She grinned at me, her large white teeth staring at me as if they had eyes of their own.
“Shasa!” she cried out in surprise, “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you!”
“I had a day off,” I lied as I brushed past her to enter the large living space.
The room was painted a glossy white, and contained various leather sofas, a television set and games console, a bar stocked full of potent mixers, a pool table, and of course a huge aquarium at the far end, which housed all kinds of beautiful tropical fish.
As I entered the room, Visola followed behind me after first closing the door, and I quickly scanned around to see if everyone was present. Gamba, who was normally about a head taller than me, sunk down to bend over the pool table to line up a shot. He completely ignored my presence, intent on making his move and scoring the points he so desperately wanted. He was successful in his aim, and once he was finished he stood up straight and smirked at Visola, who had now joined him back at the pool table. His gawp made it hard to take him seriously, and it really annoyed me, mainly because I smiled in exactly the same way and wished that I didn’t.
“Did it again,” he uttered confidently. He stood up smugly, and paced around the table to stand next to Visola, handing her the snooker cue.
“That was just a lucky shot. You’re going down, Ba-Ba,” Visola replied. Ba-Ba was an affectionate term that only she called my brother. As a child, it was the only way she could pronounce his name, and for that reason the nickname had stuck. As she reached out to take the cue from him, some of her thick shoulder length dreadlocks drooped down over her face. She quickly brushed them aside and stuck her tongue between her teeth as she bent over the table to aim with intent.
Gamba glanced in my direction, still proud of his achievement, and turned the corner of his mouth up coldly.
“Hi Shasa.” He put little effort into making me feel welcome. As much as I loved Gamba, I sometimes despised him. And I knew full well that the feeling was mutual. We had been good friends for the longest time. Even though it had been me and Visola who were inseparable as children, I had still always been close to both of my brothers. But over the last few months he had been very distant, and our relationship had broken down, almost to the point of disrepair. We had always been opposites. He was loud and confident and tough and spirited, whereas I was much more quiet and composed and kept my feelings to myself. This was probably the reason why Gamba and Visola got along so well, because they were both so similar in those ways. They always wanted to argue and fight and be practical and physical. But I was much more like Madzimoyo, as I was quietly collected, and always tried not to rush wildly into making decisions without carefully assessing them first. Inwardly, I laughed at myself. If Gamba ever found out what I had done today, he would have realised that we had much more in common then he realised. I could be impulsive too, except the difference between us was that I had to pay a price for my insolence, while he usually never had to deal with the negative consequences of his actions.
The reason we had begun arguing in the first place was because of a discussion we all had together about what we were going to do once we left the island. Not surprisingly, Gamba and Visola wanted to go on some kind of rampage and be actively aggressive in environmental and political issues. During our years of training, they had both honed their powers for physical fights, because that is what they both excelled at. I wanted us to dedicate ourselves to charity work by operating in individual communities, like I had been doing. I knew that Madzimoyo preferred my suggestion, but like always he didn’t want to be involved in an argument so said that he ‘didn’t mind’. This then caused a huge row where Gamba accused me of being undemocratic by not agreeing with the overall majority. He knew that, as the Primus, it was ultimately my decision, and I could go against all three of them if I wanted to. This led to a stalemate, and after interjection from Babajide, my parents, and other members of the Aqua Cohors, we were no better off in our negotiations. Gamba saw me as a dictator and I saw him as a petulant brat, and neither of us would give in. Visola and Madzimoyo tried their best not to get involved in the arguments, but it really annoyed me that they didn’t. I didn’t want to dictate what we should do as a group: I just wanted us to do something that we would all feel comfortable with, and fighting about it wasn’t the answer.
I stared at Gamba. He was now nineteen years old, and had become an incredibly handsome young man. If we lived a normal life, I was sure that he would have many women baying for his attention. Even on the island I had heard women who worked here complimenting his appearance. Even though myself and Gamba shared many physical similarities, such as having very dark brown skin, thick black afro hair- which he had cut very short- a thin frame but athletic physique and big lips which formed the same smile, we had always been such different people.
“Hi,” I replied to him warmly. He smiled back at me, but it had no real energy or emotion. I wanted to burst into tears there and then, and grab him and hug him as hard as I could. I loved him so much, and this fighting was really upsetting me.
Please Lord; help us to sort out our differences. Help him to love and respect me the way that I love and respect him.
Gamba’s gaze flashed from my own to Visola’s, who had finished her turn and was now standing next to me. She offered him the snooker cue.
“It’s your turn.”
Gamba walked over to us. As he snatched the snooker cue, Visola looked up at me and shrugged. There was a lot of anger simmering just under the surface of both me and my brother.
“Where’s Madzimoyo?” I asked them both. Gamba sneered and then returned to the pool table in defiance. Visola walked towards him, but kept my stare.
“He’s off reading somewhere. He’s probably in his room.”
“I need to speak to him. I need to speak to all of you.”
Gamba glanced over at me sneakily. “Finally come around to my way of thinking?” he questioned slyly.
I shook my head. “We have more important things to discuss.”
His mouth clenched and then he pouted. Just as he was about to open his mouth and make some sort of ‘clever’ reply, I heard the door click open, and turned to see Madzimoyo entering the room. Even though he was the youngest of us, at sixteen, he was the tallest, measuring up to just under six foot. But it was hard to tell that he was tall, because he never really stood up straight. His hunched back shrunk his stature, and made him seem a lot less imposing than he really was. Madzimoyo was broad, athletic, and like Gamba, fairly muscular. But Madzimoyo had always been shy and lacked confidence and this made him behave awkwardly around strangers. He had the same skin tone as Visola, but had more angular features like myself and Gamba. He shaved his head so that his skull had a stubbly finish, and his long arms flopped by his side as he staggered into the centre of the room.
“I was just looking for you!” I told him, smiling gently.
“Premonition,” he muttered, before taking a seat on one of the squidgy sofas.
“I suppose you want us to take a break from our game?” Gamba enquired in annoyance.
“It’s important,” I repeated, turning to look into his eyes. He glared back at me, and must have been able to tell that I was serious in my intent. After sighing petulantly, he made his way across the room, to the sofas that sat opposite one another, with Visola. They both sat down on the couch opposite Madzimoyo, so I filled the space next to him, directly in front of Visola. She looked at me attentively, as Gamba sighed in impatience. Madzimoyo said nothing.
“I’ve got some very serious and troubling news to tell you all,” I began, trying to keep my own emotions in check. I wanted to take Madzimoyo’s hand in order to comfort him, but I knew that it would just make him feel worse. He didn’t like physical contact.
Visola leaned forward keenly, and Gamba turned towards me. Madzimoyo stared at the floor.
“I ran into Diane today…”
“Diane’s here?” Visola interrupted,
“How’s she doing?”
“Not very well,” I replied honestly. “When I saw her she was very upset, and told me something… Something very sad…”
A lump in my throat appeared out of nowhere, and I suddenly found myself unable to say it aloud. Tears began to dribble out of my eyes and splash from my cheeks onto the shining red surface of the sofa.
“Hey!” Visola exclaimed, leaving her seat to sit next to me. She wrapped her arm around me and hugged me close to her soft chest. I could hear her heart beating slowly and steadily, and it made me feel secure and safe.
“What’s wrong Shasa?” Gamba queried earnestly, “Are you okay?”
I shook my head, still unable to open my mouth and form words.
“Take your time,” Visola encouraged softly as she stroked my back.
“We all love you,” Madzimoyo added awkwardly, moving across to the empty seat next to Gamba, so that Visola had more space next to me.
After a few moments, I pulled away from Visola and swallowed down my dread, which ended up squatting in my stomach.
“Diane,” I continued, “she told me that something terrible had happened to Valeska.”
Suddenly, Madzimoyo’s interest was piqued, and his eyes locked onto mine.
“What happened?” he asked, a flash of worry and confusion spreading across his face.
I inhaled deeply, and then spat it out.
“She’s been murdered.”
Aqua Page 7