Sugar Daddy

by Haden, Ross;

  * * *

  By ten o’clock Parks was already way over the limit. Busi was worried because she knew the cops were cracking down on drunken driving. Parks had told her that one of his friends once spent the night locked up and he’d had only four beers. “Sleep here – it’s not a problem,” said his friend’s wife, putting her arm around him. “The girl can sleep here too.” She flashed Busi a fake smile.

  “Yes, you can’t drive, Parks!” The woman’s husband staggered over.

  “Enkosi,” slurred Parks, crashing into the table as he went for another beer.

  Busi sneaked out and around the side of the house to phone her granny. “I’m sleeping over at Asanda’s, Gogo,” she lied.

  “I’ve just seen Asanda. She came here looking for you. Busi, where are you?” Oh no, thought Busi. She had been caught out.

  “Gogo, you didn’t hear me right. I said I’m sleeping over at Lettie’s. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.” She knew that her granny didn’t believe her. She could tell by the silence on the other end of the line. But all her grandmother said was, “Be careful … Will there be an adult there?” And suddenly Busi wanted to laugh. There were only adults where she was.

  “Take care, my child,” her granny said.

  * * *

  They slept under a thin blanket on a foam mattress on the floor of the garage. It was cold and she was thankful for Parks’s body pressed up against her, although he stank of liquor and sheep fat from the braai. She turned her head away, but he pulled her closer. “Mmm … you’re so warm. Come here.” He was fondling her under the blanket, fumbling drunkenly. “Now you have me all to yourself. Are you satisfied?” But he didn’t wait for a reply. He started kissing her. This time she told herself he would wear a condom. She had brought one, and he would use it. “Wait,” she said pulling away. She started scrabbling through her bag. But by the time she had found it Parks was fast asleep, snoring drunkenly. It seemed so unfair.

  Busi couldn’t sleep, not in this strange place with these people who didn’t care about her. She thought of her grandmother alone at home, worrying about her. How long could she go on lying to her? She thought of what Unathi had said. And the doubt crept in again. What was she doing?

  But she was like a thin branch blowing in the wind. All Parks had to do was sweet talk her and the doubt blew away. Then all she wanted was to be held by him and treated like a princess. She was his sugar baby. And so when he wrapped his arms around her in the morning and said, “Good morning, beautiful,” she smiled. No one else made her feel as special as he did. He leaned up on one elbow. “Hey, I’m glad it’s just the two of us,” he said. “Did you call your grandmother? She must be so worried.”

  “When will you meet her, Parks? When can we tell her about us?”

  “You’re joking, of course.” He looked at her like she was having him on.

  “I hate lying to her,” Busi told him.

  When he realised she was serious, he jumped up from the mattress and pulled on his jeans. “I need a smoke,” he said. He was angry now. But she was so sick of keeping him a secret. She wanted to be able to walk in public with him. If her granny met him and saw that he was serious about her, she would come around. She was sure of it. “Wait here,” Parks said, feeling in his jeans pockets. “I must have left my cigarettes in the house.”

  Busi got up too, folded the blanket that had been covering them, and waited for him to come back. She listened to the stirrings around her, the morning sounds. There were voices coming from the big house, a dog barking. Why was he taking so long? Maybe he had gone to the shop nearby. He could have told her, invited her along. She waited some more, but now she needed to use the bathroom badly. Finally she could not keep it in and went over to the big house.

  The women stopped talking as she entered. They looked at one another, smiling smugly amongst themselves. “Where’s … where’s … Parks?” she asked them.

  “He’s gone,” the younger of the two said.

  “Didn’t he tell you?” the other wanted to know.

  She didn’t believe them, but they went on talking to each other and ignored her standing there in the doorway. When she had been to the bathroom she went outside to see if his car was still parked in the road. She froze when she realised it was gone. She called him on his cell phone, but it went onto voicemail. So she went to sit on an old car seat in the yard and started to play with a scrawny dog and her mangy litter. The dog looked like an overgrown rat: grey and matted with her brood hanging from her worn, dried-out nipples. “You poor thing,” she said to the dog. “Some people shouldn’t be allowed to keep animals.”

  Slowly the rest of the people living in outbuildings on the property started to wake and come out into the yard. But they all ignored her, except for one who asked for a cigarette. The little children with their runny noses stared at her and giggled. “Do you perhaps know where Parks is?” she asked them, but they just stared at her and ran away.

  * * *

  She was feeling hungry and thirsty, so she decided to walk to the shop herself and get something to eat – a packet of crisps and maybe a juice. Maybe she would find him along the way.

  Where was he? As she started walking along the strange streets she felt anger rising up inside her. How dare he treat her this way? And soon she was in tears. She wouldn’t go back to the house. She couldn’t. So she kept walking.

  Eventually she found a petrol station and a little café next to it. When she emerged from the messy staff bathroom behind the building, a taxi was filling up at the petrol pump. She walked over to the driver and asked him if he was going in the direction of Khayelitsha.

  “On a Sunday morning I can make a plan for you, sisi, if you have twenty rand? I’m just coming off my shift, so you must talk quickly, sisi.” She thrust the twenty rand into his hands and climbed in next to him. It was the last of the cash Parks had given her.

  As they swung out onto the tarred road, she asked him, “Do you know a taxi driver called Parks? His real name is Thando, but I’ve forgotten his surname.”

  The driver smiled at her. “Everyone knows Parks, my sister,” he said. “Why do you want to know?”

  Chapter 15

  When Busi got home she was cold, tired and miserable, and she was dreading having to confront her granny. She just wanted to run away. But this was the only home she had. She was also nauseous from the taxi ride and she felt like throwing up. She must look terrible, she thought, as she opened the door of their shack. She was horrified to find that her grandmother was not alone. The ladies from church had come around for tea. Their noisy chatter died down as soon as she came in. They just stared at her. She had disgraced her family – she saw it on her granny’s face in that moment. “Come here, ntombi,” said her grandmother.

  “Gogo ...,” she stammered.

  “Look at you, Busi,” one of the other ladies said.

  “Where did you sleep last night?” asked her granny, sternly. “Why was your phone on voicemail? I phoned all your friends. I was so worried, and none of them knew where you were. What is going on, Busi?”

  “My battery died, Gogo,” she lied, avoiding the accusing eyes of all her grandmother’s friends.

  “Your granny has sacrificed her life for you …,” one of the other members of the church group said, “and look at the thanks she gets.”

  “Since when do you lie to the woman who raised you?”

  She couldn’t look at them. They were all staring. She was being shamed. “Go and wash yourself and change your clothes,” her granny said. As she walked out of the kitchen she heard one of the ladies say, “Today’s young people – they would never be able to live through what we had to live through. You must watch her. Does she still get her period regularly?”

  * * *

  Busi went to the lean-to in the yard where they washed. She stared at herself in the sma
ll mirror balanced on a piece of wood. When last did she get her period? She panicked. Parks had always said he knew what he was doing. Since that first time in the hotel, they’d had sex several times: in the back of his taxi, on a blanket in the forest, sometimes with a condom, sometimes without. She rubbed her hands over her stomach and felt ill. The Coke and chips she had eaten in the taxi came rushing up and splashed all over the floor. This couldn’t be happening to her. No, not to her, please no!

  Back in her room she looked in the box next to her bed. There was a packet of unused sanitary pads. Her granny always bought one for her each month. She could hear them talking. She felt that they were watching her. How had she not noticed that she missed a period?

  She didn’t think. She just typed the words and sent the message.

  Hlp me. I thnk I’m preg.

  He had left her alone in that strange house. Was this it, had he disappeared again? But then her screen lit up.

  Dnt panic bby, will c u l8er.

  No mention of why he had left her, or where he was. She looked in the mirror again. Did she know this person staring back at her? “What am I going to do with a baby?” she asked herself. She mouthed the word “baby”, afraid to say it out loud.

  She waited until she had heard her grandmother’s friends leave before she ventured out of her room. “What is going on, Busi?” her grandmother asked her again.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “Are you going to have a baby, Busi?” This time her grandmother was direct.

  “I don’t know, Gogo,” said Busi, barely audible.

  “Uthandana nendoda?”

  Busi swallowed. How could she admit this to her grandmother? But her silence was all the answer her granny needed. “Tomorrow we are going to the clinic,” she said coldly. “I can’t believe you, Busi – you, of all people! What is going on in your head? Why are you playing with your life? And your mother and father trusted me! What am I going to tell them?”

  Chapter 16

  In the cold morning light Busi shivered in bed. She had already had to run across the yard twice to throw up in the toilet, and it was freezing outside. She felt like she was going to die and still Parks hadn’t called. Chill, he had texted. How could she not panic? And when was he going to see her? She was on her own and she was going to the clinic with her granny. Everyone would know by now, if those church ladies had anything to do with it.

  There was still a chance she wasn’t pregnant, she told herself. It could be stomach trouble or stress. She had been under enough of that lately. But underneath that voice was the voice that said, of course you’re pregnant, you stupid, stupid girl. It was so unfair! It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to use a condom every time. She had always had one in her bag. But Parks had convinced her it would be okay. She had nothing to worry about. And now, a baby!

  Busi felt guilty and angry. She knew how bad her grandmother would feel. Her mom had trusted Busi to her care. But it wasn’t her granny’s fault Busi had lied to her. She wanted to curl up and disappear. What would they do when they found out she was pregnant? “It’s nearly time to go,” her granny said, handing her a cup of sweet black tea. “Drink this. If you are pregnant, Busi, your mother will have to look after the baby.”

  They walked to the clinic in silence. What was there to say until they knew for sure? In the clinic her granny greeted one of the women in the queue who was there with her daughter. Soon they would all know about Busi. Only fifteen and pregnant – and with a taxi driver!

  * * *

  They had to wait for a long time in the queue. But when the clinic sister finally saw them, she was friendly. Busi was relieved – they weren’t always so sympathetic. She told Busi that there was only one thing to do right now and that was to take a pregnancy test. She sent her into the toilet with a small cup for her urine. Then she dipped the test stick in and they all waited. Those were the longest minutes of Busi’s life. There was one line and then, faintly at first, but getting stronger, a second line appeared in the window of the pregnancy stick. There it was. Two lines: pregnant.

  “Have you been tested for HIV?” the sister asked her.

  “No,” Busi said, shaking her head. This was a nightmare.

  “You will need to go to the counsellor for that. She will tell you what you need to know. Then she will do a test. You will have the result in ten minutes. It’s quick,” said the sister. “It’s not like it used to be, when you had to wait. That was terrible – the waiting.”

  “What if I am positive?” Busi asked, her voice trembling. “What then?”

  “Then we will take things one day at a time,” the sister said. “Many young women like you are HIV-positive and they give birth to babies who are just fine. If you are positive we will put you onto the right medicine to protect your baby.” She was calm as she said this and it made Busi feel better. Like it might be all right. Like this nightmare might end.

  “Do you know if your partner is HIV-positive?”

  “No, he isn’t,” said Busi quickly.

  “It is better that we test anyway.”

  “Yes,” her granny said quickly. “People will tell you all kinds of things.”

  “Does he know that you’re pregnant?” The sister looked at her.

  “Not yet,” Busi lied.

  “When did you have unprotected sex?”

  Busi thought back to the first time. It was six weeks ago. Six whole weeks since she had gone to the Formula One with Parks. But surely she couldn’t have fallen pregnant so quickly?

  “I want you to come back after the HIV test,” the sister said. “I want to talk to you about the options you have.”

  “Options?” asked Busi. What options were there? She was pregnant. To get rid of the baby would be unthinkable for her granny, for her family. They would say that she was killing the baby. That it would bring shame on all of them. And now the sister was talking about options?

  “I know what people say about terminating your pregnancy, Busi. I know what you will have heard. People say such things all the time,” said the sister gently. “But it is your choice. You are the one who is going to have to take care of a baby.”

  Busi thought of Prudence. She was in Matric at Harmony High. When she had fallen pregnant and had a termination her mother had said she would go to hell. But Prudence was strong. She had decided and she had gone to the hospital on her own. Busi had admired her. And now Prudence was doing fine. She had a boyfriend who loved her and one day she would have children.

  “Think about it carefully,” the sister said. But Busi’s granny was shaking her head.

  “There is nothing to think about. She will have the baby. And her mother will take care of it. And she will go back to school.”

  The sister kept looking at Busi. “Come back tomorrow,” she said. Then, taking her arm, she added, “After twelve weeks it is very difficult to get a termination, Busi. After that you can’t change your mind. Do you understand?”

  Busi nodded.

  At home she dissolved into floods of tears. Pregnant, and before her sixteenth birthday! Her life had ended. She lay on the bed unable to move. If Parks didn’t marry her now, nobody would. Who would want a sixteen-year-old girl with a baby? But if Parks wanted her and the baby? That was the answer. That was the only way.

  She started to imagine them in a house together and Parks laughing and bouncing the baby on his knee. But what if Parks didn’t want it? What then? She would be trapped. She was too young to have a child. What about her dreams, her education, her bright future? Six weeks, the sister had said. Six weeks to decide whether she wanted this baby. After that it would be too late.

  That afternoon her friends came to see her. The news had spread fast. Unathi came too. “Have you come to gloat?” Busi hissed as they came into the house.

  “I’ve just come to tell you,” Unathi said gen
tly with a slight, sad smile, “I’m here for you if you need me.”

  “So sweet, Unathi,” said Zinzi, who had come with the older girls.

  “Where is Parks now? Have you told him?” Lettie asked.

  “He’s coming later,” Busi said, hoping this was true. “He’s been very supportive.”

  “I don’t see him here,” said Lettie. “Did he come to the clinic with you?”

  Busi shook her head.

  “What will you do now?” Asanda wanted to know. “Will you have the baby?”

  “I don’t know,” Busi answered. “I don’t know yet.”

  “What does being pregnant feel like?” Zinzi wanted to know.

  Busi told them about her visit to the clinic.

  “I had to wee in a little glass jar and give it to them. I was so nervous, I spilled the wee on the sister’s desk.”

  “Sies man!” Lettie laughed.

  “And I had to have blood taken. Look at my bruised arm.” She showed them the bluish mark where the sister had taken blood.

  “And?”

  “I’m negative.”

  “Well, that’s good,” said Lettie hopefully.

  “But I have to go back in three months, to make sure.”

  “I hope it’s a girl,” Zinzi said dreamily.

  “Yes, I love baby girls,” added Lettie.

  “Shh! Busi doesn’t even know if she’s going to go through with the pregnancy,” said Asanda. “Remember Prudence. And she’s fine now. She’s doing well.”

  “Unathi can be the daddy,” piped up Zinzi. She didn’t understand what they were talking about. “I can see him pushing a pram! Better still, Unathi changing nappies. Yuck!” She laughed.