And so Nobantu had reluctantly agreed to go to Wits. What swayed her was the thought that she might see Andile while in Johannesburg, and she did.
Sure, upon her arrival Andile had continued with his brotherly routine, but soon their relationship changed. After a while he became less of a big brother and more of a friend, as he took time out of his busy schedule to take her out and educate her about the city he now referred to as “my Joburg”.
When Andile talked of Johannesburg, he always spoke of it with such intensity, such passion, that Nobantu knew if Joburg had been a woman, she would never have stood a chance.
As it was, the city was just that – a city. Spending so much time together, it wasn’t long before he became her mentor, her confidant and eventually, inevitably, her lover.
She had known then that they made a striking couple. With his tall frame and the type of physique that was carefully maintained three times a week in their basement gym, Andile made an impression on everyone he met. And she, she knew without conceit, was the type of woman that, with her classic dark look, made her one of the beauties of her time. Together they made the type of good-looking couple that every photographer wanted in their portfolio.
Yet now, as she sat on her bed in what her mother termed a mansion, she wondered if she had ever really truly loved Andile, or if it was the fear of the unknown and her unplanned pregnancy at the age of nineteen that had resulted in their marriage? As she put on her dressing gown and made her way to their en suite bathroom, her eye caught her framed MBA on the dressing table. Was this all there was to her life? she wondered silently to herself. Prepping her husband and children to go to work and school respectively. A workout in her gym. A shower and an hour indulging in her passion (Andile childishly called it a hobby), sketching designs for the children’s clothes she one day hoped to bring to life. Manicures, pedicures and lunches with Oupa’s vacuous second wife – whom her irreverent eleven-year-old daughter had nicknamed Plastic Penny because of all the surgery she had undergone. Then home to make dinner and, if she was unlucky, her husband would be there, never asking how her day had been, but whining tediously about his work, his partners or the white folks in business who thought he was just another well-connected black person while showing little respect for his business acumen. God! She didn’t care any more. She had started shutting him out mentally even before he opened his mouth. Fifteen years of marriage will do that to you, she thought, and laughed cynically.
She recalled that the morning after her party she just couldn’t get the phrase Andile had used to describe her out of her head. She is just a housewife. Was that all he really thought of her? She had decided that she and Andile needed to talk. She needed to show him, remind him, that there was more to her, that she was a woman of substance.
She had walked to the bed and roused him from sleep. “Hmm?” he had mumbled, partially opening his eyes.
“Andy, wake up,” she had said, continuing to shake him awake. She had stopped with the babes, darlings and sweethearts long ago.
Sleepy-eyed, he turned and yawned without covering his mouth. His breath smelt foul. Had there been a time when she used to kiss him with morning breath?
“What’s up?” he asked, sounding a little more alert.
“We need to talk.”
He glared at her. “For Chrissakes, I have just got into bed. What exactly do you want to talk about that cannot wait till later?” he asked, glancing at the bedside clock.
“If you weren’t so busy all the time, I wouldn’t have to wake you up to speak to you,” she mumbled.
“What?” he asked, obviously unable to believe her tone after the grand old party he had thrown her the night before.
She raised her voice, just so that there would be no mistake this time around. “I said, if you weren’t so busy all the time, I wouldn’t have to wake you up to talk to you now.”
“So talk then,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“I have been thinking,” she started. “I have been thinking of getting premises and starting my business like I’ve always wanted to do.”
Andile looked at her as though she had lost her marbles. Then, slowly, he started laughing.
When he finally got hold of himself, he looked at her with tears streaming down his face and said, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe he had just been woken up for this, “Nobantu, we have talked about this. I know you are a trained auditor and have those little sketches of yours you call designs, but do not deceive yourself that you can crack it in the business world. It’s not that easy, and it would be twice as hard for you. You have barely practised your profession,” he said patronisingly, like a parent talking to an impetuous three-year-old. “Hhayi, man, why don’t you just concentrate on what you do best . . .” He paused and chuckled. “Being a housewife and a mother. Besides, no one cares about putting their children in designer gear.”
“That’s where you are wrong, Andile,” she said, refuting his assertion. “If that were true, babyGap would not exist, let alone exist and be doing so well.”
“Yes, but how many South African babyGaps are there?” he asked. “Nobantu, people in this country are too practical to waste money on designer clothes for children they know will outgrow them before the year is out.”
“I don’t agree, Andile. I think most mothers want their children to be dressed in the very best. Besides, I plan to corner the teen market too.”
“Well, whatever,” he said, waving his hand towards her, “you can just forget about it. No wife of mine is going to work. What would people say when they hear that my wife is working? That I am incapable of taking care of you and the children? No, Nobantu, forget it!”
At the time, Nobantu had looked at him aghast, but in retrospect she wondered why she had hoped that he would take her seriously. They had had the same conversation a million times before. Maybe she had hoped that the goodwill that had resulted in the party the night before would continue into the morning.
The previous time she had raised the subject, a few months earlier, he had even threatened her with divorce should she go ahead and defy his wishes. That time, Nobantu had cursed herself, asking herself why she caused so much trouble. Andile was right, of course, he gave her everything. She even had an untouched account where he had been depositing twenty thou monthly for the last five years in the event that “if anything happens to me, you at least have some ready cash, before you begin sorting out the entire legal wrangle”.
She had been silenced then, certain that she did not want to get a divorce. What would her mother say, and, more importantly, how would she survive without the lavish lifestyle she had become accustomed to?
Sure, she had the untouched bank account to live on, but how long would that last?
Could she leave him, slum it, and become – horror – middle-class: no maids, no manicures or pedicures, no gardeners?
Could she leave him for a business that might, as Andile had highlighted time and again, fail?
But an idea once dreamt can only be deferred for so long. She was thirty-five. She knew that if she didn’t act now, she would forever ask herself “what if ?”.
In the past, when she had complained to her mother about Andile’s archaic attitude towards gender roles, her mother had always questioned her, “Hhawu, sana, why are you so ungrateful? Many women are dying for what you have and you are complaining. Your husband gives you and your children everything. Look at your wardrobe, the trips you make. Which woman would not die to get a trip to Tahiti just to buy genuine Tahitian pearls . . . Meanwhile your father always claims to be too sick to take me even as near as Botswana,” she had said, shaking her head at her child. “No, my child, I did not raise you to be an ungrateful wife. Stay with your husband without complaining. Besides, you know what your Aunt Thembi says . . .” She paused to look meaningfully at her daughter. “ ‘Better to cry in a limousine than laugh in a taxi!’ ”
Nobantu