GETTING THEM 12

  GETTING THEM 12

I had been in my room for 30 minutes when Lumbiwe swung my door open; she was holding a vegetable colander in her right hand and a knife in her left. She was left handed.  “Are you not helping me with supper? Or you’re tired?”

She had interrupted my thoughts and I was slightly mad as I was enjoying reliving the moment I had just had with Mr Chalwe. Without a response, I rolled out of bed and joined Lumbiwe in the kitchen. There was a white elephant in the room as we both went about our business; Lumbiwe was always like that when we cooked together. She was normally in a bad mood and its either I did things wrong or she was just mad that she had to help, I knew at the back of her mind she believed it was my job to do everything. 

“How did it go?” she asked as she proceeded to cut the tomatoes.

I was stirring the pot of Nshima as I had just started adding the mealie meal.

“It was okay, the queues though, so many people were there” I said.

Lumbiwe ignored all I said and went on to talk about her work. Her boss was going to travel and they needed her to sleep there for a week. I listened attentively and had nothing to say.

“Will you be okay alone?” she asked.

It was not the first time Lumbiwe was required to sleep at work but often she would ask one of Mrs Phiri’s daughters to come and keep me company at night. With time we had both realised that was a bad idea as they were now good at taking rumours outside. Lumbiwe had heard so many stories about herself in the neighbourhood and this had begun to bother her.

“The Phiri’s have too much gossip I am not going that route again. If it will be hard for you to be alone I can ask my friend to come and keep you company”

The truth is the house was scary and I would not imagine myself staying alone, I agreed she could let her friend come over and we concluded the subject. It had been two weeks since Lumbiwe’s boyfriend left and he had not been back, my prayer was that he could be gone for good but Lumbiwe always forgave him. Supper was ready and we ate as we got on some zeeworld magic, it was interesting how we followed nearly every series on zeeworld and knew every character by name. Although TV was great, I couldn’t help but think about Mr Chalwe the whole time and so I excused myself and told Lumbiwe I needed to go to the bedroom. 

“Sure have a goodnight; I leave very early tomorrow morning to prepare the children for the trip. My friend will come, I will make a plan but someone will join you…” she said.

When I got to the bedroom a message was appearing on my phone screen and I opened it.

The message read……………….

***Would you mind a trip to Siavonga for two days?***