Feeling generous on a black Fridaywithout still giving the story away…’Extract from Give love a chance in pursuit of justice’ copyright 2015 Constance Mutale-

Within minutes, she was there, he got into the car and they drove off.

He was doing it again. She thought as they drove, holding back tears. He was hurting her again. She drove quietly. She did not know what to say to him anymore. Perhaps she should first speak to a counsellor before knowing what to say to her child. She got to the house and got him settled. These were uncertain days and she tried to apologize to her husband, over and over again at her just bring the child back without notifying him first.

“You should not have gotten involved in this whole set up again. How is he going to support any of his children now?” Ponk asked.

“I have no idea.” She replied wanting to seem cheerful; “and now I have to work even harder to support an extra child. He just throws all responsibility back at me.”

“Yeah, I really don’t understand the man you once married.”

“I call him a ‘mistake’. He was a mistake. How can he do that to his own child and tell him ‘from today onwards am not your daddy. Don’t call me dad, call me uncle’?’’ She went on in her feminine voice; “I mean we all feel overwhelmed with parenting, but how can a parent do that to his own child? Some things had better be left unsaid.”

“He said that?” Ponk asked with a thin smile.

“Yes. My child has just told me so. He was asking him to pack and go for some time now. Alaka...told me...”

“You see that is where your problem begins…” He pointed out whilst lying under the bed covers with the newspaper by his side.

Halgfna was restless and just pacing up and down in the bedroom, having apologized to her husband for some times. She could not afford to have another failed relationship. Ponk Base was a good man. She was never, ever going to allow things to get out of hand with him. She needed him for stability and for proving a point that she had not been a bad wife, that she could have made it the first time if only Vecos had been more of a better husband. This had to work, not matter how many curve balls came her way. Somehow, she had to ensure that through all the chaos she looked beautiful and smiled for her husband. She could not afford to wear a frown, no matter how bad her day was. Hers’ was to put on a happy face and be Ms fix it all. Everything is okay, I have it under control. Don’t worry am on top of it.

It was only when he was at work that she took stock of how much a toll everything was on her. It was only then that she would cry if she felt overwhelmed. Her marriage, first! She could not imagine another broken relationship and her failing to provide stability to her children. This was stable, Ponk had brought stability in her life that could have been nothing but full of pandemonium from day to day, year after year. He was the one stable and reliable person in her life and Vesco was not going to pull that carpet of stability from under her feet. It was not love she was after but stability and she had it. She put her fingers in her hair and scratched her scalp.

“What do you mean?”

“He sent your child because you and Alaka are in touch, he doesn’t want you quizzing your child anymore and filtering the information to her. I warned you to cut ties with her.”

“I am trying to. But maybe he did this so that she could move back in with him.” She cut in a bit upset.

“I think he had strong feeling for her.” Ponk added. “He feels he let her down because of you. Because of people and what they would say and so he is trying to not support you and her at the same time. You know she knows him too well…”

“Yeah, I was married to him longer but she knows him more than I do.”

He smiled. “Come over here.” He said as she had stopped in her tracks to look at him. He watched her walk over to the bed to sit next to him. “Just take a deep breath, your child can live with us. I don’t have a problem with that, we are a family. That’s what families are for. Let us give him time to settle down and set the rules straight with him.”

He touched her hand she his as their eyes met, their souls collided.

“I don’t know where I’d be without you. You are really a man of great wisdom.” And for a moment she wished that Vecos was the man lying in the bed and speaking to her with such tenderness. Suck kindness and such love. She did not have to be the pillar of strength or the man of the house. Ponk was there, he was the man of the house. She later reassured herself, having failed to be intimate with him now that her son was back in the house. She had to let him settle in before she could consider being intimate with her husband. She kissed him on the lips and went down stairs to her office.

She later picked up the phone and spoke to Alaka, about Vecos’s decision to have his son move out of his house. They both agreed he was in a bad space and was clearly dealing with a lot of demons.

Halgfna suspected something. Alaka still went to the house, she still could take Vecos back and Vecos still seemed interested in her. What if all this was actuated by Alaka so that Vecos could get rid of her child and they could live happily together? She smiled to herself in a conniving manner. Had she been used so that the mixed race couple could live with no worries on their heads? Worry of other people’s reactions maybe?

Page 133 to 135 currently copyright 2015 Constance Mutale 

Courtesy of Africa Independent Magazine CC

Extract from Give love a chance-in pursuit of justice copyright Constance Mutale 2015 page 122 &124

I recall how one judged me, as being too ‘self-loving’…but hey wait that is how one would perceive their lot. I was not self-loving per-say, but assertive and calling it as it was. I stood tall to tall with them; my own clique hated me for that; because they had decided in the majority to take the subordinate role. I was having none of that; we had something in common and so let’s do it.

I found myself laughing and joking with the opposite race as I would on a neutral ground, I found it a neutral ground.

I knew Halgfna was suspicious of who I was and where I got such guts which she decided to call strength, perhaps I had been indoctrinated from a young age that ‘for we are all made in the imagine and likeness of God.’, He made all and not just some, as He made some white coloured cows, he made some colourful, some brown and some black and white. Breeding, am not a farmer, and all I know is that each farmer is proud of its herd.

I was not trying to have the best of both worlds, I was trying to make the best of my life and exploring what was nice and befitting to me.

My love, we clicked, we loved, we were similar, I was perhaps stronger than he was, he too was stronger perhaps than I was. We laughed, we shared, we loved, we trusted, we were united and it was the outside world that saw a wrong; that saw me as an outsider and how my knowledge of them would perhaps weaken them, he was a traitor perhaps and he would come out as having acted at a moment of weakness. He could have gone on deceiving them that he was one of them, when in fact he too like my friend, saw beauty, comfort and was at home with ‘black’.

Without sounding racist, for me, I was lamenting our love,

‘Romeo; Romeo why must I die?’

It was a clear manifestation of Romeo and Juliet only in this case the characters were white and black, were by Romeos and Juliet’s case it was a case of the family feud between the ‘Montagues’ and the ‘Capulets’ that dated many years back. Was he going to ‘die’ for this special thing that we had that I called love? Was I going to die for this thing that I felt so passionately about?

If he rediscovers his identity would I be left to a lonely feeling and wondering?

Where art my Romeo, where art though?!

‘I love you.’ I said openly, I did not need to seek his approval as like a fool I had fallen heads over heels, with his maturity, his venerability, and his openness.

‘I love you.’ I whispered in the dark of night. He knew that that was my weakness and he was not going to put his heart on the line, he was in love but he would guard what he did with this love. His love would hurt and disappoint other people. He would be judged as weak, to be in love with a race that they had looked down upon. How did it work? Just how did it work? Was love just love, just love all the way?” She put the pen down and took a bite on the croissant and took a sip from her cup of café latté.

*        *        *

Most people were involved in debate in their schools, and one of the topics that were debated would be ‘what is better a boarding school or a day school’. Opposing sides had to give their view on the theme. Perhaps if White and Black had been a problem they would have debated it. But what was better indeed, they all were schools with an objective of educating the learner and hoping to empower them to earn a living thereafter, so it was with race, the body being an object that contained life, so what was better one life in a particular skin colour as opposed to the same life in a different colour as white sugar is to brown? Since people shared birth dates across the race, hundred babies across the world would be born at the exact same time, second and date and year, so what would be the difference between those lives?

Give love a chance-in pursuit of justice: extract copyright 2015 Constance Mutael

She shook free of the memory as she saw two men standing in front of the door that was slightly ajar. She got up. Perhaps they were looking for her master, who at the moment was on the run as the police had been looking for him night and day, even discovering the place he had fled to.

She had just finished one of the two thick slices of bread and drank half a cup of tea.

“Yes.” She said getting up from the chair and walking the short distance to the door.

“Hello. Malwe, is it?”

“Yes.”

“You are Malwe.”

“Yes.”

“Can you open the door for us please?”

“I can’t just open the door for you, who are you and what do you want?” She asked a bit shaky in her bulky appearance, wearing her working uniform with a cloth that she had tied over her head.

“I am a warrant officer Lakau and am on official police business, you need to come to the station with us to answer a few questions.”

“Me, no. I can’t come to the station, am working.” She replied as fear engulfed her whilst she fiddled with the door.

“We too are working.”

She reluctantly opened the door. She had to talk her away out of this one. She was going to charm them.

“Can I offer you some tea?”

“No actually we are in a hurry. We just need to leave you at the station and answer to other duties.” He paused for a moment, “If you are ready we are ready.”

“No, let me switch off the washing machine, and close the windows.”

“Make it snappy mama.”

“Yes,” She replied running through the house she was so familiar with. She put on some shoes and a jersey.

“Should I call my master?” She was an elderly woman, much order than her master, what was she thinking, the officers wondered.

“That is up to you.”

“Okay,” She replied in panic as her mouth became dry dialing his number in the process.

“Oh my master doesn’t pick up the phone most of the time.” She continued as she locked the door.

Somehow she could not remember much anymore as she walked to the police car. She entered the car as the other worker’s in the neighbourhood watched in dismay. By now his master should have gotten rid of that woman, it was almost three weeks since the attack. She got into the car as the police officer’s spoke between themselves. She got out of the car at the station after what seemed like a long drive. She phoned her daughter and asked her to continue trying her master’s number.

“We are going to detain you. You are under arrest.” She heard them read her, her rights, as they took her finger prints and afterwards they ushered her to the holding cells. Her master would know about it once he returns from work. The innocent eyes of the on-looker’s were going to inform him of how much trouble the fully build woman is now in as they had also seen the victim on the day of the attack.

{currently page 71-73 of the book-copyright Constance Mutale}

Give Love a Chance in pursuit of justice

Don’t miss out on this book- Give love  chance-in pursuit of justice. I am currently reviewing Chapter three of the book. I am working on the characters by making them more fabulous and so living momentarily in their world. Enjoying their dialogue, as we cut and paste, edit and add more life bringing to reality what could have been passive.

Working on the not so dominant characters now. As one may tend to neglect them in a sense, by forgetting to add for instance their taste or temperament. This indeed is a book to look out for. It is alive and ‘wild’.

I like the character Halgfna, although at the moment she seems to be feeling sorry for herself despite doing well in other spheres of life, in fact the other female character in this chapter is also feeling sorry for herself out of predicament.

Don’t we too struggle with choices we make at times? To discipline our children or not and or to face the consequences of the guilty thereafter, but if we do it in love which we have to and are obligated to do…anyway that is just an example!

She who lived in the moment is now being haunted by the success that comes out of her failed relationship. She goes back and forth in her mind. Oscillating, reminiscing and taking the thorns of pain and fear from her heart so to speak. But who is the real victim?

I guess you will never know unless you read the book from start to finish…

I have what I call a trophy episode in this book which makes sense to what has been debated in life for like forever…we are talking of why certain churches do not allow remarrying- this part of the book will only be shared once the book is on the shelf…for now I too can’t wait to read what is contained in the rest of the book. On a scale of one to ten I give it fifteen…it is such a wide open book I see myself giving public talk about it…but first let us finish the ground work…If you have the opportunity of reading ‘Ferocious Love’ and a glimpse into ‘Distorted View’ you may have picked up that the character tend to be very feral for lack of a better word, this is no exception….Walla (voila)