Читать книгу Love in the Shadows - Lauri Kubuitsile - Страница 5

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The stalker had forced Kedi to make all sorts of adjustments. Among them was that she was suddenly living with her mother again. Mama Baitse had arrived a few hours after the incident and never left, staying at her daughter’s side all the time.

Kedi loved her mother, but this was becoming too much. “I’m driving you. No discussion,” her mother said, picking up her handbag and Kedi’s car keys and heading outside. Kedi knew her mother was frightened, so she gave her some leeway.

“What difference does it make if I drive or you?” Kedi asked. “If the guy wants to get me, what’s the difference if I’m in the driver’s seat or the passenger’s?”

“I don’t know. I’d just feel better if I drove.”

Kedi gave in reluctantly. It was all she seemed to be doing lately. Giving in to things she didn’t want. But she couldn’t waste any more time fighting with her mother. She needed to get to the studio; her band was waiting. Because of the break-in, they’d postponed the recording sessions for a week. She didn’t want to keep them waiting any longer. They were working on the songs for her fifth album.

The excitement of getting back to work was taking her mind off what had happened, which was a good thing. She was tired of feeling violated. She was tired of being a victim. She wanted to get control of her life again. She was sure getting back in the studio would make her feel better.

Since Kedi’s father died, her mother had transformed from a housewife – whose main mission was to keep her bad-tempered primary school teacher husband happy and raise their five children – into a highly successful businesswoman. The children were grown. The husband was buried. Kedi’s mother took a year to mourn and then got on with her new life. She started her own hair salon empire in their hometown of Zeerust, opening two salons in the first year. She expanded to Rustenburg. Soon she had a couple of salons in Joburg. And now she was in the process of opening up a big salon across the border in Gaborone, where one of her sons lived.

In ten years, Baitse Taukobong had become the name in hair salons. She ran them like she’d run her house for all those years – keep it clean and keep everyone happy. It seemed to be a method that worked.

“Mama, don’t you need to get back to Botswana soon?” Kedi asked hopefully.

“I’ll get there when I get there.” Her mother was not a woman to cower in the face of danger. Like most South African women, when danger came, she picked up arms and got to work against it. Her way of combating the danger was to stay close to her daughter and keep a sharp eye on everything.

Kedi’s mother had never learned to drive when her husband was alive. He would never have allowed it. She started driving school still wearing her widow’s weeds. Kedi wondered sometimes how her mother had ever managed to pass the driving test. She was a terrible driver and she was a complete demon on the road. She weaved in and out of the traffic as if she were at Kayalami.

Kedi leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to know what all the hooting was about. It was a relief when her car finally came to a halt and she found that they’d made it to the studio without an accident.

Kenamile was waiting for them when they came out of the lift on the floor from where Ebony Music operated. After graduating from university with a business degree, she’d taken over as Kedi’s personal assistant. Kedi liked having people around her whom she could trust. It was all about loyalty. There was no one she trusted more than her little sister. Kenamile was efficient and knew Kedi so well that she took care of most things before Kedi even knew she needed them done.

The sisters and their mother headed to Kedi’s office to drop off her bag. Ebony was big enough now to have their own studio at their business premises, and since Kedi was their biggest artist, she had an office of her own too. It made everything very convenient.

“The band thinks it’s best to start with ‘Land of Love’, especially since we needed to hire the sax and trumpet players to sit in,” Kenamile said. “If we can get it down in the next few days, Louise thinks we should release it as a single before the album is ready, to get people excited. Especially with the tour coming up.”

“Sounds good.” Kedi loved that song. It was a haunting ballad about the continent, a land of love, brutalised for centuries but always resilient. She knew it would be a hit everywhere, not just in South Africa. She hoped it might even be her big breakout song overseas. That was one of the goals she was still aiming for, to make it big in Europe and the US.

The band was already working on the arrangement in the practice room down the passage from reception. “Okay, I need to get to work,” Kedi said, hoping her mother would get the hint.

“I’ll come with you,” Baitse said.

“You really don’t have to. I’ll be here until late. Why don’t you call one of your daughters-in-law and go shopping, or go and see your grandkids? You can take my car,” Kedi suggested. She didn’t like the idea of her mother wasting her time at the studio, and her two eldest brothers lived in Joburg, one a lawyer, the other the owner of a plumbing company, both married with kids.

“Nope. I’m fine,” her mother answered. “I’m here to take care of you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

The woman was stubborn when she got her teeth into something, Kedi had to admit. It could have been why she had withstood twenty-four years of marriage to a man almost every person he met couldn’t stand. That was probably why she was so successful at business too. Baitse just didn’t give a business the option of failing. Kedi sighed and headed for the practice room, her mother following closely behind her.

Everybody was there. Sipho, the lead guitar player; Ace, on bass guitar; Dintwe on keyboards; and Clipper on drums. They were like a family. They travelled all over the continent together, doing concerts. Each of these musicians had a high work ethic, which was part of the reason Kedi was so successful. She never forgot that. She knew she would not have managed without them.

“Hi, guys!”

Dintwe gave her a hug. “You feeling up to this?”

“Sure, I’m fine. I just need to get to work. Get my mind off things.”

Kedi greeted the trumpet and sax players, both women she’d worked with before. She’d already worked out the logistics to take them on tour with the band after the album came out. Eventually she’d love to have them permanently in the band, if they could manage that. She liked the depth horns gave to a piece of music, and both of these women were very talented and committed musicians.

Kedi slipped out of her shoes, kicked them into a corner of the practice room and got straight to work. The time slipped away as she and the band tried various arrangements of the song. Kenamile brought lunch for everyone; they broke for thirty minutes and then were back at it. Kedi got lost in the work, in the music. Security and stalkers disappeared. None of that mattered. All that mattered was getting the song right.

She was so thankful for the music. The almost mathematical intricacies that could be shifted to take a song from good to magical completely took over her mind. They were doing it and it felt fantastic.

The practice room had no windows, so it was only when Kedi walked out of the room and looked down the passage to the window at the end that she realised it was dark outside. She checked her watch: it was 21:15. “Hey, it’s late, guys. Sorry.”

“No problem,” Clipper said. “We got it where we wanted it, tomorrow we record.”

“Anyway,” Dintwe said, “what could we say, you’re the boss.”

Kedi looked at him and he smiled, but she could see he wasn’t happy they were leaving so late. “Sorry, I hope Princess won’t be too upset.”

“I’m sure she’s in bed by now,” Dintwe replied.

Kedi felt even worse. No one else in the band had kids, at least ones that lived with them. She reminded herself that she needed to be more sensitive to Dintwe’s situation. She rubbed his shoulder. “Sorry, really.”

Just when they were about to take the lift down to the parking garage, Louise came out of her office. Her face showed she was under some sort of stress. She seemed reluctant to say what she obviously needed to. “Can I see you before you go?” she said to Kedi.

“Sure.” Kedi turned to her mother and Kenamile. “Can you guys hold up just a minute?”

They both came back out of the lift and sat down on the sofas in the reception area as Kedi followed Louise to her office.

Louise sat down behind her desk and Kedi seated herself in one of the visitor’s chairs.

“I know you didn’t want to do this, but . . .” Louise started.

“Dumela, mma,” a voice said from behind Kedi, a voice she knew. Though she didn’t want to, she turned to see the man sitting on the sofa against the wall. He looked relaxed, his arm along the back of the sofa, one leg stretched out in front of him. He wore faded jeans and the worn brown leather jacket Kedi knew only too well.

It was Sefhemo. His hair was shorter and the moustache was gone, but the eyes were the same. His head was shaved nearly bald, which brought out his eyes and the good bone structure of his face even more. He seemed just as fit as he’d been when he was twenty-five, the last time she’d been this close to him.

She tried to ignore the racing of her pulse and to banish all thoughts of how he looked from her mind.

Kedi stood up without speaking to Sefhemo. “Louise, you said you would take care of this – that was our deal. I’m not doing this. I told you. You promised.”

Louise came around the desk and took Kedi’s hands in hers, stopping her before she could leave the office. “Please,” she whispered. “Please. He just wants to ask you a few questions. Things I don’t know the answers to. I’ll take care of everything after that. We need to get this thing sorted out once and for all. Please, just this once. For me.”

Louise’s voice sounded weary. Kedi had expected as much – Louise hadn’t been able to stand up to Sefhemo. She’d tried and he’d beaten her down. Kedi had known it would be like this, and now here they were.

Sefhemo sat on the sofa looking at her, his lips not quite smiling, not quite not smiling. Age was not tempering his good looks, but rather accentuating them. Kedi tried to deny her nervousness and ignore her sweating hands. Sefhemo was a person who could not be trusted, she told herself. Because of that he was a person she didn’t need or want in her life. Nine years hadn’t changed that fact.

Desperate to maintain her composure, Kedi sat back down, turning the chair to face Sefhemo. Her voice was all business. “Okay, fine. Make it quick. I need to get home, it’s late.”

“Still the same overdramatic young woman, I see,” Sefhemo said, ignoring her words. “Quite a bit more beautiful, though.”

Kedi stood up again. “That’s it! I’m out of here.”

She headed for the door again, but Sefhemo got there first. He was suddenly very near, and Kedi found it difficult to take a breath. He grabbed her arms.

“Let me go,” she said half-heartedly.

She could feel her body betraying her. After all this time, could the attraction still be this strong? She felt weak fighting it. It was as if she was back to when they first met, when she was a singer with a dream and he a cop new to the job, with so much to prove. The minute she met him, she’d known there was something different, something important and rare between them. She’d been dating Poloko since high school and she’d been sure she loved him, at least for part of that time, but it was nothing like the immediate attraction she felt towards Sefhemo. Physical, visceral, uncontrollable.

It was a dangerous, wild attraction and it scared her. That was why she knew that when she had her chance, she had to get away from him. She was sure such an attraction would swallow her up. She was sure she couldn’t stand up to such feelings. When she got away, she’d known it had to be permanent. But now here he was.

His hands held her firmly. His voice was just above a whisper, meant for Kedi’s ears only. “Sit down. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

He let go and though she knew his words to be untrue, she sat down. He wouldn’t even know if he was hurting her. Like everyone else, he didn’t understand. She was back where she’d hoped she would never be. Back near Sefhemo. Back to the man she’d never stopped loving, the one who stopped her from seeing any other man as good enough.

Kedi knew she had to be careful, very careful. She had to keep control of things. She had to be strong.