the same thing – Mum said they didn’t. Also, while Gogo spent all day in our house, Mum forbade me from going to her kaya uninvited.
A few years ago, when I was younger and twice as likely to seek out adventure, particularly if Mum forbade it, I walked past the tyre swing in the garden, past the washing line and the trampoline, following the smell of food cooking, and that led me to the doorstep of Gogo’s kaya.
‘Can I come in?’ I’d asked. The room was small and grey, uncarpeted. Across a low wooden table lay an array of steaming dishes. A large pot of sadza surrounded by smaller bowls: kapenta marinated in tomatoes and onions, a bowl of spinach mixed with peanut butter and a large dish of nyama. Gogo handed me a strangely familiar blue plate with a small chip on the side. She dished up food but failed to provide me with cutlery. I watched as Gogo rolled some sadza into a large ball with her right hand, dented the middle with her thumb, and gracefully scooped up the nyama, popping it into her mouth. I carefully copied her movements, even though Mum had told me not to eat with my hands.
After that I started occasionally visiting Gogo in the kaya, and eating the amazing treats Mum never asked her to cook for us. That was, until Mum found out.
‘Hannah! You can’t go in there and eat her food.’
‘Why not? She eats ours.’
Gogo was always making sugary tea and munching bread in our kitchen.
‘That’s different. It’s inappropriate.’
So that was inappropriate too, apparently, as was painting the poachers black, as was telling anyone that Ms Pratt had a girlfriend.
4
The summer holidays already felt like a distant memory. Now, I only had the weekends to look forward to. And because the last was spent with Mum and Nana and Grandpa in Karoi, this Saturday and Sunday was my time with Dad.
‘Hello, my Hannah-Banana.’
Dad had just picked me up from the front of my house in his red 1969 Boss Mustang. I had once referred to his car as old, but he was quick to inform me that it wasn’t old – it was a classic. In which case, Dad was a classic himself; fifteen years older than Mum, closer in age to Grandpa and Nana than to her. The car also had character, a word many people – friends and otherwise – had used to describe my dad: ‘Steve’s a real character,’ they would say to me when they learnt I was his daughter. However, the features of the car that created character were things I deemed as flaws. The fact that the seats restricted the number of passengers to one, preventing the possibility I might bring a friend to his house. The way that, come the summer months, your thighs would stick to the leather seats, forcing you to peel them off like pancakes from a frying pan.
For as long as I could remember, this was how it had been. Every second Saturday the intercom would ring, and I would run down the driveway to meet Dad outside. The car door would be open, the engine still running. He never came through the gates. Dad would drive me to his house in Avondale and we’d spend the next thirty-six hours together. Sometimes, and more so in recent months, the visits were cancelled at short notice. But when he did come to collect me, that was the routine.
Today Dad asked me how I was and I told him pretty good, except I wished I could’ve stayed in Karoi longer instead of coming back to start school.
‘What did you get up to on the farm?’
‘Well … I rode on Grandpa’s motorbike, on the back this time. Nana and I made meringues, which were really yummy. Oh, and also, I helped Grandpa pick up all the scrap metal around the sand by the tractors and he gave me pocket money.’
‘Cleaning up metal doesn’t sound like fun for you,’ Dad said.
It was actually quite a lot of fun. I got to spend hours talking to Grandpa and there was something satisfying about combing through the sand for lost screws or iron fragments from the workshop, knowing that I was helping out in some way, even if it was just potentially preventing a tyre puncture.
‘It’s my birthday in three weeks,’ I blurted out, eager to change the direction of the conversation.
‘So it is,’ he said, gliding the steering wheel between his hands as the car straightened up after a turn. ‘I have a surprise for you at my house, but only if you’re a good girl.’
I swivelled to face him and told him what an amazing dad he was.
‘Alright, alright.’ He laughed. ‘Sit back in your seat.’
The car coursed down his winding gravel driveway, stopping next to a quiet, bubbling water feature in the centre. I ent
ered his house and padded up the palatial wooden staircase to the upstairs living room, as was the routine. Dad didn’t follow me up, instead choosing to go down the corridor into his study. I assumed – or hoped – this was in order to retrieve my surprise.
The upstairs living room was smaller than the one downstairs and had a television as its focal point, while the downstairs room boasted a grand fireplace flanked by two bookshelves, filled with thick leather- bound history volumes. The furniture downstairs was much less comfortable – stiff wingback armchairs and decorative ottomans – while upstairs had proper sofas that you were allowed to put your feet up on. Which is why I didn’t care in the slightest when Dad would have friends over for a dinner party and I’d be relegated to the upstairs settee. Poor you, I’d think of the hosted guests, getting a stiff bum listening to Dad tell the story about his trip to Cairo, while I’m here watching cartoons.
Dad entered the upstairs living room with both hands behind his back, a slight smile playing on his thin lips.
‘Close your eyes,’ he said.
I did as I was told, but felt a sharp jab of disappointment when I experienced not the weight of a large box but a small plop, as a magazine of sorts was placed into my lap. I opened my eyes. It was a catalogue of children’s toys.
Dad handed me a blue biro, instructed me to circle something that I really wanted, and said he would surprise me with it when my birthday came. Because the catalogue full of endless possibilities was still in my hands, I did not want to point out that, technically, this would no longer make the present a surprise.
I pored over the glossy pages for the best part of an hour while Dad sat by my side, reading the newspaper, until I decided on exactly what I wanted: a Super Scooter. The advertisement was located in the centrefold; a photograph of a girl my age took up half the page, smiling from ear to ear as she rode the pink-and-black machine. The rest of the ad was filled with bold reviews in bubble-text, shooting from all angles: Sick ride! Best gift eva! Totally awesome! It wasn’t a regular scooter, the sort you had to push with your feet – it was electric. And, importantly, none of my friends had one. The price was in rand as the catalogue was from South Africa. Of course, like most nice things, Dad would need to get it imported. I knew he got his suits from Italy, because that’s what he told anyone who complimented his attire. I also knew that the great table in the dining room was carved from a block of Italian marble to his specifications.
Little Stones Page 3