The Blessed Girl

by Angela Makholwa

  When I had to drive to the site, I discovered it was about 100 kilometres from my luxury hotel. Fok!

  Mama Sophia was so mad at me because we were meeting with the engineers we’d subcontracted on the job so as to finalise plans for the site. That was the milestone Teddy had set for us before we could get the first payment. I arrived wearing my new Gucci sneakers (because even I could figure out that my heels wouldn’t fit in there). I walked on site, to be greeted by dust, mud and a scorching sun that was enough to make you believe in Global Warming – even though Donald Trump doesn’t believe in it! Mama Sophia raised her nose at me, but I didn’t acknowledge her sour mood so we proceeded with the meeting like proper businesswomen. I didn’t have much of a contribution to make except to ask the engineers how soon they’d conclude the plans as we were under a lot of pressure to submit them to the municipality. I did, however, tell them that the work needed to be done fast as we could not afford to lose the contract because of their relaxed attitude.

  Mama Sophia looked half pleased and half irritated by my contribution. She always speaks softly to these guys and I think my hard-arsed attitude was a welcome change because, I can assure you, even though she dresses like a hobo, she loves money just as much as I do. Although God knows what she does with it.

  The engineers were speaking as if finalising these plans was akin to finding the cure for cancer. Sophia had warned me about the arrogance of engineers on projects like these. They generally treat tenderpreneurs with disdain because they have no technical know-how; the engineers think that they carry the weight of the project, but because of our connections, as rainmakers, we get the actual contracts.

  I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. We are not all born equal. Some are given the brains and others are given the street smarts and the charisma. The best thing you can do is accept the natural order of things, otherwise you’ll die trying to figure out how a girl like me, who couldn’t even get a single C in her matric report, is the person who ends up paying your wages. Life just isn’t fair, honey, you just have to roll with it.

  At the end of the meeting Mama Sophia looks like she’s swallowed a half-smoked cigarette. I really wish she would smile more often.

  ‘Bontle, we need to talk about your punctuality,’ she says.

  I sit down slowly, put my Prada bag on the table, because I don’t want to get it all messy, and place my hands beside it.

  I order a cappuccino and take a quick pic of it to post on my Instagram page.

  ‘Hustling, baby … business meeting with my partner’, I post on Instagram, but I don’t want to include a picture with Mama Sophia. She’s wearing a hideous brown thing on her head – is it a hat? I can’t even tell – and she has on a beige top in some type of organza material … there are no words … I cannot even bring myself to look at what she’s wearing on the bottom half.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mama Sophia?’ I ask as sweetly as possible.

  ‘I don’t think you realise how important this project is. I’ve been trying to get Teddy to give me a contract for the past two years and this is my opportunity to show him that my company can deliver on his expectations.’

  I nod sympathetically.

  ‘I know what you mean. Teddy is very strict when it comes to business. These days, whenever we get together, all he wants to talk about is this project,’ I tell her conspiratorially.

  For all she has the know-how and the track record, I want to make it clear where my strength lies in this project. My proximity to Teddy is what secured her company’s role in the first place.

  ‘So where is his head-space with regards to our project? Is he happy? He’s not getting any grief from the politicians?’ she asks, in a much more respectful tone.

  I shake my head. ‘The last time I spoke to him, he said that if we submit the invoice, we’ll get paid this week. They were happy with the provisional site plans from the engineers.’

  She nods her head with a small smile. ‘Yes. That is the reason I wanted us to have this meeting. The payment came through this morning.’

  ‘That is great news!’ I say, clapping my hands and smiling. What a relief! ‘So when are you transferring the R2 million into my account?’

  ‘Have you submitted an invoice?’

  Oh, shit. I have to submit an invoice? How do I do that? Why didn’t Uncle Chino tell me about this? All he kept harping on about was that I must make sure to pay my taxes … bloody accountant.

  ‘Umm … who am I supposed to submit the invoice to? The municipality?’

  Mama Sophia looks at me incredulously.

  ‘No. Why would you submit it to the municipality? Didn’t you read our MOU?’

  I look at her while I try to work out what that is.

  ‘You know. The Memorandum of Understanding we signed when we formed the joint venture? Your company is supposed to invoice my company, as stated in the JV. So if Teddy and his politicians are expecting to be paid, you’d better submit your invoice. I’m running a real company, not some dodgy corner shop. I cannot pay you without an invoice.’

  Fuck.

  I don’t even have a company letterhead.

  My husband was the one who actually set up the record-keeping system for my hair business. He designed the letterhead too. After that, all I did was write paper receipts for my individual clients and salon owners. Sheesh. I have a lot of work to do.

  What do you mean, you didn’t know anything about me having a husband?

  Gosh. You just become so hysterical about every little detail!

  Five Days Later

  Happy days! Happy days, my darlings. I got paid yesterday!

  Isn’t it exciting? Isn’t life beautiful?

  Can I just describe the feeling, the absolute euphoria, of seeing R2 million in my bank account?

  Gosh, I have to share this, but please don’t tell anyone else.

  When I saw the message from my bank service pinging on my phone, I felt something wild and uncontrollable in my pants. Yes. I actually had a real, live orgasm, for the first time ever in my life, an orgasm without anyone even touching my nether regions!

  Ever since I’ve been exposed to real, proper money, my body’s physiological responses to its abundance or scarcity are rather alarming. When I’m broke, my insides retch up everything I eat and spill it out, quite violently, into the toilet bowl.

  But now is no time to think about being broke, now is the time to plan what to do with this sudden windfall. A trip to the Seychelles with the girls, perhaps?

  Or maybe I should go to Turkey and start buying stock for that clothing boutique I’ve been planning on setting up?

  Hmmm … the possibilities are endless, but for now, I think I should just settle on calling Tsholo and Iris for a celebratory dinner at Club VIP.

  Champers, anyone?

  About My Husband

  I woke up with the mother of all hangovers today. Iris, Tsholo and I started out at the Melrose Hotel last night and had dinner, washed down with a bottle of Moët. We met some guys but decided to ditch them. I wanted to blow my own money for a change. We went to Club VIP where we consumed copious amounts of bubbly. I was awoken this morning by a text from Mojo. You know – the Nigerian pop sensation who’s made waves across the world?

  I’m a bit surprised to get the text. I don’t remember giving him my number.

  What I do remember is him sending a member of his posse over to our table to find out whether we wanted his autograph.

  ‘Excuse me? I think he, in fact, is the one who needs to get my autograph,’ I responded. Sheesh! Can you imagine the cheek of these celebrities?

  Apparently, he was charmed by my response so he sent a huge tray of bubbly our way and ended up joining us with his crew for glass after glass of champagne. The night was spectacular and I’m happy to say I’ve woken up in my own bed, on my own. I don’t do celebrities. They think they’re doing you a favour by letting you sleep with them. Jeez, not for me!

  I have a meeting with my husb
and today and the thought of seeing him just makes me numb.

  I know you’re all bursting with curiosity so here – I met my Ntokozo when I was in Grade 8 at Tshwane High. He was a grade above me. At first he was just one of the guys who were always on hand to assist me with my schoolwork when I skipped classes. But then he also started walking me to the school transport and taking me out to the movies on Saturdays.

  Other boys wanted to do that too but Ntokozo was different. He’s very easy on the eye. I didn’t take him seriously at school because he was into his grades and doing well and much too cerebral for my liking. He came from a well-off family from KwaZulu–Natal who had recently moved to Johannesburg. I didn’t really know much about his parents, except that they were both doctors. I knew he went to country clubs and had expensive holidays overseas with his family, and he’d told me before how his mom would host elaborate dinner parties. I figured that they must be pretty stuck up.

  I only started taking Ntokozo seriously after an incident in Grade 9 involving another guy I was spending time with. It ended with me taking a few months off school.

  When I returned, the boys were saying they’d heard all sorts of nasty things about me – none of which were true. Almost none. They treated me like a leper. Ntokozo was the one person whose attitude never changed. He continued to treat me like a queen. He would still help me with my schoolwork, still take me to the cinema. He didn’t care what anyone else said. I couldn’t help falling for him. I guess you could say he was my first true love.

  In spite of all his help, I had to repeat that grade because of all the time I’d missed and because of things happening in my home life so Ntokozo went on to Grade 11 while I stayed in Grade 9. I know you’re keeping score, so yes, I repeated two grades. So what? Let’s see your penthouse! Mxm!

  When Ntokozo passed his matric with flying colours, I broke off our relationship. It hurt me to do so but I figured it would hurt more when he left me for one of those nerdish girls at university. But I didn’t know then how persistent he could be.

  His parents wanted him to study at UCT but he gave them an ultimatum: either they allowed him to study at Medunsa – so he would be closer to me – or he would take a gap year to ‘find himself’. The threat worked, and to their great disappointment, my Ntokozo chose to study at a ‘downmarket’ institution, all for the love of yours truly.

  As soon as he completed his university studies, he went to my family in Mams (Mamelodi to you coconuts) to ask for my hand in marriage.

  Everybody was deliriously happy for me, especially my little brother Golokile – Loki. He was giggling like a charmed angel. It was truly one of the happiest days of my life!

  Soon after the lobola was settled, we had small but beautiful traditional wedding ceremonies – one at my home in Mamelodi, and the other in Morningside at Ntokozo’s parents’ home. They had moved to Morningside when he was in Grade 12.

  They never liked me so I’m not going to waste precious ink and the trees that it took to print my musings on those people. Can you imagine – snobbish Zulus? I don’t think Zulus can afford to be snobs, considering that they gifted this Beloved Country with Jacob Zuma.

  Anyway, Ntokozo and I were actually happy for a while, in our small flat in Hurlingham. The trouble all started with his parents. In and out of our house; all up in his business; giving constant advice about his medical career.

  I had completed my matric, but had to rewrite two subjects. Once I wrote my supplementary exams, I still did not qualify for a university exemption. You can imagine how this went down with his parents. They were constantly asking me what plans I had for my life. To piss them off, I would respond that I was happy to be a supportive wife and the future mother of Ntokozo’s children. The looks on their faces when I said that … priceless!

  In truth, I was terrified about my prospects.

  My life seemed to be stuck. Was I really just going to be an appendage to Ntokozo’s doctoral title? Was that all I had to offer the world? It was tough, I tell you. I stopped eating. I hadn’t been this down since the incident when I’d been at school. Every time I felt myself failing, that’s what I thought of.

  I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to see my friends and definitely didn’t want my many nemeses from high school to see me. All those girls who’d dismissed me as a hood rat … I didn’t want them to see that I’d amounted to nothing more than a trophy wife.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m fabulous now, but it’s not always been easy for me, my friends. In this life, you have to fight to get what you want. In the beginning Ntokozo kept trying to reassure me that he’d always take care of me and that there was nothing to be afraid of. After a while he insisted that I see a therapist. She was a good doctor but I didn’t want to get into all my past with her, that didn’t matter anymore, I wanted to know what to do next. So after a few months of the lady’s motivational talks and a lot of anti-depressants, I felt all fired up and ready to break down the obstacles in my path. I may have my weaknesses but my enduring strength lies in my ability to find opportunities and give them my all.

  My opportunity arrived one day while I was lounging around my friend Chimamanda’s salon. A group of ladies and I were lamenting the lack of quality hair extensions in Johannesburg. Our hair did not look as thick and soft as that of the black Hollywood starlets we saw in the movies. We were all complaining about how difficult it was to style the synthetic fibre that we usually found and Chimamanda said she wished she could find a supplier of good-quality Brazilian hair because she believed her customers would be willing to pay big money for it. She said the huge overheads that she had to pay every month on her business prevented her from sourcing her own high-quality extensions.

  It was an instant lightbulb moment for me.

  I surfed the internet that night to find out about suppliers of good-quality extensions, and shared my ideas with Ntokozo. Despite him being exhausted as usual from work, he joined me in my research and told me to put together a business plan so he could see if it was viable.

  Imagine someone asking the then twenty-year-old me for a business plan? I mean, did this man not know me at all? I was completely clueless.

  Thankfully, Ntokozo has the patience of a pope. He’d stay up late after his shifts at the hospital and together we’d pore over information about the hair business. After three months of research, we asked his parents for a small loan and bought an ambitious amount of Brazilian and Peruvian hair from a supplier in China – which presented us with the opportunity to place a 70 per cent mark-up on our stock.

  Chimamanda was over the moon with its quality.

  Ntokozo emphasised the need for me to socialise and network with as many salon owners as possible so we didn’t have to rely on just one client. Soon I was attending all sorts of social functions, going to hair expos, visiting upmarket salons and becoming every beautiful girl’s best friend. I’m not sure how much Ntokozo registered my absence because his internship at Tembisa Hospital took up almost all his time. I was proud of him. Even though we didn’t have very much money, we were working towards a better future for ourselves and I looked forward to the kind of life we would lead once he went into private practice.

  Yho, darlings! You won’t believe it when I tell you that after serving his mandatory community service, the man decided that medicine was a calling and he did not want to go into private practice after all, or at least not for a while. He was at the coalface (yes, he actually used words like coalface) of community healthcare and he wanted to help people. I mean, what the …?

  There was I, a young woman with big dreams, discovering I was actually married to the Dalai Lama.

  Do you know how much a community doctor earns? Yho! Before you judge me once again, let’s take stock of the facts: I was living in a crummy one-bedroom apartment in Hurlingham with my husband the doctor, who worked twelve-hour shifts then came home exhausted with strange, traumatic tales from the ER. Like, no; I did not sign up for this! I was definitely not
about to start a family with someone whose goal was to save the world. It’s great on paper, but in real life we need hustlers. I did not want to end up like my mom: middle-aged and running a shebeen, entertaining township hoodlums. Sorry. I appreciate her hustle and the horror she had to go through to send me to good schools, but my life has to be a vast improvement on hers. Otherwise, what would be the point of all her struggles?

  But back to Ntokozo and his devotion to his calling. What of our sex life? Out the window, he was too exhausted.

  Social life? Out the window; again, he was too exhausted.

  Over time, he started seeming completely detached from our marriage. He wasn’t interested in the things we’d once enjoyed together, like going to the movies or hanging out with our friends. He’d snap at me for no particular reason. I tried to chalk it all down to the stress of working long hours at the hospital – until I learned better.

  I’d been running around all day delivering hair stock to my various salon clients when I got home earlier than expected.

  I knew he’d been working the night shift so I turned the key and quietly opened the door, careful not to make too much noise and wake him. Imagine my surprise when I found him sitting on the couch, injecting himself with drugs. At first, I thought maybe he wasn’t feeling well, and asked him what was wrong. He looked at me with a glazed expression on his face. In spite of the effect of the drugs, I could see the guilt in his expression, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.

  ‘Ntokozo, are you okay? What’s all this?’ I asked.

  He quickly patted the spot where the needle had entered and rolled down his sleeve.

  ‘Oh, that. It’s nothing. I’ve been feeling weak and tired, I needed something to boost my energy levels.’

  I went to sit with him and looked at the vial that he’d injected. The label read ‘Phetidine’.

  Afterwards he seemed so relaxed for a change that to begin with I didn’t even comment on it. But then over time he started doing it more and more, and brazenly, without looking guilty about it. Regularly, Ntokozo would inject himself with Phetidine before and after work. And soon his behaviour grew more erratic; he was snappy and restless and only relaxed when he was high. Did he not hear the words of the great philosopher, Mr Snoop Doggy Dogg: ‘Don’t get high on your own supply’?