Married But Available

by B. Nyamnjoh

  “Did he respond to Elena?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “That I do not know, my dear. But I did.”

  “You did?!” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “Yes, and I invited her to stay here at the house. If she actually arrives, it’ll add an interesting twist to your research, won’t it?”

  “Any last words?” Lilly Loveless thought she was emulating the way Bobinga Iroko would conclude an interview as a journalist.

  “Last words? That’s scary. It sounds as if I’m heading for the grave right after this interview,” said Mrs Lovemore, light-heartedly.

  “No, that’s not what I mean, at all,” Lilly Loveless apologised. “I wish you a hundred more years.”

  “Now you are exaggerating. Why would I want to live for a hundred years?”

  “I’m sorry, just being playful.”

  “I know. OK, last thoughts… last thoughts…,” Mrs Lovemore said repeatedly, as she collected her thoughts. “I’m always in love with life, despite my troubles. Men seem to come and go these days. I certainly don’t go looking for them. I feel like I should be happy about everything, but I still struggle to be all the time. I’m not sure what the future holds. One day at a time for now, my dear.”

  “Thank you for a great interview.”

  “Pleasure,” said Mrs Lovemore. She escorted Lilly Loveless out of the house, and came back to help Pinklie out with her home work.

  Just as Mrs Lovemore was stepping into the room, Pinklie intercepted her with an observation that tantalized her. “Mom,” began Pinklie, “I think that your friend Dr Simba Spineless loves me very much.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Mrs Lovemore.

  “It is not the things he buys me or the money he gives me,” said Pinklie. “It is the way he calls my name.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mrs Lovemore.

  “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.”

  “How is that?”

  “You just know that your name is safe in their mouth,” said Pinklie, bringing out her homework for her mom to take her through.

  Mrs Lovemore’s mind flashed back, reliving some of the key moments of a relationship that she and Dr Simba Spineless had done all in their powers to keep under the carpet. One moment stood out: I took his hand as he reached for me, caressed the inside of his palm reflectively, making him feel me to the tips of his toes and said, ‘With all we share, do we really need to … make love … physically I mean? Won’t that … take something away? I mean rather than add something?’

  He was at a loss. He had done nothing but dream about being in my arms and me in his ever since we first met that day at his office when I went to drop my application for lectureship. And now, here we were, in the same hotel room, his favourite resting place, sitting on the edge of the same bed, after so many months chasing me, and what was he hearing? He knew he would have to go gingerly.

  ‘My charming Muzungu beauty,’ he smiled and continued, ‘I can’t resist you, try as I might. Your hesitations, rather than deter me as you might hope, arouse me, all of me, and make me want you, all of you. I am more than meets the eye, you know,’ he insisted, as he brought his hand that I had released by now to my spinal column, descending slowly from my neck over each and every vertebra. When he reached the small of my back he knelt on the bed and moistened me there with his lips then did the same to the small of my neck.

  I could feel his tongue exploring me determinedly as he revisited the subtle contours of each vertebra, this time with his lips sucking and smacking before moving onto the next. It’s as if he was trying not only to arouse me but also to reassure himself to get into my core, to sense that distant strength within me… His condom split, and it happened… ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me,’ I remember retorting when he insisted we keep the pregnancy.

  This was the first time Pinklie had ever mentioned Dr Simba Spineless in this way. Did she know anything? Had she heard something? Could she have accessed Mrs Lovemore’s cell phone somehow and read the sexy SMS messages the Reg and others had the habit of sending? If a coincidence, it was too much of one to swallow. Mrs Lovemore was thinking. Was her past finally catching up with her? She had never taken seriously the saying that people having an affair believe everyone else to be blind, even though everyone else probably knows about the affair better than they who are having it. The time had come to get her act together. She didn’t want her daughter losing esteem for her or growing up with a cynical attitude to normal life.

  But Pinklie was far from through with what she had to say on love. “Mom,” she called, taking up her head, “You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”

  Mrs Lovemore was lost for words.

  18

  Britney was not a hiker and she had never cared about climbing Mount Mimbo, but she accepted to accompany Lilly Loveless. She wanted to go to Stop One and return, but Lilly Loveless somehow convinced her they should continue to Stop Two where they could spend the night. “All those stories you said you collected, you can tell them to me under the starry skies,” she had proposed with bright eyes. “Ours might not be exactly the Race of Hope, but it isn’t hopeless, as far as I am concerned,” she added, in reference to the yearly international race up and down the mountain top. Britney used her connections to round up two sleeping bags, which the mandatory mountain guide, for a fee, carried for them, along with water and food. Lilly Loveless looked back and saw Puttkamerstown disappearing below them, but the view of Sakersbeach in the distance was the loveliest of sights from up on high. They made their way through cultivated lands that merged into the forest like missionaries desperately seeking converts. Branches fluttered with birdsongs that sounded like the national anthem of Mimboland to Britney’s schooled ear. Lilly Loveless stopped and closed her eyes for a moment to appreciate the symphony.

  It was a humid climb through forest paths. Lilly Loveless felt sweat beginning to soak her t-shirt around the collar and on the back and beyond. She saw the same thing happening to Britney, revealing the beautiful outlines of her plump figure. Eventually they reached Stop One and sat on the steps to drink water and rest.

  “You see,” said Lilly Loveless. “We made it this far. Imagine the view from even higher up.”

  Britney, panting, shook her head and wondered just how she had got herself into this adventure. Such exhaustion without pleasure she hadn’t experienced since her secondary school days, which made her appreciate all the more the feat of athletes, who could race up and down the top of the mountain in a matter of hours.

  The guide got them up and moving after a bit. The forest gave way to savannah then black lava slopes. As the climb steepened, the air thinned. They trekked slowly on.

  It was when they arrived at Stop Two and saw the forest below them wreathed in clouds that they realized how high up they were. It seemed magical with the undulating valleys and crests and colours and textures surrounding them. From inside, their muscles cried out in pain, tempering or heightening the exhilaration.

  The guide wanted to make supper before it got dark. He warned them that temperatures would plummet as soon as the sun disappeared behind the mountain.

  After dinner they prepared their sleeping bags. Lilly Loveless realized it was far too cold to think of holding a flashlight and taking notes, so she and Britney decided to sleep off their exhaustion and get to work once the sun was up again.

  Under the most starful sky they had ever seen, with the routines of Puttkamerstown buried down below and feeling uplifted into another world, closer to the heavens, they gave their minds free rein to roam. The night picked up dreamy words here and there as they reflected out loud and exchanged stories: “what drives one to …” … “summit…” … “Erupted unexpectedly…”... “Broken heart…” … “Light from stars long dead…” … Even the night could not make sense of them, because the meaning was embedded in knowing the one who spoke t
hem.

  When Lilly Loveless and Britney awoke before the sun, the guide was already preparing hot water for coffee and they were grateful for the warmth of the fire. Other campers who had shared the rest-hut with them had already left for Stop Three and the summit. They felt refreshed from the night and grateful for the warmth of the small fire. A blood red sun pushed its way gently through blue haze with belated greetings to them. They shivered their welcome, knowing it would soon warm them.

  After a breakfast of bread, marmalade, avocado and honey, Lilly Loveless and Britney took a short walk around and settled on a rock to work. Britney stretched her arms wide to shake off any lingering sleep, took a big breath, cracked her knuckles and began.

  ***

  “Let’s start with the story of Vincent and Vicky. They got married against the wishes of their families. Despite this they were both happy and cooperated a lot to build their own family. Vicky was soon discovered to be a high blood pressure patient but this did not deter Vincent from being the quiet loving husband. They were blessed with children and Vincent with a good job which took him out of the country.”

  “Does she stay or follow?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “Well,” said Britney, “since Vicky could not be transferred out, she temporarily suspended her contract and joined Vincent. All went well until Vicky started visiting home to carry out some projects for the family, in typical bushfaller fashion. She would come home and spend time with friends instead of in-laws, but she did visit the in-laws. Vincent all along had no objections to this and was confident of his wife. After some more visits, Vincent’s sisters started writing letters to Vincent, complaining of Vicky’s visits and the places where she spent time. They didn’t like the fact that she was not fully under their thumb.”

  “Hmmm… a little family interference … this could lead to trouble, couldn’t it?” asked Lilly Loveless, rubbing her hands together and placing them on her cheeks to warm herself.

  “Well,” continued Britney, “the letters insinuated that Vicky was too free and liberated.” The cold of the mountain was worse than the cold of being jilted on Valentine’s Day, she teased within herself, an affordable smile on her lips.

  “What happens next?” Lilly Loveless spurred Britney on.

  “Vincent took the letters and gave them to Vicky to read. This then raised some conflicts and Vicky, since she believed she had no skeletons to hide from Vincent, did not refrain from the relationships she had. To Vicky they were all genuine and most of them were family friends, and Vincent himself communicated with them.”

  “Good for a high blood patient to stay cool,” remarked Lilly Loveless.

  “Their woes came when they were transferred back home. Vincent’s family members now did everything in their power to pollute Vincent’s mind against Vicky.”

  “Really?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “Yes. But this proved difficult, at least at first. The family persisted and eventually things changed for the worse with Vincent and his wife and children. Vincent, who had been so fond of them, started drifting away, cared very little about the children’s education and now spent more of his finances on his extended family and relations. He even started off new relationships.”

  “You mean with other women?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “Yes. To begin, Grace, a very close neighbour, whom Vicky quite often would leave to take charge of her family while she travelled, fell prey to Vincent. And she took charge of everything. Vicky could hardly suspect there was a relationship since she so trusted Grace. Even when gossip reached Vicky, she dismissed it all. But trouble had started in the home and Vincent after each quarrel went off to Grace, but to Vicky this was no problem.

  “When the gossip intensified and Vicky could now get information about some of her internal problems from friends with details that could only have come from an insider, she took Vincent to task but he said nothing. Vicky then decided to find out more information herself, which then confirmed to her Vincent’s relationship with and investments in Grace. Vicky decided to do something about it.”

  “What did she do?” asked Lilly Loveless, getting drawn in.

  “She called Vincent’s friends and some members of their home village and invited Grace to join them. Vincent was surprised to find the people at home and was even more surprised when Grace entered the house. Vincent was really shocked when the ‘medicine man’ he and Grace had gone to see to fortify them came in as well.”

  “Wow, Vicky had really done her research,” exclaimed Lilly Loveless.

  “Vicky had done so much research,” continued Britney, “that she invited all those she thought were contributing to destroying her home.”

  “Hmmm… we don’t see something like that everyday,” mused Lilly Loveless. She thought to herself, one would have imagined that in typical fashion, they’d tell Vicky, if you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen, get out.

  “When Vicky finally spoke,” explained Britney, “she wove a full story of why she invited everybody and the problems she’d been going through with Vincent. She talked about the parts played by the ‘medicine man’ and Grace but none of them could make a statement. This then led to a break-up of the relationship with Grace.”

  “Mission accomplished?” asked Lilly Loveless, rather surprised.

  “Not quite,” said Britney. “While Vicky was having problems with Vincent, Vincent’s family was quite happy and those who came to spend time with the family, especially Vincent’s mother, encouraged the relationship with Grace and Grace spent much on mama to keep her place. Vicky’s strategy had disturbed them and they had to look for some other way to get Vicky out of Vincent’s home. Vincent found a new love, Jane. His family immediately talked of him getting married to her, to challenge Vicky.”

  “They really don’t like her, do they?” noted Lilly Loveless. “And Grace allowed herself to be disposed of just like that?”

  “Vincent was already head over heels with Jane and spent much time out of his home, and away from Grace as well. Things were so good for them that he announced to Vicky he was going to get another wife but did not introduce the would-be wife to Vicky. Vincent did not do any research on Jane, so knew very little of her life.”

  “Just loved her without knowing her? What do love and research have to do with each other anyway?” Lilly Loveless joked.

  “Well, Jane was a mature and caring woman,” continued Britney, “who gave Vincent all the attention he needed. When plans for the instigated marriage were going on Jane still did not confide in Vincent her real life situation. Much had been done and the modality was the next issue since Vincent had a monogamous marriage and Vicky had to agree to divorce him for there to be another marriage. Jane then confessed to Vincent she too was married and would need a divorce. Jane had left her husband in Muzunguland and was about to contract another marriage. This was a high blow to Vincent and his family but to Vicky who was already a born-again Christian, it was the greatest miracle God had performed.”

  “She helps herself, God helps her, what next?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “Vincent was shocked. He got involved in many bad habits: drinking, spending long hours out of the home and really giving very little care to his health. He got sick. The doctors warned him to rest and avoid strain and stress but this was not adhered to so Vincent got worse and fell into a coma.”

  “Sounds pretty serious,” said Lilly Loveless.

  “It was, and Vicky faced the hardest and most tortured part of her life during this period. Despite the fact of repeated abandonment, she was still the one who cared for her husband during his illness. Neither his fair-weather girlfriends nor his cantankerous family thought he needed care and comfort at hospital. Instead, while she was at the hospital with Vincent, his family continued to give Vicky a tough time accusing her of his illness. They even insinuated that her witchcraft and evil heart had caused his illness.”

  “Of course they don’t see their own role in it,” interjected Lilly
Loveless.

  “Of course not,” agreed Britney. “They even threatened her and started grabbing property by trying to send out tenants from some of the houses Vincent and Vicky owned.”

  “How sad!”

  “Vincent finally died. Vicky’s children stood by her and gave her all the support they could. The dust over his grave had hardly settled when Vincent’s sisters went off to declare one amongst them next of kin. Vicky was taken to court but unfortunately for them, the court ruled in her favour. Vincent had left no document transferring things to his family. His wife and children were his priority and despite all the problems, he had not changed any document.”

  “Hmmm, so he stood by her in death but couldn’t stand up to his family for her in life?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “You’ll have plenty of time,” said Britney jokingly, “to draw conclusions when you get back to Muzunguland. For now, let’s concentrate on data gathering, haven’t you said that before? It’s warming up now and pretty soon it’s going to get really hot again,” rationalized Britney as she launched into the next story.

  ***

  “An ex-parliamentarian in Pawa-Town was happily living with his wife. One of their neighbour’s daughters was always visiting his house. This girl was a graduate of the higher teachers’ training school in Nyamandem. She was so close to the family that this man’s wife could not doubt her in any way. As time unfolded, his wife who was a senior medical nurse and worked at the hospital was granted a scholarship to study in Muzunguland. As she left for her studies, the girl was still visiting the family as usual.”

  Lilly Loveless turned a page in her notebook.

  “You will not be surprised to know,” continued Britney, “that the ex-parliamentarian fell in love with this girl, the neighbour’s daughter. Before the girl’s parents knew about this, the two were already deeply in love. The man’s children were traumatized because the person they called ‘Auntie’ was fast replacing their mother.