As soon as Tembo’s X-Trail drives out the car park, I hop out of my car and tiptoe between the other vehicles until I’m right behind her. She’s a head taller than me and squealing into her cellphone. I grip her by the shoulders and spin her around. Surprise registers in her face; the phone clatters to the tarmac.
‘Leave my husband alone!’ I slap her across the face and the impact stings in my palm. ‘I won’t let you!’ I hear myself screaming. ‘I won’t let you take my children’s father away.’
She screams and grabs at my hands as, from the corner of my eye, I see two car park attendants sprinting towards us. Her hair-tie snaps and her orange extensions frizzle around her face, but then her nails bite into my wrists and she throws me back against a parked car.
A group of women street vendors dump their wooden trays and come weaving between the cars towards us, babies bouncing on their backs. Panic rises in my throat. I try to make a break for my car, but she grabs me and hangs on. We lock arms, then she jerks her head up into my chin. Pain shoots through my jaw and it is as if something breaks inside of me. Fire burns hot and orange in my head – and I lose control. I lunge at her and sink my teeth into her soft skin. I might as well be nine again, fighting Bee. Except I’m thirty-one. I’m an architect. And this time I know I’m losing.
Tata says only a fool fights physically, because in a physical fight all parties lose something: dignity, composure, respect, teeth, hair or buttons – hers are scattered on the ground; small white buttons.
‘Madam, please, have mercy,’ one of the parking attendants pleads. ‘You are a mature woman, you shouldn’t be fighting in the street.’
‘These young girls, that’s what they need,’ a woman with fat arms and sweat running down her face jeers at him. ‘They like money, so they go for sugar daddies.’
‘Men, too,’ a male voice says, ‘what do they want from these young girls?’
My pulse is racing. I have to get back to my car before the people around us become a crowd.
Someone pulls us apart. Her ripped blouse exposes breasts that are surprisingly full for her slim frame, encapsulated in pink lace.
‘I swear, Madam, I haven’t done anything.’ She looks straight into my face. ‘That man just gave me a lift.’
‘You young girls have to be taught a lesson,’ the vendor with the flabby arms says and her two companions jeer in approval.
The girl adjusts her denim skirt over her lilac leggings and picks her bag off the floor. It’s a blue bag with a silver star embroidered on the outer pocket, and silver tassels.
‘I will teach you a lesson.’ Spurred by her friends the fat woman steps forward and tugs at the girl’s skirt. It drops a few inches and strings of pearly pink beads that surround her waist come into focus.
Amidst all the anger and fear racing through my mind, I suddenly think of Gloria. Tata’s Gloria. I see her bright green scrawl on crisp, white, unlined paper. I refuse to fight the other women. My fight is with your Tata. He’s the one who has betrayed me. The problem with us women is that we lack the confidence to confront our men, so we focus on the other women, and in the process our men get away with it.
My anger starts to dissipate. What am I doing?
I turn to leave, but as I do so I see an arm reach out. The sound of a fist striking flesh rings though the air. The girl screams. When I turn to her, she’s bent over, slowly hoisting herself up against the fender of a car. A woman, who’s been standing back all along, steps forward and rolls up her sleeves. ‘Leave her to us,’ she says to me and the circle surges forward, tightening around the girl. The mood is angry. ‘Leave her to us,’ the woman says again.
‘Leave her!’ Pushing forward I reach down and grab the girl by the wrist. Another fist flies, the girl ducks and the blow ploughs into the side of my neck. ‘Quick!’ Dragging her by the arm I start moving away. ‘Leave her alone, I’m taking her with me!’
‘You’ll kill me for nothing!’ the girl shouts, wriggling out of her tattered blouse to free herself from someone’s grip.
‘Leave her alone!’ A foot is stuck out and I stumble, but before I hit the ground the girl pulls me up.
More people are moving towards us. ‘It’s okay, I’m taking her to her mother!’ My voice is shaking. ‘She’s my sister! She’s my sister!’ I shout at two young men coming towards us. They step aside. ‘Let’s get to my car.’ I start running, she’s right behind me.
In the car we find Mufuka screaming.
‘You have a baby in the car?’ The girl reaches back and settles Mufuka as I turn the key in the ignition.
‘She was sleeping.’ My tone is defensive. ‘It’s okay, Mufuka, mummy’s here.’
I manoeuvre the car jerkily out of the car park. My thighs feel like jelly and my knees knock together, making my foot unsteady on the gas pedal.
‘Hello, Mufuka. I’m Salomé.’ She rocks Mufuka’s car seat. ‘She’s sweating, poor baby. How old is she?’
‘She’s two.’ I hear myself say.
‘Here, baby, drink your juice. Oh, Mufuka, a big girl like you still drinks from a baby’s bottle?’ She giggles as she hands Mufuka her stained bottle with half the image of Winnie-the-Pooh missing.
My head is spinning. Thirty minutes ago I was going to buy some groceries. How have I ended up with a half-dressed girl in my car nursing my daughter?
After a few minutes she says, ‘You’re so wrong, Madam. I have never slept with your husband. He just gave me a lift from the post office in town.’ She turns away from Mufuka and I can feel her eyes on me.
I don’t say anything.
‘Your husband is not that type of man. Madam, I know, because I see him when I go to the bank. His office is near the branch where I bank takings for the hair salon.’
‘Which salon do you work at?’ I’m irritated that she’s not shaking like I am and is seemingly unaware of her nakedness.
She hesitates. ‘Shadows,’ she finally says.
‘Which branch?’
‘Madam, I am not that type of girl. I was standing outside the bank. Your husband’s car passed and some water splashed on my shoes.’ She places a foot on her knee to show me; her artificial toenails are fuchsia. ‘He heard me cuss him, so he get out of car to say sorry. When I say, it’s okay boss, he offer me lift. I only take lift because I know him from seeing his car parked there all the time.’ She shrugs and tosses her hand away. ‘I’m not the type of girl who jumps in men’s cars anyhow.’
As she talks I realise why she’s familiar. She reminds me of Gloria. Not physically; it’s her gestures, the way she flicks her hand when she talks. The way she talks, so seemingly sure of what she’s saying. But at the same time this girl is nothing like Gloria. Gloria was a doctor. The girl sitting beside me couldn’t have been educated past Grade Five.
‘So, your husband says he’ll drop me at Shadows, but first he has to pass somewhere.’
I don’t say anything, but my pulse quickens. Why did Tembo have to get out of the car to say sorry to her? Isn’t the small piece of paper scrunched in her fist his business card? The shade of green on the card looks just like the green of his company logo. Couldn’t he have just apologised and given her the money to take a minibus? Surely just by looking at her he could tell her type. Didn’t the white plastic hoops in her ears and her clashing colours speak for her before she even opened her mouth? Why would he take her in his car?
She blabbers on and I wait for her to slip up. She doesn’t know that I saw Tembo’s car go past me in the opposite direction when I was on my way to the store, that I saw Tembo laughing, his white teeth gleaming while she sat beside him with her elbow resting on the sill of the open window. Instinctively, I turned and followed them. Tembo was so engrossed he didn’t see me. I watched them stop at the BP to fill up with petrol – Tembo went into the shop while she waited in the car. Then they stopped for Tembo to pick up his suits from the dry-cleaners. From there I followed them to the mall. It took her three minutes to get out of the car. Then she stopped to answer her cell as Tembo drove off. And that’s when I pounced. I followed because I had to know who she was. I had to stop this girl who was making my husband laugh. I’ve seen what laughter can do to a man.
‘But, Madam, I know why you attacked me. You have to very be careful these days. Some of these girls around are quick.’ She snaps her finger. ‘Your husband, like that. Good looking, he has money, all it would take them is five minutes, and he’s taken.’ She throws her hands up.
Her presence and her words rile me. The cheek of her to think she can warn me about ‘these girls’ as she calls them.
‘Where should I drop you?’ I ask, before realising that she needs something to wear – she can’t walk around without a blouse.
She doesn’t answer. Instead she pushes her fist into her bag, which is sitting on her lap, and pulls it out empty.
‘Did he give you his business card?’ I ask.
‘No. I take it from his car. From here.’ She taps the dashboard. ‘My madam says we should find as many customers as possible. We get numbers, then we call them to offer specials’
‘To do their hair?’
‘Madam, our salon is full of men these days. Haircuts, pedicure … In fact, my job is to get more men as customers. They are good business. They pay without ’aggling.’
‘Haggling.’ It feels good to correct her. ‘Let’s go to my house,’ I find myself saying. I suddenly have an unexplainable urge to show this girl who I am. I want her to know that she has no place in my world. I want her to gasp at my five-bedroom house, coated in white paint, sitting in well-groomed gardens. I want her to see the extra car sitting in the garage. Seeing what I have will put her in her place. ‘You can clean up there. I’ll find you a top to wear, then I’ll drop you somewhere.’
‘Don’t worry about me!’ She flicks my offer away. A metallic green nail is missing from her thumb. I wonder if it’s responsible for the nail imprint on my wrist.
My disappointment at her declining my offer matches my relief. My thoughts and actions are starting to feel unfamiliar and strange, even to me.
She looks around and stretches out to the back seat. ‘Please, just lend me your scarf.’ She doesn’t give me a chance to respond, before I can say anything my scarf is in her hands. ‘I can use this for now. I have to get back to the salon.’ She senses my reluctance to part with my scarf. ‘I’ll bring it back,’ she says.
‘Please do, it’s a gift from my father.’
‘Trust me, Madam. You’ll get your scarf back.’
She unhooks her bra, uses it to wipe her face, then pops it into her bag. Faint stretch marks run in ripples around her black nipples and my teeth have made a red semicircle on her left breast. Her stomach is as smooth and taut as plastic.
I speak to distract myself. ‘There’s tissue in there,’ I say, pointing to the glove compartment, then I force my eyes back onto the road.
‘It’s okay, I just wanted to wipe my face.’ She hums as she winds my lilac scarf around her upper body and hoops it over her neck. I’m struck by how she can hum at a time like this. It’s as if nothing has happened to her. But if I hadn’t rescued her, I shudder to think of what the mob would have done. While I feel that the fight will live with me forever – the sound of my slap against her smooth face is still ringing in my ears, stinging in my hand – the moment for her seems to have passed.
From the pocket of her skirt she pulls out some gloss and smears it on her lips, then shoves it back into her pocket. Her nipples jut through the flimsy fabric of my scarf like buttons. She pulls down the sun visor, peers into the small mirror and finger combs her hair. When she puts the sun visor back up she says, ‘Okay, Madam, I’m ready to drop off!’
‘Here?’
‘Yes. I’ll find my way. You have to take Mufuka home to sleep.’
I decide to keep the questions running through my head to myself. Asking questions will expose my vulnerability, which I sense she’s already aware of.
When I pull over, she steps out of the car and I watch her swank away. Passers-by turn to look at her. Her wavy orange hair; her full breasts straining at the silk scarf; her slender bare feet. I visualise her shoes, denim-topped wedges, abandoned in the car park. Her bag swings around her loosely, emptily. I notice that my lilac scarf is almost the same shade as the leggings she’s wearing under her short skirt. She’s fastened it in a tight knot by her waist. I watch her for far longer than I intend to. She must sense it because she turns around and our eyes meet. Before I can look away she smiles and blows me a kiss.