try bend over catch her heart
But see how her gold seep through finger
Do anybody know where she go?
See how her gold trickle down thigh
Tripledoom trickle trickle Tripledoom trickle
See how her gold seep through finger
Do anybody know where she go?
That big-hearted woman
With gold vein of old.
I fold the receipt and pocket it. Stand up and make my way home. Mama’s house stands second from the corner. It has walls the colour of avocados that have stayed too long in the sun. Its asbestos roof is pulled low over its window eyes, like an experimental design from the book of an apprentice builder. It is a semi-detached, and shares one of its walls with its neighbour. It’s Mama’s crowning achievement, the one thing she has managed to acquire in her life. I have tried before to burn down this house, and I think one of these days I shall try again.
Mama is standing by the full-length mirror, prancing this-a-way-and-that.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“You look like a Barrow Street prostitute.”
She laughs. It is hard to miss the cynicism.
I do not exaggerate: today she has managed to squeeze herself into a black pencil skirt. Her breasts sag like flat bicycle tyres beneath a red blouse made from see-through material. She is not wearing a bra.
“I don’t know why I bother to ask.”
“You look like a Barbie doll. Chinese manufactured. Those Fong Kong types that melt in the heat.”
She laughs again, harder this time.
Her wig slopes over her head, so that the fringe misses its mark. She’s put on fake eyelashes and there’s pink blush on her cheeks.
Mama is a veteran prostitute. Past retirement age and still forging ahead. Still clutching at illusions about her beauty. She was beautiful once. Now she is just old. Not too old to be pretty. But too old to be a pretty prostitute.
We hear the car before we see it by the gate. It’s Holly, Mama’s friend. They met wherever it is that prostitutes meet. Holly is Nomsa’s mother. They do not speak. Holly is six years younger than Mama and drives a battered Honda Ballade with an idling problem. So Mama rushes outside the moment we hear the car.
“Leave me supper,” she shouts.
And then she is gone. The cloying scent of Fever perfume lingers after her. I should be used to this. But we both know that Mama is very sick, and so this has become difficult for me.
Ten minutes past one, and Mama finds me in the gloom of the sitting room. There is no electricity and everything is bathed in darkness. There is no moon in the sky. Holly’s Honda Ballade arrives like a frightening fart from the heavens. Then it stutters and dies by the gate. Something is wrong. I do not get up. I wait for them to come inside. Mama is slumped against Holly. She is barefoot. Holly hobbles along on her stilettos. Her boob tube dress restricts her. Mama is crying as they enter the house. Holly drops her onto the couch and wipes her brow.
“Your mother! She is a piece of work, this one!”
Holly is a piece of work. Her face is yellow; not a natural yellow from having caramel skin, but a jaundiced yellow from all the lightening creams she uses. The rest of her body is dark. It is a frightening contrast; an oval yellow face, and then brown from the neck down. Brown ears. Brown spots on her yellow forehead. Her weave is a huge blonde coronation that dominates her head. She lights a cigarette.
Mama curls up on the sofa and continues to cry. Holly slaps her thigh.
“Lighten up, girl! Those whores have got nothing on us, baby. My pussy tastes like spice and that’s why all the men love it.”
Holly teeters. They are drunk. She plops onto the sofa next to Mama.
She bangs her palm on the sofa and winces.
“We are old and hot! Do you hear? Old and hot!”
She begins to cry. It is a pathetic sight. I stare at them both. Holly makes me uncomfortable. We fucked once, a few years back when I was drunk. I was sixteen then, all bravado and energy. I used to have a crush on Holly. I used to dream about her boobs; they look like two air bags pumped to bursting point. Now I can never look her in the eye. It was a mistake. Now I have to see her all the time. And she is Nomsa’s mother. What would Nomsa say if she ever found out? She hates her mother. It just wouldn’t do.
I am glad when she leaves. She asks me to give her s’korokoro car a push. She tries to kiss me on the lips before she goes. I turn away and she misses, manages to smear lipstick across my cheek. And then she is gone.
Inside the house, Mama is still crying. When she sees me she holds out her arms. I sit across the room and watch her. Sometimes she wants to treat me like her friend. I don’t want to be her friend.
“Nobody wants me any more. Nobody loves me.”
“I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You are always saying how ugly I am.”
“But you are ugly.”
She cries harder.
“You were never this ugly. But your business, it has made you ugly in my eyes. Still, I love you.”
“Get out of my house.”
“If you chase me out of this house I shall burn it down.”
“Get out! You don’t love me. How can you say I’m ugly and then say you love me?”
“But it’s true. Nobody wants a prostitute for a mother. I may have illusions about sleeping with one, but I certainly don’t want one for a mother. Which is why I will never sleep with a prostitute. All prostitutes remind me of you.”
She tries to get up, but she’s too drunk and she ends up on the floor. I leave her there and go to bed. I can smell the rain. Kombis and cars drive past. Some have their radios on loud. Some slam painfully into potholes, which decorate the roads like craters. A dog barks, eliciting a chorus of barks on the street. The dogs, like their owners, are emaciated. People eat the food meant for the dogs. So the dogs have nothing to eat.
Eventually, I fall asleep.
Mama
It’s not the case that Mama has always been a prostitute. I don’t think so. She used to work in the suburbs as a domestic. She worked for the Nleyas, whom she called ikhuwa lam’ – even though they were black – the way all the domestics referred to their black baases who lived in big mansions in the suburbs. Because even the blacks there thought they were white, she’d say. They took the white man’s English and manufactured it through their noses: “Mfi mfo mfi mfo mfi mfo.”
All day long, like they were blowing globules of snot stuck in their nostrils.
