Читать книгу A Prince for Me - Nolo Mothoagae - Страница 4

Chapter 1

1

Orefile More – File to her friends – twirls on the dance floor of the trendy up-market club Vibe in the Joburg suburb of Rosebank, a smile of abandon on her face, her body following the beat as the lights flash around her.

File is a dark beauty with large hazel-coloured, almond-shaped eyes framed by luxuriously long eyelashes and set off by beautiful cheekbones, luscious lips and longish hair blow-waved into a silky curtain that sways to the rhythm of her perfect hourglass body. As she turns this way and that, she sees the loving, happy faces of the friends she has made over the past few years. File wonders how she is going to cope without them over the next six months to a year.

The beat changes and Orefile indicates she needs a bit of a breather. Her friend Reitumetse seems keen to join her and they navigate through the crowd hand in hand. File is just turning back to say something when she sees Tumi’s eyes go wide as she points frantically in front of them.

File spots the man she broke up with a year ago looking around the club surreptitiously. She knows he is checking to see if anyone recognises him from his TV show The Lwazi Effect. File hopes that he has finally given up on them getting back together, as he hasn’t called her recently. Once upon a time he avoided the club – he mistakenly thought she was pining for him while he was busy womanising, seen with a different woman on his arm every week in the pages of the Sunday rags. But since then he has changed his mind and decided that they would make a perfect couple after all, so he comes here all the time again. He knows she and her girlfriends love Vibe.

Swiftly File changes direction, pulling her hair over her face and turning away from Lwazi to avoid his overbearing charm. It is the kind of charm that makes your skin quiver if you are a groupie, but if you are an ex who wants nothing more to do with him, it makes your skin crawl. She grimaces and hopes that he has finally given up on the idea of their being together again. With relief she remembers that she will be leaving town tomorrow and that he won’t be able to get hold of her. She would change her phone number if she could, just to avoid him, but it is also her work number, and in this financial climate no one can say no to work, even a SAFTA award-winning art director like her.

“For how long are you still going to try to avoid him?” Tumi asks, looking exasperated.

“Only until tomorrow,” File says cheekily. “After that I’ll be deep in the bundu where his celebrity status doesn’t shine quite so brightly and there’s no one to take a picture of the famous Lwazi.”

“Monna, don’t you think you should just tell Mister Big Head that you don’t want him back?” Tumi asks.

“I’ve told him!” File snaps. “He just has got it into his head that we’re the perfect celebrity couple and that I’m good for his image. He calls it a financial agreement, like an arranged marriage.” She snorts in irritation as she shakes her head. “I can’t bear having one more meaning­less conversation with that delusional egomaniac. Hopefully he’ll meet someone else and leave me the heck alone.”

“Did you see him rotating his hips in that contrivedly nonchalant way as he looked around the room to see if anyone was ogling him?” Tumi asks with a mocking laugh in her voice. “God, I can’t believe you fell for that guy!”

“Don’t remind me of that!” File says. “I was young and bored, and looking for some eye candy to decorate my arm. He seemed like uncomplicated fun that wouldn’t stalk me once we’d taught each other what we needed to.”

At Tumi’s look, File rolls her eyes, agreeing that she had been utterly foolish. Reitumetse heads for the bar and File walks back to their group of friends, throwing her hands up and singing along at the top of her voice, thus drawing the attention of a trail of men who can’t help but admire her well-rounded shape draped in a tight-fitting, multicoloured chiffon dress finished off with killer red heels.

File doesn’t seem to notice the admiring stares and when she is dragged into some man’s arms, she is about to slap him when she looks up straight into Lwazi’s face. The girly part of her is secretly pleased that he is still so determined to get her back, but the cynical part is irritated by the self-satisfied look on his face. She responds with a sarcastic smile, which goes right over his head.

Lwazi gives her a pleased look and says, “File, baby . . . Howzit going?”

“It was going fabulously until I wound up in your arms.”

“Ao, File!” he says, genuinely surprised. “Are you still on that It’s Over trip?”

She shakes her head incredulously and wonders if he really is so full of himself that he thinks she would be willing to fall back into his arms despite all her protestations to the contrary. She takes a long, hard look at him, trying to figure out what’s actually going on in his head, and realises that he really doesn’t see anything wrong with what he is doing.

File sighs and shouts above the music, “I have to go!”

But Lwazi pulls her closer and screams into her ear, “Aw, come on, can’t we even have one dance?” He puts on the pleading look of a puppy dog.

She starts to shake her head, but then capitulates and they begin to dance. File gradually lets go and starts to have quite a good time with him, as he knows how to make her feel really special. Her heart is about to melt when she notices that whenever Lwazi pulls her closer, he takes a surreptitious look around to see whether anyone is watching them. Feeling disappointed, she decides to give him this one dance and then extricate herself from this obvious publicity stunt.

She’s come here to have a final night of fun with her girlfriends before she leaves for the bundu the next day, definitely not to raise Lwazi’s public profile. She used to find it amusing that he was so desperate for attention, but after a while it started to grate on her as she realised that he was just using her in his quest for popularity. She’s happy to have helped him on the road to who and what he has become, but being a trophy girlfriend is not a role she enjoys or aspires to.

The DJ mixes in the song with another, and File sees Lwazi is scanning the crowd for admirers. She pats him on the shoulder, momentarily distracting him, and waves goodbye as she turns to leave. He grabs her arm and shouts above the music, “Awww, come on, baby!”

“No, Lwazi, I’m here with my girlfriends, not with you . . . I really have to go.” File turns away determinedly and walks towards her friends, rolling her eyes at his nerve.

As she approaches her group, she sees Tumi and the girls frowning and pointing behind her. She looks around and sees that Lwazi has followed her.

File grits her teeth and hisses, “Can I talk to you outside?”

Without waiting for him, she heads for the door, swaying her hips with annoyance and turning many a man’s head. Lwazi notices this and tries to put a possessive arm around her waist, but she flicks it off her like a smelly insect as they step through the door. Lwazi covers by grimacing at the onlookers, who seem to agree with him that she is a difficult customer, at which his face shows relief.

As soon as they are outside and the music is softer, File turns on him, furious. “What the hell are you doing?! What is this all about?”

Lwazi can see that she is exasperated with him and says sheepishly, “It’s about you and me, baby.”

She tries to answer him, but he places a finger on her mouth to stop her. “I know we’ve been apart for a while, but we’re so good together, File.”

She slaps his finger away and says matter-of-factly, “Good for your career, you mean.”

“No, for each other’s careers . . . And other stuff,” he stumbles, taken aback by her frankness. “I’m no good without you and I think you may need me a little too,” he says hopefully.

“Stop this,” she says. “You should know that sometimes there are no second chances when it comes to romance. And anyway, ours was more of a mutual admiration association, with friendly feelings and some initial passion. We were never really in love; it was never meant to be forever. It would be completely fake to continue what we had, and I’m not the kind of woman who can cope with that much artificiality.”

“Please,” he insists, “one more chance, that’s all I’m asking of you.”

She shakes her head. “No, we served the purposes we were supposed to in each other’s lives and we said goodbye, as we should have. We can’t go back because there’s nothing to go back to. My true love is out there, and so is yours. Stop wasting your time with me; you could lose out on that one true love because you’re too focused on the wrong person. Please, Lwazi, I don’t like doing this any more than you enjoy being at the receiving end. So let’s be friends if we can, but I don’t want to and I never will be your partner again. Okay?”

He opens his mouth to argue, but this time she puts her finger on his lips.

“No, Lwazi, you’re ruining my night out. Look around you – there are so many women eagerly waiting for you to just say the word and they’ll be yours. Go for one of them. I’m not interested.”

“But, File, they’re just ass kissers who rarely add any value. You said yourself that all relationships are basically parasitic, and we serve each other very well.” Lwazi is trying his best to sound as practical and logical as she is.

“Yes, but we have nothing else to offer each other,” she counters. “What’s left for us to discover about each other and ourselves? What else can you teach me about life and who I am? You taught me that I can be a caring and supportive girlfriend and that I don’t have to be so logical about relationships, plus you taught me about passion and ambition. We truly stuck it out and milked it for everything it was worth. But now there’s nothing left, only affection.”

“But I love you,” he insists.

“You mean you love what I do for your image,” she says, raising her eyebrows in irritation. “You’re a great guy, Lwazi, but I’m just not the woman for you. You need someone who’ll be all enamoured of you, and we both know I’m not that woman. You have an entire harem to choose from. You really don’t need me to be fabulous.”

She notices that he is on the verge of giving up. “Come on, let’s go back inside and have some fun. Stop being silly and trying to live up to the title of Luscious Lwazi.”

He smiles at the last quip, but File can see that he is disappointed. She quickly turns away, pulling him after her.

As they enter the club again, she pushes Lwazi into the middle of a bevy of bootylicious beauties. They release pleased squeals and are all over him, drawing the attention of onlookers. He gets into it and loves the attention. As he swivels around and looks at File, she gives him a wide smile and two thumbs up, then turns to go back to her girlfriends, relieved to have dodged that bullet.

As she arrives at the group, Tumi raises a questioning eyebrow, but she just shakes her head and purses her lips, making her friend laugh out loud. File looks over towards Lwazi one last time and sees that he has clearly forgotten about her with all those women rubbing up against him. Despite her exasperation, she feels a little twinge of jealousy that startles her into resolutely getting back to partying away her last night in Joburg.

* * *

Orefile opens her eyes and is glad that she drank that jug of water last night, otherwise she would be too much of a wreck to attempt the long drive to the Lehurutshe district, which will be her home for the next six months to a year. She looks around her empty bedroom and the suitcase by the wardrobe with a pair of jeans, a tank top and underwear on top of it, and sighs.

Her mind travels back over the past few years spent in this townhouse . . . The braais in her little garden with her wild girlfriends, the raucous parties she hosted with the city’s glitterati, and even the hot nights spent with ex-boyfriends. This thought takes her back to the twinge of jealousy and sadness she felt last night when she realised that she really wasn’t important to Lwazi.

File thanks God that the economy went up in smoke, giving her the perfect excuse to escape the city and head back home to the bundu. She’s glad that she will be away from Lwazi, who seems to have turned into some kind of stalker. She shakes her head, trying to dispel the sharp headache that strikes at the thought of all the embarrassing SMSs and phone calls, and the fact that she eventually had to ask Security not to let him into the complex without her permission.

Most men would be quite happy to have a break-up end so cleanly and without a fuss, and actually for a while Lwazi had seemed to appreciate it, flirting around with various bimbos, much to her relief. But then he appeared to do an about-turn and has since made many attempts to win her back.

He provided the kind of fluffy relationship that she has always loved. It was all about looking good together and having fun. But that was no longer enough for her. File realised this when she found herself looking for something more than base desire in Lwazi’s eyes and found even less than that.

He was too self-absorbed to even take the time to get to know her. Lwazi never listened to her or asked how her day had been or what she was thinking, and he seemed content to parade her at parties all over town and being constantly surrounded by people. But with the crowd gone and just the two of them together, she found the long silences grating and telling.

Orefile knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that, and she didn’t think she was supposed to feel lonely with someone right next to her. So she decided like the Motswana girl that she was that they should part ways while they were still friends. That was at least ten months ago, and to have him come back and want to pick up where they had left off was creepy and more than a little off-putting. It was making her very uncomfortable.

She sits up in bed and wonders whether she truly feels nothing for Lwazi at all, or whether the sadness from last night is just a nostalgic twinge for life in bustling Joburg that she has come to love so much. This city treated her well, welcomed her with open arms, clothed and fed her, and raised her into a successful young woman. Perhaps having to give this up has sparked the twinges. File frowns and tells herself it had better be that, because there is no point in feeling anything for an egotist like Lwazi January. She truly hopes she isn’t that stupid.

She releases a relieved breath, closes her eyes tightly and bites on her bottom lip, gathering the strength to embark on this new adventure. Fortunately she will be deep in the bundu of Lehurutshe, where she doubts there will be any cute, cologned, well-dressed, clued-up young men to tempt her into making a fool of herself.

Orefile jumps out of bed happily, looking forward to a period of no embarrassing crushes. This opportunity was a godsend, the perfect chance to escape stupid relationships with the likes of Lwazi. After the economic crisis her only other option was to stay in Joburg and deplete her savings by financing her blossoming fashion business while still hustling for art direction jobs in ads and TV shows. As someone who watched her parents struggle to develop her into who she became, she found this alternative very unappealing. So she decided she would rather take her money and take a much-needed holiday after five years of city life.

Anyone who has been to the North West Province, especially the Lehurutshe district, knows how sleepy life is there. It’s the perfect place to go and vegetate. The thought of waking up to the sound of hadedahs, pigeons and weaverbird song is surprisingly exciting for File, who now considers herself a city girl. She imagines herself taking a real break, as she used to do when she was at varsity.

Orefile imagines herself in her cut-offs, lying on her mom’s couch as the cool breeze blows through the lace curtains over her prone body after a heavy lunch of pap and vleis, listening to the crickets and the villagers going about their business, and the sound of an occasional car driving past their house on the dirt road. She imagines herself musing on the difficulties of life and jotting down some thoughts in the fancy notebook she bought especially for that purpose. One day her memoirs will make her world-famous.

File smiles happily and heads for the shower. The sudden thought of Lwazi calling her again makes her grimace. She hopes not to hear from him until she is safely ensconced in the bundu.

* * *

With her car packed and her elaborately decorated notebook on the passenger seat, a carefree File flies down the N4 highway through the North West Province. Her radio is blasting out an eclectic mix ranging from the house drums of Rhythmic Elements to classic UB40 and she is singing along at the top of her voice.

The stress she’s been feeling of late, brought on by Lwazi’s behaviour and by being jobless, seems to fade away the further away from Joburg she goes. She muses about how important it has been to her to be someone and have something to do in the big city, and how difficult the last few months have been with people asking her what she’s up to and with her flashing a fake smile, saying she was kind of looking for work. Orefile remembers the concerned looks she’d get and how people’s concern would bring on a flash of crippling fear as she wondered whether she was finished in this town.

What a relief for her to go home now, back to where people are more concerned with whether you behave like a good girl and there’s enough rain for the crops, and of course the latest village gossip. Orefile switches off the air conditioning and opens the window, allowing the wind to riffle through her hair and blow away the worry of the past few months. She glances in the mirror and sees her carefully combed Afro is falling to pieces, but who cares, the windswept look and the Jackie O sunglasses just scream decadent sun-filled holiday . . . Her face breaks into a massive smile.

She pulls in at the garage just off the main street in Zeerust to fill up her car with petrol. Spotting a small shopping complex next to the garage, she decides that she wants to turn her rather plain room at home into a bohemian paradise. She goes into one shop after another and purchases a rug, some lamps and colourful tulle curtains, wind chimes and a massive gilt-framed mirror, then packs everything into her already stuffed Baby Rav4.

She leaves the town and takes the road that leads to Gaborone on her way to Tswenyane, a small village in Lehurutshe, in the rural heart of the North West Province.

A while later, when she turns off into the dirt road, it finally hits her that she is coming back to her parents for a while and that this is not just a weekend visit. Orefile wonders whether she is ready to be a child in her mother’s house again, and whether her mother will let her be an adult. There is an old Setswana saying that claims two bulls never low in the same kraal. And their home kraal is definitely her mother’s.

File hopes she will be able to cope, and that her mother won’t be shocked at the hours she keeps these days. After five years of getting up at three in the morning to be on set by five, she is looking forward to waking when the sun is long up.