After The Tears Read online

  “If you ever see that girl again, or any other ‘young bitch’ for that matter, you will regret the day you were born.” That’s what his wife had said after she’d found out about Busi. If only Thandi wasn’t the one with all the money. And she owned the house. He had nothing without her – that was the truth.

  His cell beeped. Here she was now, checking up on him. Every minute.

  Buy champagne for anniversary

  tomorrow – remember?

  How could he forget …? It had been 12 years of her tears and rages. Twelve years of spending her money, but also saving her from the trouble she had got herself into. Twelve years of her commands, making him feel like he was nothing. How could a man live like that?

  That’s what had driven him to cruise outside high schools in his taxi. That’s what had driven him to drive past Harmony High and to stop when he saw a pretty girl. Busi wasn’t the only one – although of course that’s what she thought. It was what all the girls thought. He sighed as he remembered the first. Pity her father had caught them together, and threatened to break his legs.

  Busi hadn’t had a father, well, not one who was around. Just an ancient grandmother who couldn’t protect herself, let alone her grandchild. It had been easy.

  Taxis drove past full of school kids screaming and laughing. He watched as the last groups of kids walked past on their way home. He was about to start the taxi and go to the bottle store for the champagne, when he looked in his side mirror and saw a girl walking alone on the pavement towards his taxi. She was pretty and petite and there was something in the way she swung her hips that made him excited.

  He wound down the window. “Hey, pretty girl.” He flashed his most charming smile.

  She stopped and smiled back.

  “How would you like some airtime?”

  She hesitated. He knew what she was thinking. For what in return?

  “I need some information. Just something small …” He held up the airtime voucher. He had a whole pile of them in his cubby hole.

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “Do you know a girl called Busi?”

  She laughed. “Which Busi? There are many at school.”

  “She’s in Matric. She lives off Banda Street with her granny.”

  “Oh, that Busi! Yes, everyone knows that Busi – the one who got herself pregnant by a Sugar Daddy.” She laughed, like she knew Parks could be that Sugar Daddy.

  “Is she still at school?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure for how much longer. It’s beginning to show, you know. You can’t use a safety pin forever …”

  “Thanks.” He winked at her. “You’re really pretty, you know. What’s your name?”

  “Asisipho.”

  “Maybe we’ll meet again, Asisipho? Maybe you’d like some more airtime?”

  He watched as she walked away, swinging her hips … So it was true. Busi was still pregnant.

  * * *

  Busi had just said goodbye to Unathi. She was nearly at her gate when Lettie ran up, skipped over a puddle and took her by the arm.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Unathi walked you home?”

  “Yes … what about it?”

  “I always thought that you two would make a good couple …”

  Why would he want a pregnant girlfriend, Busi thought. Really, Lettie said the stupidest things. It wasn’t like Busi had never thought about it. But then she had quickly thought about all the reasons why it would never work. There wasn’t that chemistry she had had with Parks. Unathi didn’t make her heart beat faster.

  “But he’s kind and he’s funny,” Ntombi had told her in the past.

  “And he’s hardworking; he’s going places, chommie,” Asanda had added.

  That was true – Unathi was so kind, and entertaining as well. He could make people laugh. But she needed him as a friend. If you went out with guys they could dump you, and then there was never any going back to being friends. She didn’t want to risk that.

  “Well …” Lettie looked at her. “We’re all going to Asanda’s this afternoon to talk about what we’re gonna do after exams, and also about the Matric dance. Hlengiwe is going to help Ntombi put in extensions. You know how good she is at it.” She smiled. “Oh, it’s so great the exams are just about over.”

  Busi said nothing. She had hardly worked for these exams – they had meant nothing to her, and she knew she had probably failed them. And, anyway, what was the point of talking about the Matric dance if she wasn’t going to go? By the time of the party there was no way she would be seen dancing.

  Lettie chattered on happily. “And do you know Themba’s been accepted for tech next year? And Ntombi and Olwethu had a fight, can you believe it? Those two love birds …”

  “That’s a first!” said Busi. She was surprised. Olwethu was the perfect boyfriend. But that’s what couples did – they fought, they made up.

  “And remember that guy Mandla, the one who’s so good at singing? He’s coming around too – he’s in a band, and they might play for the dance. Asanda liked him even when we were in primary school. You remember, don’t you?” Lettie paused for a moment, hardly waiting for a reply before continuing, “Anyway, she sent him a message, and he replied! He said that he would see her.”

  Lettie’s voice faded into the distance. Busi had stopped listening. She was lost in thought. Primary school. That seemed like a million years ago. She no longer cared. She didn’t care about Asanda and Mandla or about parties or school. What Lettie was talking about was children’s stuff. Just children’s stuff! Busi’s breath caught in her throat. For a moment she felt like she couldn’t breathe. It was like a weight was pressing down on her chest.

  “Busi?” said Lettie, pausing in her chatter to look at Busi, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” said Busi, opening her gate. “Just tired.”

  “So, will we see you later?” asked Lettie, smiling broadly, like the sun after the rain.

  “What?” Busi couldn’t concentrate. She had just heard her cell phone beep with a message.

  “Asanda’s place,” Lettie reminded her. “Extensions. Remember?”

  “Oh,” said Busi, turning away and walking towards her front door. “No, I don’t think so. Not today.”

  Busi fumbled to get her key into the lock of her front door, hardly looking back to say goodbye. When she was inside she looked down at her phone and her heart gave a jolt.

  Parks.

  She put her phone down on the table. She couldn’t bear to read the message. Not yet. What was he doing SMSing her after all this time? She was too nervous to read it. She would make tea. She would force herself to wait. But as she poured the water into the kettle her mind was racing.

  What if he wanted her back? What if he had decided that he really loved her after all? And that he was going to divorce his wife and be with her, Busi, happily ever after? What if? She stirred sugar into her tea. There wasn’t much sugar left and it had been the last teabag. They had run out of the latest shopping so quickly. What if Parks still wanted her to have an abortion? What if he was angry with her? What if? Busi sat down with her hot cup of tea and picked up the cell phone. Hesitantly she clicked on the message and waited as the text filled the screen.

  I hear u still pregnant – is it true?

  Chapter 4

  “And …?”

  No sooner had Parks walked in the door than Thandi started with her questions.

  “Did you find out? Is that little bitch pregnant?”

  He walked to the drinks cabinet and poured a whisky into one of the new crystal glasses Thandi had ordered. She bought things all the time. It was like there was a dark empty hole inside her that she was trying to fill with things – new things, expensive things. But that hole was too deep – it could never be filled, n
o matter how many things she bought.

  “Is the girl pregnant?” Thandi asked again.

  Parks nodded. He had thought of lying, but she always found things out in the end. He was surprised when his wife did not look angry. Far from it. In fact she looked pleased.

  “You saw her?” she said. “You saw she was really pregnant?”

  “No … I mean yes, I saw her, but I couldn’t tell. She was wearing a big coat.”

  “What do you mean, you couldn’t tell?”

  “It’s winter. She was wearing a thick jacket over her school uniform.”

  “You spoke to her?”

  “Not to her … to another girl. But everyone knows at school … ”

  “You spoke to another girl. I told you!” Her voice started rising.

  “It’s not what you think. I asked her about Busi.”

  Parks poured another large whisky and filled up the heavy-bottomed glass with soda for his wife. He brought it to her as she sat on the couch.

  “She told me that Busi was pregnant,” he mumbled.

  “And you are the father …”

  Parks sighed inwardly. Here we go again, he thought.

  But then she stopped talking, did not rant on as she usually did. She stretched out her legs on the couch. Parks squeezed into the small space left, and they sipped their drinks in silence. “I’ve been thinking, Parksie,” she started.

  Parks felt apprehensive. He didn’t like it when his wife started a sentence with these words.

  “I’ve been thinking. Maybe this can work out after all. That baby. It’s yours, isn’t it?” She poked him with her toe. “Isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I was in the shops today and I thought about it all. I’ve decided that I want the baby.”

  Parks spluttered on his whisky. “You’ve been at me from the beginning about getting rid of it. Now you want it?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I want it. It makes sense. It’s the only way you can make up to me for what you did. It’s the least you can do. I want her baby when it’s born. You are the father, Parks. Do you understand?”

  “But … but …” he was still shocked. Now this baby was something that she wanted, instead of hated?

  “I need a baby,” she said. “I’ve needed a baby for a long time. And now you’ve got one for me. We will get that baby, do you understand? We need a baby.”

  How could he not? He understood only too well how Thandi held the strings to everything. If he didn’t get Busi’s baby, he would be out. There would be no more job. There would be no more nice home or big TV …

  “I want to see her. I want to meet this Busi.” It was the first time she had spoken her name. “You will arrange it.”

  Parks downed his whisky. He felt his body begin to ease. He flopped down onto the couch and pressed the remote button to activate the flat-screen TV.

  “We can’t force her to give us her baby.”

  “Your baby,” said Thandi.

  “How …?”

  “Money talks, Parks. You should know that.” She put her hand on his arm.

  He didn’t trust her. The next moment she could be shouting again. Her moods went up and down, faster than the Cobra roller coaster.

  “She will need money. How is she going to look after the baby? Has she got family?”

  “Only a mom in Jozi and an elderly granny.”

  “Soon she will be all alone, with a baby, while her friends are out having fun. Believe me, she will take the money and give us the child.”

  Parks watched Generations on the big-screen TV. But he couldn’t concentrate. He wanted to watch the soccer, but Thandi had taken the remote and flicked the channels. It was her TV after all.

  He got up and went to his room. It was meant to be a guest room, but it was the one place in the house that Thandi had let him use freely, as his office. Sometimes he would go in there just to get away from her voice.

  When he opened the door, his jaw fell open and he breathed in sharply. The whole room had been rearranged. Instead of his desk there was a baby’s cot, with a yellow crocheted blanket, a cupboard with baby things. Even new curtains with little yellow ducklings on.

  He went over to the cot and picked up the crocheted blanket. The blood ran cold in his veins. He recognised it. It was the blanket Thandi had crocheted for her first baby, the baby she had lost. The booties were the ones that her baby’s feet were meant to fill. She had kept these things all these years, unbeknown to him. He had assumed she had thrown them all out. But here they were, waiting for Busi’s baby.

  “It’s going to be the baby’s nursery.” She was standing so close behind him he could smell the whisky on her breath. “I want you to paint it cream, because we don’t know if it will be a boy or a girl. A cream-and-yellow colour scheme. Cheerful,” she said.

  He expected her to say something about keeping the baby things all these years. But she said nothing.

  Parks stood silently. Memories of that fateful day had come flooding back. They were driving to the bottle store, Thandi in the passenger seat, and he was watching a young schoolgirl walking along the pavement. So sweet and beautiful, so different from his wife who was haunted by nightmares and fears. His eyes had wandered off the road. A truck had come around the corner. Thandi had screamed. There was a terrible sound of metal crunching. Thandi was lying on the road, bleeding. He had thought she was dead. But then she had lifted her head. There was lots of blood, too much blood. And at the hospital came the news that she had lost the baby and would never be able to fall pregnant again.

  All these years it had sat between them like a dark shadow. Part of her had never forgiven Parks.

  “Now you are going to SMS Busi and tell her where to meet you …” she said, slurring her words. Parks’s stomach tightened.

  Chapter 5

  Meet me at the corner at 4

  2moro. Parks

  And now tomorrow was today. Busi counted the hours until 4 p.m. How was she going to get through those hours? And she couldn’t tell a soul about this. Not Lettie, or Asanda, or Ntombi. They would try to stop her. They would say it was suicide meeting up with him.

  Deep in her heart she knew that she shouldn’t do it. But how could she not? There was always a chance that he had changed his mind, that he had divorced his wife and wanted to be a father to their baby. There was always a chance …

  Somehow, Busi survived the day at school. Somehow she managed to chat to Unathi about the latest spate of thefts in the school (he had lost his cell phone) without mentioning Parks. She even ignored Asisipho, the pretty, petite girl in Grade 11 who had been staring at her all through break. Was she trying to see how pregnant she was? Was she feeling sorry for her? Or was she deliberately trying to make her feel uncomfortable?

  Somehow she made it back home. It was 3.30 p.m. In half an hour she would meet Parks on the corner of Freedom Avenue. She wasn’t ready.

  Busi started to pull clothes out of her small cupboard. It wasn’t long before her bed was strewn with nearly all her jeans and tops and skirts. Nothing felt or looked right any more. Nothing fitted properly. She was beginning to panic. She had to look as good as she could for Parks. It was her pride. And that part of her that wanted him to take her in his arms again, to say those things he used to:

  “You are the most beautiful girl, Busi.”

  “I love that little smile of yours. It makes me want to eat you up!”

  Eventually she pulled on a skirt with a stretchy waistband and a low-cut top that she remembered Parks had liked. She covered it all up with her yellow winter jacket and put on her pair of high-heeled winter boots.

  Busi stared at herself in the mirror on her cupboard door. Her heart was beating despite herself. Something was missing. Make-up. Busi fumbled in her drawer and pulled out her lip gloss and eyeliner and leant forward toward
s the mirror to apply it.

  “Ooh! Hayi! This weather!”

  The front door flew open and Busi’s grandmother stumbled into the shack, shoved from behind by a blast of freezing air. Busi froze, clutching her eyeliner in one hand, her other hand moving to hide her glossy-lipped mouth.

  “Oh, Busi,” said her grandmother, shutting the door firmly behind her, “I don’t know if I will survive this winter. It’s too bad. Too bad.” She turned towards her and paused, squinting in the dim light inside the shack. “You look very nice, my granddaughter,” she said, moving closer.

  “I’m going to Asanda’s, Gogo,” lied Busi. The words were out before she could stop them. Busi had promised herself that she would never lie to her grandmother again. And here she was, doing it.

  “That’s good, Busi. That’s good,” said Busi’s grandmother, sitting down in the armchair. She closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Before you go, make me a cup of tea. Please, Busi. I am very tired. And very cold.”

  Busi looked at the time on her cell phone. It was 3.50 p.m. There was just enough time, if she was quick, to make her granny some tea. She dragged a blanket from the foot of her bed and gently put it over her grandmother’s knees.

  “Thank you, Busi. It’s good that you still do things with your friends. I’m glad for you.”

  Busi’s grandmother was slowly sipping on her warm tea and watching the television when Busi hurried out into the cold weather. Thankfully it had stopped raining and Busi walked towards Freedom Avenue with her heart pounding in her chest.

  * * *

  Parks was early.

  Busi saw his taxi coming and for a split second she considered running away, escaping him in the maze of streets. But she didn’t. Instead she looked up and smiled in greeting as she reached for the door handle of the taxi. Parks was smiling down at her and Busi felt her heart tighten in her chest and her hands begin to tremble. She slid into the seat next to Parks.

  “Hello, my girl,” he said softly and gently. His voice washed over Busi in the way it always had, making her heart pound even faster. She clasped her hands in her lap. His voice was like the old Parks, the Parks who had cared for her, who had bought her nice things.