Married But Available

by B. Nyamnjoh

  Lilly Loveless was now actively taking down notes, which encouraged Britney to continue.

  “When they all finally left her, this friend mourned for almost three months. She told me: ‘Friend, I’ve decided now never to love, else I’d die before my parents. I’ve seen that I don’t have luck because most of my friends are succeeding with this type of lifestyle without problem.’

  “At this point, most of us friends contributed to her sustenance and after ten years of writing the A Levels she finally made it. She is now reading her last year of law at the University of Asieyam in Nyamandem.”

  “Really?!” launched Lilly Loveless.

  “There are cases similar to hers that have left a bitter taste in the mouth of many a man,” said Britney, passing Lilly Loveless a newspaper clipping she brought along.

  “What is it?” asked Lilly Loveless, taking the paper.

  “It is a newspaper article that appeared in yesterday’s The Talking Drum. I brought this along just in case Bobinga Iroko has not given you a complimentary copy yet. It is by a man complaining how girls at University of Mimbo treat men. He accuses us of not being cheerful givers, of feigning love, playing hard to get yet and having a delicate taste for money. We are gold diggers, he says.”

  Lilly Loveless sat up, but not feeling up to reading the article herself, she asked Britney to recount the story and read sections to her.

  Britney accepted. “UM, the author claimed, was much less a place to be than a place to be fleeced. The man complains about the UM girl whom he writes: ‘She beeps me and does not turn up. When I call her, she does not turn up. When I least expect her, she pops up like a genie. And her buttocks do not touch the chair long enough for me to blink.’”

  “I like that,” said Lilly Loveless.

  “According to him, the girl is always excusing herself out of appointments with him: ‘I am very tired, I am just coming from school,’ is her vintage excuse. ‘I must go and rest.’ And like lightning, she flashes off with a soft drink, fish, chicken or whatever thing she can help herself to at their place of rendezvous. This bill, of course, is paid by him, which is something he resents bitterly.”

  “And what does he do?” asked Lilly Loveless. “Does he move on?”

  “He refuses to yield to defeat: ‘When shall I see you next?’ he calls after her. But she is already hurrying away with what he terms ‘her booty’. He recounts how last weekend when he left work, he drove around looking for a place to cool off with a frothing bottle. He went to his favourite spot and sat there long enough to be bored. Then he called the girl whose line sounded busy. Soon after that his cell phone beeped. ‘Beepers,’ he murmured and dialled the beeper. The following conversation between the two of them is very interesting:

  ‘Hello, are you the chairman of MIMBEEP?’ he said into the phone.

  ‘Yes…er... no! What do you mean MIMBEEP?’ the voice at the other end asked.

  ‘The Mimbo Association of Beepers,’ replied the man, ‘because you hardly call me; you only beep even after I have sent you air time.’

  ‘Weh, I ran out of airtime,’ apologises the voice.

  ‘What? I last sent you airtime for MIM$5000 and you did not have the courtesy even to say thank you? God forbid!’

  ‘Weh, see, I have got something to tell you,’ the voice changed the subject.

  ‘And what can that be?’

  ‘I can’t discuss it over the phone.’

  ‘All right then, meet me at the watering hole.’

  ‘Watering hole?’

  ‘Not the kind of hole you are thinking of. Come to the usual joint.’

  ‘OK, I’ll be there at once.’

  The man thinks the girl was calling from a nearby callbox, for barely had he replaced the phone when she appeared. Like a genie, a deceptive smile on her face. She went straight to the point.

  ‘You know, I am the chairperson of our alma mater and we are having a party tomorrow…’ ‘How does that concern me?’ I asked.

  ‘I must fix my hair at Lulu Coiffure.’

  ‘Your hair? At Lulu’s?, the man scratched his chin.

  ‘A student’s allowance isn’t much, you know, just in case you have forgotten, I am a mere student. So, just give me money to fix my hair,’ the girl put her case with so much ease that the man had to exercise considerable constraint to stop himself from dipping his hand in his pocket.

  According to the guy, she was sitting there on the edge of the chair with one eye on his wallet, he knew, and the other eye on the lookout for other boyfriends who might notice her in another man’s company. He said it was hard to put his mind off the luscious body sitting beside him even though it had become a feat to get into her underwear.

  ‘I can only give you the money tomorrow,’ he told her.

  ‘Tomorrow? Why tomorrow? What is wrong with here and now?’ the girl looked dejected. She got to her feet immediately and said, ‘Can I take something?’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ the man conceded.

  She went into the bar and packed a king-size Coca Cola, three pieces of chicken and a pile of bush meat into a plastic bag.

  ‘Bye,’ she said at the entrance, ‘don’t forget, tomorrow.’

  ‘I already have,’ he told himself, contemplating his additional bill of Mim$3000, for what she had taken, enough to do her hair twice over.

  ‘That one was fishy,’ said a friend as the girl disappeared.

  ‘More than fishy, she is an oiled eel.’

  ‘She is an 18-carat nibbler,’ said the man, disappointed. ‘Now, I understand why they call them UMice and UMisers.’

  Even then, the man isn’t ready to give up until he has got what he considers his just desserts: ‘It won’t be long before I cut her down to size,’ he resolves.”

  “What can one say, but to wish him luck?” said Lilly Loveless.

  Britney just smiled, content to get some reaction, however short, from Lilly Loveless. She continued with her next story, without even pressing pause, kind of the way the driver avoided the brakes in favour of the accelerator.

  ***

  “Dereck got married to my neighbour’s daughter. After a few years together, it was discovered this man loved only his wife’s money. As for his wife, she thought her husband was the best in the world. Dereck persuaded his wife and they bought a plot and built a house. Immediately after this, he looked for a young university girl and was deeply in love with her. He made sure that he controlled his wife’s salary and even gave part of it to his girlfriend. He became more aggressive towards his wife and asked her to leave his house,” Lilly paused in expectation of a reaction from Lilly Loveless, but when this didn’t come, she continued. “Can you imagine?” Britney asked Lilly Loveless, “Chase his wife from the very house they built with her money? Doesn’t it seem a bit much to you?”

  Lilly Loveless nodded and Britney continued.

  “His wife told him that she would rather prefer they both leave the house because it was their joint efforts. Whenever his parents-in-law came to try to help solve the problem, he would insult them and get his wife well beaten in front of her parents. ‘You keep forgetting that I know who you are and where you come from,’ he would say as he beat and insulted her, implying that he was more civilised.”

  “What a savage man,” Lilly Loveless pronounced, much to Britney’s pleasure.

  “His wife went privately and looked for her own house, got it well equipped and finally decided to leave her husband. He told her she should make sure she takes along her children because he did not have any use for them. She was very happy to take away her daughter and son, for no one who knows the pain of child birth would talk so disparagingly of children, however handicapped, poor and helpless.”

  Britney pressed pause when they came to the halfway point of the journey, a little roadside junction village that had become a bustling commercial centre, thanks to the road. It was too early for a heavy meal, so Lilly Loveless and Britney settled for bread and coffee.

&nb
sp; “Could we have two cups of coffee?” Britney asked the young woman whose eating place they chose amongst the competing lot.

  The young woman replied, “With or without milk. We have only powder milk from Muzunguland. Our goats are much too conscious of their looks to be harnessed for milk, and we are not a cattle rearing community.”

  “We’ll just have to make do with that, won’t we?” said Britney, stealing a look at Lilly Loveless, as if to say, ‘what would we do without Muzunguland?’

  They finished their coffee and bread and returned to the bus well ahead of the other passengers, some of whom had settled for real meals with bush meat, roasted beef, fish and all the other renowned offerings that made this village so popular with travellers seeking food and drink.

  Britney took advantage to continue with her story.

  “The lady and her children out of the house,” she began, pressing the button of the recorder. “Now, it was the turn of the university girl to come in. Things went well for the first six months. Instead of this man controlling this little girl, she was the patron of the house. This man would give all his salary to this girl but she was never satisfied and hardly satisfying.”

  “I like that turn of phrase,” said Lilly Loveless.

  Britney smiled her appreciation for the compliment and continued. “And that’s not all,” said she, glancing to make sure the pen of Lilly Loveless was moving. “She still maintained her old boyfriends and even had new ones. Immediately her husband left home to work, she would also leave to see one of her boyfriends. And as if this was not enough, she would add salt to the wound by bringing these men into her husband’s bedroom.

  “One day, her husband surprised them making love on his bed. Instead of him reacting, this girl and her boyfriend got this man well beaten, rendered him helpless and took away some of his possessions.”

  “What! Was she crazy or what?” Lilly Loveless looked puzzled.

  “The girl went for good,” said Britney. “The man, her husband, screamed for help and neighbours rushed him to the hospital.”

  “I hope he recovered OK.”

  “Yes, and he has now vowed never to marry again. He has joined that group of men who believe that women are she-devils who tempt, entice and seduce men to involve them in evil deeds. He and others like him give the impression that men are well behaved, considerate and morally upright. But you and I know better, don’t we?” Again Britney eyed Lilly Loveless, a sisterly smile on her face.

  Lilly Loveless smiled back without giving her a clue as to which way she would vote, if she voted at all on the matter.

  Britney continued: “As for the wife whom the husband chased out in favour of the university girl, I was able to hear things from her point of view when she was over visiting her mother. As she put it, ‘The long and short is that our life in the house became rough. When men have affairs they start to look at their wives and children as a burden. So he literally acted like a teenager. It was impossible to reason with him. I moved out of our house with the children and left him. He did not see anything wrong with us moving out. He simply said that he liked the house and he was not prepared to move even if it was for the children. It is amazing because even now it is a challenge to get him to pay anything towards the needs of the children.’”

  “I hate to see people maltreat children,” said Lilly Loveless. “It’s better not to have them at all than to treat them poorly.”

  “Apparently, he makes the children’s lives miserable, especially Thelma’s. He reminds them that he is paying maintenance, which they don’t even understand, as they are still so small. It is painful to see. Every time the kids visit him they are reminded of the money that he is paying. Yet he does not even pay a third of what he is legally supposed to pay. I heard the wife say: ‘I do not want to fight with him over the amount as I do not see it as important. What matters to me is the wellbeing of the children. He does not seem to enjoy the time with his own children. They are like a burden to him. They are such wonderful children, not very demanding at all, yet he doesn’t enjoy them. This breaks my heart, but that is his choice. Even though I can fight with him, I choose not to. My concern is with Thelma and Elias. We are managing. It was so good that I got a job even before I relocated to Nyamandem, so I do not have to rely on him for anything. I never have anyway. Life goes on and I am having a good time with the children despite all these challenges.’”

  “Good that she took it positively,” commented Lilly Loveless. “These things can be deadly stressful. I know from my parents’ own divorce and what some friends I know have gone through.”

  “His first wife has actually become a research director somewhere in Nyamandem while he has become very miserable. He lost his job subsequently.”

  Britney pressed stop just as she concluded the second story of the day and asked, “Would you like to take a break?”

  “Oh, no,” said Lilly Loveless, “we’re on a roll. Let’s keep going if you don’t mind.”

  With that, Britney pressed record and carried on.

  ***

  “I know of this married man who lives with his wife not far from my place. His girlfriend lives about 100 metres away from them. Whenever his wife has gone to the market or a social group meeting he will invite his girlfriend to his house. Whenever his wife met this girl, the girl was always very bold and ready to fight the wife. When his wife got pregnant, he decided that she should go and have the baby at her home village with her parents. When she left, her husband’s girlfriend became madam and packed into the house.”

  Lilly Loveless took out a pack of chewing gum from her bag and offered some to Britney, who declined, saying it would interfere with her story.

  So she went on: “Some neighbours met the girl’s parents and complained to them. All that her mother could say was that ‘my daughter is a beautiful girl and she is not the first to go after a married man, so you people should mind your business.’ For this reason many people decided not to talk about it again.

  “The man’s wife surprisingly came back without notifying her husband. She met his girlfriend well-installed in the house. She shouted and neighbours crowded around. She said openly that if this girl does not leave her husband, she will kill her. People persuaded the girl and she packed her things. Even so, the girl was very arrogant. Whenever and wherever she met her boyfriend’s wife, she would insult her and this lady always complained to her husband who on his part also gave a deaf ear. Unfortunately for this girl, she fell seriously sick and later died in the hospital. Rumour went all over Puttkamerstown that it was her boyfriend’s wife who killed her. But who knows? We are told that AIDS manifests itself in mysterious ways, although deaths continue to be blamed on witchcraft, poison, common colds and what have you.”

  “Hmmm…,” intoned Lilly Loveless, chewing her gum. “Have you another story for today?”

  “One more,” said Britney, “then I’ll let you take a nap until we arrive in the midst of the banana plantations that have made our Mimboland a proud, world-renowned banana republic. You’ll want to see the rich rolling hills.”

  Lilly Loveless nodded excitedly.

  “A famous director was once my neighbour,” began Britney, “very ugly and very rich.”

  “You have a lot of neighbours,” commented Lilly Loveless.

  “Well, by the time I knew this one, he had divorced four wives. Though ugly, he still had the best girls as his girlfriends since he settled them well. He was a man of age, but his target was girls below 18 years. His fifth wife was the same age as his fourth daughter.”

  “Really?” interjected Lilly Loveless.

  “Yes, and this girl was a piece of beauty. People thought that with such a beautiful girl, he would be content.”

  “What made them think that,” asked Lilly Loveless, “knowing his patterns?”

  Britney was glad Lilly Loveless seemed to be getting back to being like Lilly Loveless. She continued, ignoring the question.

  “He provided everythi
ng at home like food and healthcare and catered for the three children he had with this fifth wife. Despite all this, he never gave his wife a stipend or pocket allowance. He was never at home so he seldom talked with his wife. They were friends only when her husband wanted a new baby.”

  “What a marriage!” Lilly Loveless came in again.

  “The fifth wife was faced with hardship because her father had died when she was still young and being the first born, she had to meet many challenges. Her father had been a cook to a Muzungu man in Sawang. Before he died, he had not built a house, so when her mother was giving her into marriage at the age of 13, she knew the director would not only take care of her daughter but also the entire family.”

  “So there are mothers who even encourage their daughters to enter into these relationships with much older men?” interrupted Lilly Loveless.

  “Of course,” responded Britney, “but this mother miscalculated.”

  “In what way?”

  “The girl herself did not know she was married, not until the man started making love – climbing on top of her with his lumpy, selfish, inconsiderate and insensitive bulk, aggressively seeking satisfaction. She was disinterested in his urges, tastes and desires, and it didn’t help when he did little to disguise his love for other women. With this background as she told me, she embarked on prostitution. She was a small clerk in one of the offices around town. Whenever her husband dropped her at her job site she obtained permission to leave from her boss, saying that her child was sick or giving any other reason. Since she had access to a cell phone, men could easily call her and from there, she would take off.

  “Since she knew the time her husband returned home, she made sure she arrived home a few minutes before him. She once told me as a friend: ‘I will show Pa that I can make love to his betters since he uses small girls to ridicule me.’ In pidgin she added: ‘Ma Papa hi house nobi de smell me before I go maret.’”

  “Which means?”

  “It wasn’t the stench in my father’s house that I couldn’t stand that drove me into the hands of marriage.”

  “How profound,” commented Lilly Loveless, “especially from a woman forced into marriage at such an early age.”