said Britney.
“How did he take it, when he found out?”
“He couldn’t believe he had spent and sacrificed so much only to be treated so shabbily. Emma didn’t give a damn despite all Innocent’s threats to empty her apartment. At the same time, Innocent was so much in love that he couldn’t bear to lose Emma, as he told his best friend and keeper of his secrets. But if you would permit me, I think the right word is infatuation, considering how he was repeatedly humiliated by Emma in front of the bushfaller, yet he couldn’t do without her. Jilted though Innocent was for three months, right now he is hand in glove with Emma. The bushfaller was a fly by night lover, saying all the right things a girl wants to hear and making her dream what was never to be. He dribbled her the way he did the ball in a football game.
“Still, Emma found it hard to stop believing, in her heart of hearts, that the bushfaller had meant all the honeyed words he had directed her way. But the reality was that his words, meaningful though they sounded, were as empty as words not said. So she turned back to her Innocent, reluctantly but surely, to ask for forgiveness. She told him: ‘Forget about the difficulties and trials we have been through and be as happy as ever. God’s blessings and graces will stay with you through my humble prayer. Remember, I love you and you are the one and only true owner of my body. Moments and time spent with you are very precious and my brief escapade only permitted me to view those moments with happiness and assurance. I know that with you I will always eat the fattest of the bones.’”
“It’s amazing, this thing called love,” said Lilly Loveless.
“Emma continues to hope that one day Innocent will divorce his wife and marry her, or at least not leave her for greener pastures. She lives her life with her hand in her mouth. A situation not helped by his mixed messages. Recently when a friend of hers told him: ‘Innocent, I love that Emma very much, her eyes, her legs. She is so beautiful’, he replied: ‘Would you like me to take her as my second wife?’ To which she said in reply: ‘Yes! First even.’ Then she proceeded to say she was very pleased when she first heard that he was going out with Emma. When Innocent met Emma later he said: ‘I’ve never been this encouraged by someone this close to you.’ So what stops him from acting on his divorce then?
“Emma dreams a lot, and Innocent is often in her dreams. She shared with me a dream she had recently. She dreamt Innocent was travelling to Muzunguland for a public service meeting. The day he was supposed to leave for Sawang International Airport, she heard Innocent was hurrying up everyone in the house and his wife and children were so angry and said: ‘Everybody knows he is hurrying to go and spend time with his girlfriend Emma, but he should at least be a bit calm and stop rushing people’. Innocent’s wife was very very angry. In the dream, Emma had a dream that same night she learnt of what happened, a dream she narrated to Innocent thus: ‘I dreamt that we were at the airport and we were going to Muzunguland together, and we were so into each other and all of a sudden your wife came shouting my name and saying horrible things, telling the whole airport that I was stealing her husband. I was so frightened, I hid behind you as she was approaching where we stood, you told her to be calm but she insisted on attacking me, and you started fighting. I started crying and my mother appeared and picked a quarrel with your wife. I was seriously crying. I told my mother that you had divorced your wife and wanted us to live together and she said we were doing the wrong thing because your children will always want their mother. I was shouting that they would love me and that I was quite fond of your daughter in high school, but no one except you was listening to me and just when your wife was about to hit me, I woke up. Funny, isn’t it?’”
“It’s clear she is obsessed with Innocent divorcing his wife, but even more obsessed with having a man of her own who has not been married before,” said Lilly Loveless.
“Good interpretation,” said Britney. “I do wish her the best.”
“With Innocent?”
“With whoever. A woman plans and God disposes through man.”
“Well put, could I quote that?”
“You can quote anything,” said Britney. “Something I forgot to say about Innocent is that, at the same time as he is pursuing Emma and university girls, and boasting how well he provides for his family, it surfaces that he is not paying his rent regularly for the lovely house he inhabits with his family. One day his wife was scandalised to read a mocking and threatening note from his landlady about non-payment of his rent: ‘I have observed with dismay your unwillingness to pay your rent and the reluctance in settling your bills. I have explained to you about the inconveniences you cause me when you delay your rent. It would seem the explanation only gave you more grounds to delay the payments of your rent. I want to remind you that we agreed from the very beginning that your rent is to be paid at the beginning of the month. You have not only taken it upon yourself to pay at your convenience but you don’t have the courtesy to inform me of any difficulties you have. You wait until I ask you then you tell me fabulous stories. It’s amazing how you feel that you are the only person who needs to live. You had no tangible reason for paying your October rent in December and telling me you’ll pay November’s rent at your convenience. Let me use this opportunity to tell you that your cynical remarks about my exaggerated riches and your having a house of similar stature in your native village are certainly the reason for you delaying your payment. If I’m rich then my riches are genuine. I’ve not got to inconvenience anybody to be rich. So what’s your problem? If I have millions enough to buy 4 cars, what’s your problem? Considering that I’ve always had difficulties collecting your rent and given the general reluctance with which you want to settle your financial obligations, i.e. rents, bills and debts, I want to let you know that I have had enough of it and I’m asking you to quit my house by the end of the month. You can go and live in your home village.’ His is a world of make believe,” Britney concluded.
***
To further satisfy Lilly Loveless’ curiosity, Britney shared with her the story of Spiteless, a girl who keeps hoping to meet a bushfaller, and whom bushfallers repeatedly deceive because her quest is so desperately engraved on her forehead. “One of her catches was a bushfaller who, from every indication, had a fiancée with whom he had fathered a child already.”
“Why do you say that?”
“This girl accompanied another girl to welcome back her own fiancé from Muzunguland. The man, Virtue, was carrying two gifts from Maradona, as the bushfaller in question was known in his circles.”
Lilly Loveless noted the coincidence between bushfaller and footballer in the two stories.
“One of the gifts was for Spiteless and the other for Maradona’s fiancée, who wasn’t present and who didn’t know a thing about Spiteless. Thrilled with the gift and the welcome party for Virtue, Spiteless sent Maradona an email the next day. ‘There was great feasting and happiness. I tell you that I just felt jealous! What for? When on earth shall I ever have the chance to go and welcome my own man? I thought silently.’ Most definitely encouraged by Maradona, Spiteless sent email after email. In one, a long letter, which she brought me to correct because her English isn’t very good, she wrote about how ‘Our distance seems to create a problem’, but how ‘I am very happy and encouraged by the many emails and phone calls you have afforded to make.’ As things intensified, from Spiteless’ vantage point at least, Virtue, a Born Again Christian, could not stand it.”
“He told Spiteless the truth?”
“Yes, and much more. When Maradona wrote to him with money to parcel out to his fiancée and to Spiteless, Virtue became spiteful. He wrote to Maradona. ‘I wish to make it clear to you that I do not wish to pry into your love affairs. Spiteless’ problems are not mine, but the point which I want to drive home is that I should be
