It was just two years and five months since Mama’s accident. Five months since we got the flowers for her grave. How could he love someone he barely knew? How could he be doing this with someone he barely knew? I placed the phone back and went to clean her bathroom. Nyewayo says you can always tell a person’s character by the state their washroom is in. Since this was not Naadu’s real home, I really couldn’t decide what her character was but I knew she was a sneaky, sneaky, vile, evil woman luring an unsuspecting man into her web.

I left my key card in the slot to make it impossible for anyone else to enter while I was in there. I looked through her suitcase. There wasn’t much there, she travelled light but then again she usually only spent the weekend. I looked in her bedside drawer, I hoped she kept a journal or a diary but the only book I found was on how to grow orchids in the tropics. I was putting the book back when a pack of condoms fell out. I stared at it in surprise. Oh my goodness! She was having sex with Pope! I was so angry I wanted to break something. I felt like Pope had betrayed me personally and not just the memory of my mother. Wasn’t it he and Mama who had sat me down just before I left for SHS and told me that we were from a Christian home and that ‘Abstinence was the best policy’? They’d said they knew young people my age were having sex all the time, but they hoped I’d remember my upbringing and wait until I was married.

How could he have forgotten his own words? How could he have forgotten Mama so soon? I mean how do you promise to spend the rest of your life with someone and then after almost three short years you just forget them? You forget you had kids with them, forget you loved them, you make a fool out of yourself by shaving all your hair for a woman ten years younger than you.

I put everything back, took my equipment and rushed out of the room and straight to the kitchen. Paa Willie was making a coconut curry with coconuts from our own trees. Pope was adding smoked fish to the beans stew which was bubbling furiously. Mrs Hammond was nowhere in sight.

“I need to speak to you. Now.”

He didn’t even look up from what he was doing. “Not now. I’m busy. We’ll talk later, okay?”

I stared at his shiny, bald head. This couldn’t be the same man. This couldn’t be my father. This man didn’t even have a minute to speak to his own daughter.

“Buerki, there you are. Could you. . .” Mrs Hammond came into the kitchen with a tray of used breakfast plates in her hands.

“I need to use the washroom,” I said, walking out.

I went straight to the staff toilets and tried calling Aseye. She’d know what I should do.

Aseye’s phone was switched off. I kept trying for twenty minutes and finally gave up. I steered clear of Mrs Hammond and the kitchen and went to look for Mantse. He was perched on top of a ladder replacing a light bulb by the front gate.

“I need to talk to you.”

He glanced down at me. “One minute.” He screwed the bulb in place and got down.

“What’s up?”

“He’s sleeping with her.”

He raised his eyebrows in confusion. “Pope’s sleeping with Naadu.”

He scratched his head. “So?” “So? Is that all you can say, ‘So’?”

“They’re both adults. And it’s really not your business what they do together.”

“Are you serious? How can you be defending them? It’s a sin!”

Mantse looked at me for a full minute. “Are you sure that’s what’s bothering you? That it’s a sin? I mean lying is a sin and you’re lying to Pope all the time. You shouldn’t select parts of the Bible that suit you and ignore the other parts. Besides who made you a judge?”

“What’s gotten into you?” I’d never seen him this testy before.

He shrugged. “What difference does it make? He’s done the knoc—”

“He’s done the what?”

“Nothing.” He hoisted the ladder onto his shoulders and started walking away. I ran to cross him, blocking his path. “Mantse, they’ve done the what?”

“Look, you should talk to Pope about this.” “I’m talking to you.”

He sighed. “I overheard your grandmother tell Mrs Hammond that Pope had done ‘the knocking’. That’s all I know. I moved away before they saw me. It wasn’t my business.”