40

A MIDNIGHT NOT SO CLEAR

ROD’S AGENCY STARTED THE BIDDING MINUTES AFTER he filed his story. Alert news hounds, TV crews and paparazzi picked up the rumour about a slum girl who claimed to have seen an African Madonna, and began packing their bags as they fired off demands for air tickets. In Joburg, 4x4 doors slammed and tyres smoked as foreign correspondents took off with their satellite phones and bundu kit: rooftop tents, sleeping bags, survival rations, whisky, mosquito spray, vacuum-packed sterile syringes and long-life plasma.

Local journalists were slower off the mark, having been at a press awards dinner followed by a piss-up at the Xai-Xai in Melville and severe hangovers.

Sis’ Diliza had been closeted that evening with the amaPula elders, who listened to her with the obdurate faces of important men driven too far. It was not right for a woman to usurp the position of chief, however capable she was and however slow and sleepy he had become.

After a long wrangle, she had summed up her formal case before leaving. ‘As his wife and with my inheritance rights protected under our new Constitution, I hereby apply for the position.’

The answer was the old refrain, ‘It is not possible according to the traditions of our ancestors.’

‘Times have changed,’ she pleaded.

But they were unyielding. ‘Change is not desirable.’

‘Please, I ask you to carefully consider my request, Uncles. I understand amaPula customs and needs. I am also better educated than any other candidate.’

‘That is not the point, daughter. We can’t have a mere woman with no—’ the elder used a word that meant significant male presence, ‘running our affairs.’

She drew herself up. ‘I ask again, please. In my work as a registered nursing sister I am used to being in charge. People say I’m a good boss, nè? And you know that I have been running my dear husband, the chief’s, affairs for the past few years, attending to each and every thing here in the village.’

‘The Council of Traditional Leaders will never allow it,’ one scoffed.

‘With respect, Uncles, the Constitutional Court makes the rules now. The judges who sit under the cow hides have already said that women chiefs are okay.’

‘It’s not possible.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Is it?’ the third old man faltered, aghast at the thought.

‘Not at all!’

With a polite smile, Sis’ Diliza got up saying, ‘I hope you won’t mind if I consult a lawyer on this matter?’

‘Over my dead body,’ a fourth elder growled, to mutters of agreement.

‘It is my right as a qualified person,’ she said as she left, adding, ‘Goodnight, Uncles. Stay in peace.’

When she got home, she made a soothing cup of rooibos to calm her nerves after the confrontation, and had just sat down when there was an urgent knock at the door. ‘Ko-ko. Sis’ Diliza!’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Sister Hilary. There’s a childbirth and the doctor’s not at home.’

Sis’ Diliza was on edge and needed her tea. ‘Sister Dineo knows first aid.’

‘She said to call you. She’s with the mother now. It’s Cassie Ingram. Her first child, and there’s trouble.’

‘Ehhh, the ambulance will come for white people.’

‘No ambulances tonight. Surely the chief’s wife won’t refuse to help?’

‘That’s all I am to you people: the chief’s wife!’ Sis’ Diliza burst out. ‘But I’m the power behind the chief. And will the elders let me take my rightful place? No.’

‘Please?’ Sister Hilary begged. ‘It’s an emergency.’

But Sis’ Diliza was too upset to help anyone right then. She called out, ‘I’m not available. Try the trainee midwife in Section D, Palesa. She needs the practice.’

Some time after midnight, Cassie went into second-stage labour, attended by Sister Dineo and Palesa. Winifred had fled home, for once glad of having Dulcie for an excuse. She could see Greg through his kitchen window weeping as he boiled saucepans of water on a camping gas ring, and hoped it was to assuage his guilt at causing Cassie so much agony.

Sister Hilary, her mission to find a midwife accomplished, hurried off to have supper and found her share of the fish fingers, mash and vegetables congealing on the kitchen table. She barged into the common room. ‘How could you!’

One of the sisters looked up from her mending. ‘Do what?’

‘Let my supper get cold. I’ve been on my feet for hours. I’m starving.’

Sister Immaculata shrugged. ‘You were away so long.’

‘It was an emergency. I’ve been running around all over the place trying to get help for the mother in labour and—’

‘How is the mother doing?’ Sister Nokwe buzzed through her ill-fitting dentures. ‘This will be a special birth.’

They looked at each other, struck by the thought. Someone said, ‘Let us all pray for the mother and child’, and they went down on their grey polyester knees like a flock of settling doves.

Palesa comforted Cassie with murmured reassurance, bent once again to listen through a trumpet-shaped earpiece to the baby’s heartbeat, then guided Sister Dineo by the arm towards the door, muttering, ‘This is taking too long. Please, you have to find the doctor.’

‘He wasn’t in his rooms behind the surgery earlier.’

‘But he must be home by now. Hurry, Sister.’

She was back in minutes. ‘If he’s there, he’s not answering the door.’

‘Then we need an ambulance. Or the police van, that’d be quicker. Run for Captain Ngobese. It’s urgent.’ During her still-to-be-completed training she had already seen women struggle for too long only to bring a dead child into the world. ‘And send in the father.’

‘Okay. God bless.’ She ran off again.

Greg wavered in the doorway. ‘What’s wrong?’

Palesa whispered so Cassie wouldn’t hear. ‘There is a problem. Sister Dineo has gone to ask if the police van can take her to hospital. Come and help your wife.’

‘She looks awful.’ He thought, It’s like a sex scene from a French movie: all shadows and rumpled bedclothes. Cassie lay with her head strained back on the pillow, the tendons in her neck taut as steel wires.

‘She needs you. Come here.’

‘But I don’t know what to do.’

‘Just talk to her.’

‘What shall I say?’

‘Anything that holds her attention.’

‘Can’t you talk to her? Please?’

Palesa said, growing impatient, ‘Do you always expect someone else to do your dirty work?’

‘It’s not that. I’m not afraid of work. I just can’t deal with pain. Or blood.’ Shuddering as he said it. ‘I thought she’d be in hospital for this.’

‘This. You’re just like all men.’ The midwife had made up her mind never to marry.

‘We planned this baby together,’ he mumbled in mitigation.

‘And now you don’t want to face the hard part? Get in there and help her,’ Palesa ordered.

‘Please. I can’t.’ He had never begged anyone like this.

Behind them Cassie groaned as a contraction built up and the midwife hurried to ease the pain by massaging her lower back, insisting, ‘You must, Mr Ingram. Go round to the other side of the bed, hold her hand and keep talking. We need her to stay as calm as possible. Go on. Be a man. Impress me.’

He collapsed on his knees by the bed, horrified by Cassie’s pallor. ‘Darling, I’m here. I’m beside you. Can you hear me?’

Her eyes fluttered open and fixed on his face as she nodded.

Captain Ngobese was in a dilemma. He couldn’t leave the village with the situation so volatile and the reinforcements expected any minute, and the police van was the only one in the district. Regulations didn’t allow it to be sent away, even with another driver, for a medical emergency. Lives could be at stake if there was a riot.

‘Have you called an ambulance?’ he asked Palesa at the Ingrams’ back door while Sister Dineo hurried back into the bedroom.

‘Half an hour ago. The emergency-line operator says it’s a busy night and there’s no chance of a call-out this far till morning. Meantime the labour is getting nowhere. Dr Ugh should be here. Sis’ Diliza won’t come. And the baby could die. I can’t do this on my own.’

‘Why doesn’t the father drive her to hospital?’ He jerked his head at the bakkie in the driveway.

‘The moegoe can’t start it. Says he thinks it’s something serious.’

‘City people. Completely useless,’ the captain fumed, forgetting that he was a city person. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find the doctor. He never leaves this place.’

The captain crunched away, ticking off in his mind what else had to be done before he could go home and brave Thulazi’s sleepy displeasure. Doctor first, then back to the station to wait for the reinforcements, then a final check on the boisterous groups still roaming the settlement in search of booze.

He had to force open the front door of the Marie Stopes clinic and let himself into the living room behind the surgery to find Dr Ulrich – sound asleep next to the bottle of whisky he had almost drained after his dry evening at Girlie’s place.