Beautiful flowers filled the big garden surrounding an equally attractive house. Mchonya hummed a tune as he thought with anticipation of the football match he was going to watch that evening while sipping a cold beer. It was a clash of titans; The Arsenal Football Club was playing against Manchester United. He was rooting for the gunners and was sure they would blast the red devils to hell.
But as he swung the BMW into the driveway, it wasn’t the colourful flowers that caught his attention. Standing in the front of the house was his wife looking as if she had just stepped off the runway. Of course Anna Maria loved to dress in elegant clothes but that afternoon she dazzled in a shimmering embroidered strapless red dress that clung to her curvaceous figure. She was in platform heels that added a few more inches to her tall frame. Her short hair, tinted gold, gleamed in the afternoon sunshine.
One would have thought this vision of beauty would have made his spirits soar further. But the effect was contrary. Anna Maria wouldn’t dress like that for an evening home. He knew it was goodbye football and welcome party or an outing. The moment he got out of the car, she gave him a kiss on the cheek then led him into the house. They went straight into the bedroom. On the bed, were some carrier bags. With a sinking heart, Mchonya noted that the bags were branded Dolce and Gabbana.
“Look at what I’ve bought, boo,” she babbled while showing him the items. “A floral print dress, hoop earrings and pendant necklace. And a matching tote bag and high-heels.
“You’ve bought them for how much, bae?” he croaked.
She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, “Let that not worry you, babe. I’ve bought them on lay-by. We’ll pay in three installments.”
Mchonya let out a deep sigh. “But you just bought some clothes last week…”
“Babe, babe! Like Ines, everything I buy has its own use. I need clothes that make statements, clothes that make people exclaim ‘wow!’, outfits that fit my body shape, outfits that are trending. The list is endless. I’m a fashionista so I need to invest in fashion. And this is nothing compared to Ines’ wardrobe. ”
“I know,” he responded pleadingly. “But aren’t you kind of over investing? Your closet is already full of fabulous clothes, bae.”
Anna Maria slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “I’ve already told you each outfit is needed for a specific reasons. I need clothes that makes conversations the same way Ines’ does.”
Mchonya sat on the bed and cupped his head. “Okay, I understand, but where am I going to get the money to pay for these clothes that talk like those of Ines?
Anna laughed. “You’re asking me where you’ll get the money?”
“You…you already know I’m neck deep in debt, bae…” Mchonya stammered.
“Don’t both you and Stick work at the same company as Accountants?”
Mchonya knew where the question was leading to and chose not to answer. Anna took her Apple iPad and came to sit beside him. She opened the photo gallery of the tablet. High definition pictures of Ines and Stick came into view. The couple playing in the woods. The two love birds swimming in the lake. The pair having a candle lit dinner at some posh restaurant. The duo posing playfully in the middle of the road somewhere on a road trip. Then there were some studio pictures of the twosome clad in different stylish getups in each photograph, posing like newlyweds on a honeymoon.
“This is what I call living,” Anna Maria gushed. “Our friends are living the life-living la vida loca.”
Mchonya took a deep breath. “Darling, we all can’t live the same lifestyle…”
“Why not? You and Stick earn the same salary, are age mates, so tell me: why can’t we live the same lifestyle as theirs ?
“Sweetheart…”
“Don’t sweetheart me, Mchonya. You know why Kamuzu Banda fought for our freedom?”
“I don’t see how that has to do with our lifestyle.”
Anna Maria let out a mocking laugh. “I would be surprised if you saw that. There’s nothing that you see. Except maybe your beloved Arsenal Football Club. My point is that our lifestyle must always match with changing times.”
“Anna, Anna. You know I do my best but there are some things I can’t manage.”
Anna Maria scoffed again. “If Ines and Stick can manage this lifestyle so can we. So starting from now, we’re also going to live la vida loca…”
“Anna…”
She cut him with a wave of her hand heavy with bangles. “Shut up. I’ve said we’ll also start enjoying ourselves. We’ll be eating out, wear fashionable clothes and go out to see interesting places. I want us to fill the social media with glamorous pictures too just like Ines and Stick,” she declared passionately. “If we can’t do that then there will be big trouble in this house.”
“But we already do that…”
“Yes we do but not the way Ines and Stick do it. They’re always partying, going out to have fun,” Anna Maria said. “We must match that.”
Mchonya wanted to protest that much as he would love to do that, he did not have the money to finance that lifestyle. But he knew the response would be, “If Stick can do it, so can we.” So he gave in.
“Okay, fine. I’m going into the lounge to watch a football match. Arsenal is playing against Man U.”
“You’ll do no such thing, boo. Ines is throwing a small party and we’re invited. We can’t afford to disappoint Ines, can we?”
“But you know I hate to miss Arsenal games…”
She cut his protest with a kiss. “You really think I would accept that we let Ines down just because of some stupid football match being played by some football teams in England? Wake up, babe. We’re in Blantyre not Manchester. ”
Mchonya shrugged with resignation. He knew it was pointless to explain anything to Anna Maria unless the thing was also important to Ines. Since Ines did not love football then to her watching football was a waste of time.
You may wonder what was it all about Ines. It was simple. There are some women that are always acutely envious of other women. Anna Maria was one of them. If there was a girl she envied most, it was Ines. Because Ines had once won a beauty contest, Anna Maria considered her the perfect example of what society wanted in a woman. She made sure she gained the acquaintance of the former beauty queen and the two became friends. Anna Maria did her best to copy everything her friend did. She dressed like Ines, walked like Ines, talked like Ines. And to imitate Ines’s lifestyles meant being up to date with fashion trends by refreshing the wardrobe every month. It meant going out to dinner at expensive restaurants. It meant going out to have fun. It meant always being trendy on instagram and Facebook.
She was Ines’ best girl when Ines married Stick Tebulo. And she fell in love with Mchonya, the man who was Stick’s best man at the wedding. She quickly learned that the young man was Stick’s best friend and both men worked as Accountants for the same company. To her that was enough. If she could marry a man of the same status as Ines’ husband then she had attained her dream of an ideal husband.
A hot love affair exploded between the two. Six months down the line they were married with pomp at a glittering wedding ceremony. Mchonya had wanted a simple wedding but Anna Maria wouldn’t take it. If Ines had a magnificent wedding ceremony, why not her? So Mchonya had to borrow money to pay for the wedding and this immediately plunged him into a pit of debt.
While Anna Maria was dark skinned, Ines was very light in complexion. So Anna Maria started using skin lightening creams to change her skin tone. In no time her skin was as smooth and as light complexioned as Ines’.
Ines and her husband led an expensive lifestyle. They owned a Mercedes Benz and their house was expensively furnished. Ines was always dressed in the latest fashion and spent most of her time giving or attending parties.
“Why should we be staying in this tiny house in this filthy location when our friends are staying in the suburbs?” she asked Mchonya one day. What she was calling the ‘dirty location’ was the middle class housing estate of Chitawira.
“Houses are expensive in suburbs,” he protested. “We can’t afford the rent.”
“What do you mean? How do the Tebulos afford that?”
He did not have a good answer for that so they moved to a bungalow close to where Ines lived in the swank Namiwawa suburb.
“We should furnish this house well,” she demanded when they moved into the new house. “I want us to impress all our friends.”
“That’s a good idea. But where will we get the money?”
“Ines and Stick have just changed their furniture, how have they managed to do that?” she countered.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Stick receives the same salary as you do and is able to do a lot of things with the money. How do you fail to do the same?”
“Anna…”
“He has a car while you don’t even have a bicycle. She buys Ines expensive clothes and takes her out. Yet when I tell you to buy me something you always complain; you are starting to make wonder as to where your salary goes,” she fumed.
“Anna, you know how much money I earn…”
“Yes, and I also know how much Stick earns. If that salary is enough to furnish their house, it should also be enough to furnish this house!”
Mchonya knew he could not afford to pay for what his wife demanded. But he loved his wife very much. He knew they wouldn’t get along well if he didn’t do what she wanted. She could be moody if he refused to do what she wanted.
So the only option was to swindle the company he worked for. At first he cheated himself that he would pay back the money. But with Anna Maria’s endless demands he kept stealing more and more money. It became his new source of income and with this money he was able to buy her all the luxuries her heart desired and take her out to have fun.
“Hey bae, you must change your clothes,” Anna Maria brought Mchonya to the present. “We must not keep Ines waiting.”
Ines! Ines! Ines! Mchonya wanted to scream. Everything was about Ines. They had been married for about five years but now it felt like twenty years. Anna Maria’s never ending demands were wearing him out. Clothes. Parties. Outings. And that meant he had to keep on misappropriating money at the company.
They attended the party at Ines’ luxurious home. Unknown to both of them, it was going to be the last party Mchonya would attend as a free man. Two days later, an audit at the company discovered the large amounts of money he had embezzled. He was arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour.
Anna Maria visited him on his first day in the penitentiary, dressed as if she was a model on catwalk.
“Mchonya, I want you to know that we’re through,” she spat, her face ugly with anger. “I don’t want people to associate me with a thief. Never!”
“Anna, how can you say that?” Mchonya whined. “I did this for you. The money I stole was the one I used to buy the things you demanded.”
“Which things? For you to buy me anything, I had to beg,” Anna Maria said harshly. “I always suspected you had a girl friend. This confirms it. You stay with her. This is the last time you’ll see me here, I’ll be filing for divorce.”
Mchonya was shocked by the accusation. “You knew how much I earned. Where did you think I got the money to buy the expensive clothes you were always demanding? To throw the lavish parties you always wanted?”
Anna let out a cruel laugh. “How does Stick manage to do that without stealing? I always suspected that you did not even tell me your true salary, stashing away some of it for your girlfriends.”
“You know I never cheated on you…”
“Then where did the money you were stealing go?”
“Anna…”
“Shut up! How can a common thief like you dare to marry a respectable woman like me? How?”
She stormed away, leaving Mchonya looking like a drowning man. She went straight to see Ines.
“I went to see Mchonya. I’ve told him our marriage is over,” she confided to her friend.
“Why? He loved you so much.”
“Loved me? The man is nothing but a cheap thief,” Anna Maria said. “And in our family we don’t touch theft. Never.”
“But he stole the money to buy you the things you wanted. Is this the way to repay him?”
“That’s the excuse he gave me. I didn’t buy that. How does your husband manage to buy you things without stealing?”
“You didn’t know? Stick comes from a rich family. He was given the car by his parents. The money we used to buy the furniture came from his brother in the UK. Most of the accessories you see me wearing are sent to me by his aunt who lives in South Africa.”
Anna’s eyes widened, her mouth freezing in an ‘O’.
Ines brought her face very close to Anna’s so that their faces were almost touching. “You’re my friend so I’ll let you in on my secret. Most of the top brands you see me wearing are second hand clothes I buy cheaply at the flea market. When I put them on, people think I buy them from boutiques,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I bought this expensive looking Prada dress I’m wearing now at Chinamwali market in Zomba. These Givenchy stiletto pumps, I bought them in Limbe Market.” She held out her leather handbag. “I bought this Louis Vuitton handbag at Blantyre Flea market. Original but second hand. Put together, everything I’m wearing now did not cost me more than twenty grand.”
Anna Maria looked at the clothes she herself was wearing-the Fendi fur coat and the vibrant print Dolce and Gabbana dress and the Bottega Veneta high heels-they had cost her a fortune. Too late she realized that she had been spending money carelessly while her friend had not. And in the process she had driven her husband to commit theft!
She recalled how badly she had treated her husband from the very first day they had tied the knot. It had always been about her competing with Ines. The following morning she went back to the prison. She had to see Mchonya and apologise for everything she had done to him. From now onwards, she would be a good wife to him, wait patiently for him until he got out of prison.
“We were about to contact you, madam,” the Prison Commandant’s voice was apologetic. “Your husband hanged himself last night. He’s dead.”
End
Wonderful piece. Good job