Scandals & Skeletons

There’s something I didn’t tell you about Thando’s boyfriend. Steve. Something that made hanging around him a little awkward. I never knew how to address him. Should I call him sir or address him by his name? I should have been used to this by now, because this was a common thread on all of Thando’s boyfriends. But I just couldn’t get used to it.

Steve was fifty-seven years old. In three years, he would be sixty. He was twice our age. He was old enough to be our father. Hell, he was as old as my father, hence the confusion in my mind. When he offered me advice, I felt like I was being chastised.

Take this one day for instance, I joined them for dinner and I don’t know how, but we ended talking about my problems at work.

‘Why are you a writer, anyway? Don’t you want to find a real job?’ he’d said.

‘I love writing and you can’t stop me from following my heart,’ I’d said. I don’t want to wake up every morning to do something that I hate, just to make money like you, uncle Steve, I wanted to add, but didn’t. Instead, I stormed off the dining table, like a teenage girl and walked out of his house. Being around him confused me.

Thando, on the other hand, had no problem with Steve’s age. To her it represented experience, power, and money; three things that Thando loved more than anything else in the world, not necessarily in that order.

The problem with dating someone with that much experience is that they had skeletons from their past. Steve’s skeletons came in a form of a wife and children. The wife lived in the rural area somewhere in Zululand. She lived in a rundown mud-house that was standing on its last legs and had no electricity or running water.

When the news broke, Steve swore that he wasn’t married to her. He told Thando that he knew the woman from his hometown, but she was not his wife, he’d insisted. However, that didn’t help take the heat away from Thando. Tabloids attacked her. She was called the gold-digging whore who stole food out of innocent children’s mouth. They made it as if it was her fault that this woman was poor while her husband (or former husband / neighbour – we weren’t sure which one it was at this point) was filthy rich.

Thando was about to move out of our apartment into a penthouse Steve bought her. He also bought her a Porsche. Thando chose a yellow one, because she wanted to standout.

‘How can you live with yourself knowing that you live a wonderful life while that poor woman is suffering?’ Matt asked Thando while we were helping her pack.

‘Not you also,’ Thando said, rolling her eyes. ‘Steve assured me that he never married that woman. They grew up in the same area. The woman is trying to get some money from him. Shame on her.’

We laughed, because Thando was doing the very same thing.

‘Don’t you feel any sympathy for her?’ I asked. ‘Clearly she needs help.’

She shook her head. ‘She’s not our problem.’ She folded a top and placed it in a suitcase. ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s too depressing.’

I decided to get over my awkwardness around Steve and confront him. I marched into his office and closed the door behind me. He looked up at me and smiled.

‘How can you live with yourself?’ I asked.

His smile disappeared. ‘That’s none of your business, young lady.’

‘I’m making it my business. Thando is my friend and I don’t want her entangled in your web of lies. Who’s this woman?’ I asked, dumping a magazine on his desk. On the cover, was the picture of the woman in question.

He looked at it. ‘I don’t recognise her.’

I stood there with my hands on my hips and stared at him.

He looked up at me. ‘We were young. We were never legally married.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘I paid lobolo for her. Actually my father did. Five years later, I came to the city and never looked back. That was twenty years ago.’

‘What about the children?’

‘I’ve never seen them before.’

I placed my bag on the floor and took a seat. I decided to talk some sense into him. If he wanted this whole thing to disappear, then he had to help this woman.  Sure, he was not obligated to, but it was the right thing to do. If he could afford to buy Thando – a woman he only met a few months ago – a penthouse and a Porsche, he could afford to help a woman he was technically married to.

Later that week, I walked into Thando’s penthouse for the first time. I was jealous.

‘I don’t know what you said to him, but thank you,’ she said.

I shrugged and decided to change the subject. ‘Is it weird having sex with him?’ I asked. ‘Him being a dinosaur and all?’

Thando laughed. ‘He’s very experienced. Sex with an older man is so much more interesting.’

‘Does he need Viagra?’

‘He’s not that old.’ She pushed me playfully. ‘Speaking about sex—’

‘Don’t even ask,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘It’s been way too long.’

We both laughed.

‘What about Sbu?’ she asked.

‘I’m getting mixed signals from him. One moment he’s showering me with gifts, the next he’s photographed with a gorgeous woman at some party.’

‘Don’t worry, soon you’ll find someone who’s right for you.’

I nodded, but I didn’t believe it. I was really bad with relationships. And dating was exhausting. I was starting to believe that I was destined to be alone.