Free Coconut by Kopano Matlwa Page B

kitchen. And where would I pack away the rest of the food? I am not sure what goes into the Kids’ Pantry, Entertainment Pantry and Foods Pantry because it is all food to me. I will wait for Old Virginia to do it. Old Virginia should be around here somewhere.
     
    “Tshepo, honey! Tshepo!”
     
    I follow the mosaic of bundles of wheat on the soft-caramel tiled floor to my favourite room in the house. From here, right in the centre of the house you have a view of every nook that matters: the billiard room and its bar, the fishpond built deep into the floor of the sitting room, the lone fish that swims in its inky water, Daddy’s newspaper room, the flat screen, the glass bricks that open out onto the outdoors and the breakfast table. From this room I can see it all. Other than when Mama is in here with her guests, this room is seldom used.
     
    “Tshepo! Tshepo wee? Tshepo where are you?”
     
    Through the window I see Daddy in the garden. It is a deliberate garden, meticulously arranged into several mazes of cleanly trimmed hedges bordering rugs of intense red and pink flowers which flatter the terracotta-tiled roof when they are in bloom. Standing in the heart of it in his Sunday suit, where all the mazes lead and where a clay boy wees into a stream of stones and pebbles below, Daddy resembles a character in a world of pretend. Although I cannot see from where I am sitting, I know my father is on his cellular telephone. I have known him for too long to kid myself into believing he is enjoying a moment of respite amongst the birds and shrubbery. Oh, but how picturesque it looks, Daddy, at home in the garden, framed by the window’s silk curtains that are draped like ball gowns over the wrought-iron rods.
     
    “Tshepo! Old Virginia, have you seen Tshepo? Tshepo! Where is my boy?”
     
    It was something that was understood. Like the fact that Mama wakes up at 4.30am every morning. She wakes to intermittently stir the samp and beans which she had left in a pot to soak overnight so that they are soft and pulpy, ready for Daddy’s breakfast at 7am (nothing else fills his stomach quite the same). It was something that was undisputed. Like the fact that Mama’s money is her own to be used on herself and nothing else because she is beautiful and it costs money to remain so. It was something that was never questioned. Like the fact that Daddy has his lady friends, like Mama has hers too. And that Daddy sees his lady friends, like Mama sees hers too. So when Daddy scrambled down the stairs to the family room where Mama, Tshepo and I were watching the evening news, to point out that Tshepo had made an error in his university application forms (which Tshepo left on Daddy’s study desk for him to sign), we all agreed that Tshepo had made an error indeed. In the space provided for ‘Choice of degree or diploma’ Tshepo had written ‘Bachelor of Arts Majoring in African Literature and Languages’ and not Actuarial Science, which Daddy and he had agreed upon.
     
    Tshepo, contrary to his character, had begun the stampede of words. “I want to write,” he stood up and declared, demolishing the shared notion that he had made a mistake, “I want to speak. I want to say those things that people are afraid to hear. Those things that they do not want to face. In the pages of a book, in the privacy of their minds, where they feel a little less vulnerable, I will talk to them, long after the book is down, we will converse, my readers and I, and they will know.”
     
    “Nonsense!” Daddy bellowed. “Absolute nonsense.”
     
    “Stop it, John! Stop it.” Mama’s eyes were glistening. Clearly she had been moved by Tshepo’s display.
     
    “You are a lazy little bugger, Tshepo. That is what you are, bloody lazy.”
     
    “Leave the boy, John.”
     
    “You ran when you saw a challenge ahead. You didn’t even have the guts to say it to my face. You disgrace me, Tshepo. You are a disgrace to our name.”
     
    “They is