Mr Not Quite Good Enough (6 page)

6

It wasn't even 6:30 in the morning, but as Gorata and Kelebogile got into the car to head for work, the sun was already heating up the day.

“So how much time does Amita have left at the office?” Kelebogile asked.

“None, she's supposed to be on set tomorrow. She'll be telling Mr Pilane she's leaving today. There's nothing she can do, it's how it works, apparently. The boss isn't going to be happy, that's for sure.”

Gorata pulled out of the driveway. She was surprised to find a whole string of cars backed up a little way further. It looked as if there had been an accident on the road they normally took.

“I might as well get petrol and let some if this traffic clear out,” she said, taking a side road around to the petrol station on the other side of the block. “So what do you think that whole traditional doctor thing was about?”

“Well, the first part was obvious – you made the right decision concerning Showa,” Kelebogile said.

“But how did the old man know all that?” Gorata still wasn't sure Mmandu didn't tell him something, even though she swore she hadn't.

“Who knows? Some of these things are beyond us. Anyway, I wonder who that shell is.”

Gorata laughed. “Yeah – the shell of my dreams!”

She pulled up at a petrol pump and an attendant came to the window. “Good morning, how can I help you?”

Gorata's heart sank. “Where's Ozee?”

“He had to go. A problem. How can I help you this morning?”

“A problem? Like what?” Gorata asked.

“Like his brother was shot or something. I don't know really, that's just what I heard. So how can I help you this morning?” he asked again like a broken record.

“Shot?” Gorata wondered what could have happened. “Do you have Ozee's phone number?”

“Yeah, but . . . I don't know, like I'm not supposed to be just giving it out to people.”

Kelebogile leaned over Gorata and said to the man, “She's his girlfriend.”

The petrol attendant smiled and started getting his phone out of his pocket, but then hesitated. “But if you're his girlfriend, how come you don't know his number?”

Gorata didn't know how to answer, but Kelebogile leaned across her lap again and said, “Her phone was stolen last night. She's just bought a new one.”

The petrol attendant nodded his head and then scrolled through his numbers. Gorata got her battered Nokia from her handbag and waited. The man recited the digits and Gorata entered them in her phone. He looked up, saw Gorata's old phone and scowled.

Before he could say anything, Gorata said, “Full tank, please.”

She dialled the number. “Hi . . . Ozee, it's me, Gorata – I mean Lady Gorata.” She realised once she'd dialled the number that she'd never told him her surname, and Gorata was a pretty common first name. She felt silly calling herself Lady Gorata, but didn't know what else to say.

“Gorata, yeah, whassup?” Ozee said.

“I'm at the petrol station and they said your brother was shot. I just wanted to find out how you're doing, you and your brother.”

“He's in hospital but he's fine, he was lucky.” Ozee sounded distant and Gorata wondered if this was just how he spoke on the phone.

“Which hospital? Maybe I could pass by?” she said.

“No, it's fine. I'll see you around, huh?” He hung up and it felt distinctly like a brush-off.

Anyway, Gorata thought, she was no one to him, just some customer at his job. Why would he want her at the hospital during a family crisis? What had she been thinking? Why had she even offered that?

“So what does he say?” Kelebogile asked.

“His brother's fine, apparently.”

“So are you going to go and see them?”

“No, not now, we need to get to work,” Gorata said.

* * *

Mr Pilane came out of his office and slammed a cup on his personal assistant's desk. “I need coffee!” he said and went back inside.

Gorata assumed Amita had already had her little meeting with their boss and he was less than pleased about her leaving. She struggled to open her office door since she was carrying her laptop, her handbag, a takeaway coffee and a yogurt. When she finally got it open, she was surprised to find Amita there, sitting on the sofa, dipping half a doughnut in her coffee. “I hope you don't mind. I needed a place to hide until Hurricane Pilane exhausted itself.”

“Well, you'd better keep hiding. I just passed his office and he's pretty annoyed. I doubt the situation is going to change in the near future.”

Amita looked worried. “And I told him almost an hour ago.”

Gorata put her things on the desk and sat down next to Amita on the sofa with her coffee and yogurt. “If that's the case, you might be trapped in here all day.”

Amita sighed, then said, “So today's my last day. I'm going to miss seeing you any time I want.”

“Yeah. But you'll still come for brunch on Sundays. And we'll do things, and it will be more fun because now I'll give you the gossip from here and you can give me all of the
Generations
gossip.”

The two friends laughed, but it was a sad laugh.

Gorata suddenly remembered something. “Mmandu mentioned that a friend of hers is turning fifty today and asked if she could throw her a party in the garden tonight. Why don't you come over? We can make it a double celebration. Just a small thing, it's a Monday night anyway; we all have to be at work tomorrow. But we need to launch your new acting career properly.”

Amita smiled. “Okay . . . yeah . . . That sounds great.”

“I'll call Kele and tell her to bring that man of hers, then we'll make it a real celebration. This is a big deal – you're going big time!”

* * *

Though they left work on time it was nearly 7:30 by the time Gorata finally pulled up at the house. They had to pass by Amita's place so she could change out of her corporate gear into some party clothes. Then Kelebogile said they should meet her at Mark's place, but somehow Gorata forgot how to get to his place and Kelebogile's directions over the phone were pathetic. Gorata wondered how her team ever managed to follow her instructions on the field. It took them an hour to find the place.

A block away from home, Gorata heard very loud music. As she got closer to her house, the source became clear. She could hear the gumba-gumba speakers pumping away and saw a huge crowd spilling out of her garden into the street.

“Oh god! What has she done?” Gorata said, parking the car and pushing through the crowd at the side of the house. At least Mmandu had kept the people outside, that was a plus. Amita, Mark and Kelebogile followed as Gorata marched to the back in search of her sister.

“Gorata! Great party!” She turned to see Quentin, her neighbour, completely drunk, with a plastic cup that smelled suspiciously like traditional beer. Was Mmandu brewing beer? Poor Quentin was going to regret drinking that.

Gorata spotted her sister at the back, ladling out liquid from the largest of the three-legged iron pots she'd brought from Rustenburg. Next to her sat a woman looking very out of place despite a huge grin plastered on her face and a plastic crown crookedly propped on her blonde hair. She looked as if she had just stepped out of her chauffeured limo in Sandton: red silk blouse, pressed slacks and enough gold accessories to fund a small army.

“Gorata-wee!” Mmandu shouted when she saw them. “Come! Come, meet the birthday girl!”

Gorata stood next to Mmandu, her face scowling, though her sister noticed none of it. “Joanne, this is my little sister Gorata, I told you about her, the famous one,” Mmandu said.

Gorata took the woman's hand and wondered how Mmandu could think that she was famous. Maybe because sometimes she was interviewed on TV for the company, but that certainly didn't make her famous. “Nice to meet you, Joanne, and happy birthday.” Then she turned to Mmandu. “You said a
small
party. It's Monday.”

“This
is
a small party,” Mmandu said, rolling her eyes. She pushed past Gorata to get to Amita, the only one of her companions left. Gorata had no idea where along the way she'd lost Mark and Kelebogile. “Hello, you must be Amita,” Mmandu said, shaking her hand. “I understand you're going to be a big star on
Generations
.”

Amita and Mmandu started talking animatedly. Amita was given a seat next to the birthday girl, a place of honour, and Gorata knew the battle was lost. She had agreed that her sister could have a small party, but she'd forgotten that small and big had different definitions in Mmandu's world.

Gorata sighed and walked towards the house. She spotted Kelebogile and Mark, learning a traditional dance taught by none other than Quentin. Her uptight but now decidedly drunk neighbour had lost all his modern pretences and was stripped down to his bare chest. He was kicking his legs up in the air so high Gorata was sure when he woke up tomorrow with serious babalas he would realise he'd pulled a muscle.

She got herself some wine and sat down on the steps of the back stoep. There wasn't much else she could do now. They had agreed everything would be over at ten, so now it was just a matter of waiting.

“Hey, Lady Gorata.”

She looked up and there was Ozee, carrying a cup of Mmandu's beer. Gorata wasn't quite sure if she was happy to see him or angry because he'd been so short with her when she'd phoned him that morning. She decided to avoid that topic and asked, “So how's it?” while motioning to the beer.

He took a sip. “Good, actually. Your sister has many talents.”

Gorata laughed. “So you've met Mmandu?”

“Who hasn't?” Ozee sat down next to her on the steps. “She's a special person, that sister of yours. I think she may be the embodiment of Botho – the living, breathing, walking, talking definition of Botho – she is because we are.”

Gorata laughed but could see his point. “You think?”

“Yup.”

“So how's your brother?” Gorata asked, even though she was still a bit sore about the way he'd shut her out in the morning. Still, she couldn't even imagine what it would feel like to be told someone you love had been shot.

“He'll be okay. Actually, this may end up being the thing that saves him,” Ozee said, suddenly very serious.

“What do you mean?” Gorata wondered how Ozee could say getting shot was a good thing. He was an optimist and a generally happy guy, but this was too much.

“You know how it is in the townships. Some boys just take the wrong way. My brother was running with thugs. Luckily he got shot in the arm. It has scared him, scared him a lot. I think it'll be enough to make him finally see what my mother and I have been trying to tell him all along.”

“I'm sorry,” Gorata said.

Ozee smiled at her. “Don't be; he made his choices, we all do. He wanted all of the bling and he wanted it fast. So he thought hanging out with thugs, selling dope and stealing cars was the way to get it. A lot of us make that mistake in the townships. This has been a hard lesson for him, but I think he's finally learnt it. I'm grateful for that – but I won't lie, I was scared.”

Gorata rubbed his hand resting next to her on the stoep. “Like I said, I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks, that's nice,” he said.

Gorata took a sip of her wine. “So what's up with you, Ozee? You're so smart and you seem to know what's right, why are you working at a petrol station?”

Ozee laughed. “What's wrong with that? It's an honest day's work.”

“Yeah, I know . . . I didn't mean that . . .” Gorata didn't really know what she meant. “Maybe . . . you owe it to yourself to do more?”

“I like my life right now. I think people need to rethink what's important. Why do I need a lot of stuff to clutter my life? It's not about the stuff or the job . . . None of that's important.”

“I'm not talking about the stuff, or at least not only about the stuff. It's about making a difference, having an impact.”

Gorata looked across her garden. Mmandu was in her element. People were certainly having fun: dancing, drinking, talking. And it was a gorgeous Soweto evening. After the warmth of the day, a cool breeze was gently wafting about the scent of spring flowers.

“Hey, ma-boy Ozee!” Ozee's annoying kombi-driving friend burst through the crowd. He'd obviously been drinking more than his share of Mmandu's beer. Gorata was not pleased to see him. “Oh, and little Miss Stuck-on-Herself. How you doin', baby?”

“Listen, I need to get a drink. I'll be right back.” Ozee stood up. “Stunki, take care of her.”

Gorata looked away from them both. She didn't need someone taking care of her.

“No problem, boss.” Stunki sat down in Ozee's place. “There goes a good man,” he said. “A good, good man.”

“Is that so? In what way?” Gorata asked – not that she thought Stunki was a reliable judge of who was good and who was bad, but his unexpected earnestness made her curious.

Stunki's head fell back on the step behind him. He lay still for some time, looking up at the stars, and then said, “You don't even know him. You don't know nothing about him.”

“Yeah, you're right, that's why I'm asking,” Gorata replied.

Stunki sat up suddenly and spoke with urgency. “I'd do anything for Ozee. He's that kind of guy. Loyal . . . I love that guy, seriously. He's wise like an old man and he's gonna be great one day.” He turned to Gorata. “Don't judge him. People aren't what you see. You got a good life going here, but that don't mean nothing – it's all about this.” He pounded his heart. “And Ozee . . . He's got the biggest one around. And you better watch out, because it looks like he's deciding to give it to you.”

Gorata knew Stunki was drunk and probably talking crazy, but she saw tears in his eyes and that surprised her. Men like him didn't get choked up about things.