I realise Bonang is my best friend and her wedding was a very important event, but I was starting to think I had made a huge mistake agreeing to be her maid of honour. I was not made for such things – Lola Molefi is a private investigator, not a maid of honour. There was quite a bit of evidence to support the fact that things were just not going well:

1. Mrs Wang, the former Martie Janke of the modelling school Martie Janke’s House of Style, was the wedding planner. The theme was “Mother Earth: Our Saviour” – no one was quite sure why.

2. The theme meant that I had to be dressed as a blade of grass. Apparently a maid of honour posing as a blade of grass was meant to wear a tight, very green dress that tapered and tapered as it went downward until at your feet it felt a bit like you were bound with duct tape. I really did not see how I was going to walk on the wedding day, let alone do all the numerous dance steps Mrs Wang had in store for the wedding party.

3. My usually fairly normal friend Bonang had transformed into a teary, psychotic, extremely paranoid and easily excitable monster who I was finding it very difficult to relate to.

4. Jomo’s mother. (Nothing more is needed, you’ll soon understand.)

So, although all evidence pointed to the fact that I should NOT be the maid of honour in this “extravaganza” (Mrs Wang’s word, not mine), I was and there was no way out now – the wedding was in two days and things were not going well. The caterer had resigned the day before after one too many fights with Jomo’s mother. The wedding dress was missing, and the tent supplier’s tent got struck by lightning and the roof burnt off. It still stood in the garden, burned-out roof and all. I couldn’t resign now – this wedding needed me.

“Oh my god! I think I’m turning purple! Look, it’s starting; my wedding is going to be a disaster! I can’t believe it, my life is over,” Bonang said rushing into the bedroom where I’d taken refuge. She flung herself onto the bed and began wailing loudly. Considering the way things had been going, turning purple didn’t seem like that biggest problem we had at that moment.

“Let me see,” I said calmly.

Bonang sat up and showed me the back of her hand. There I found a small purple dot. I rubbed it hard with my finger and in a minute or so it disappeared. Bonang looked at me, her tears drying, relieved.

“Ink,” I said.

“Ink,” Bonang said.

I could hear Jomo’s mother calling us from the other side of the door. She was coming closer, she knew where we were, there would be no escape.

“Lola! Bonang! Lola! Bonang!”

Bonang tried her best – she needed to make peace with the woman, she would be her mother-in-law after all – but it was a heavy burden to carry. Jomo’s mother was by far the bossiest woman I had ever met.

She burst through the door in her characteristic way. “Oh, there you are! Sleeping at a time like this? In my day, that was unheard of! Here, I’ve cut out photos for the hairstylist.” She handed two photos, cut from a 1967 issue of Drum magazine, showing a bride and an up-close look at her bouffant hairstyle. “Give those to the woman; she’ll know how to do it.”

She turned to leave and then came back. “And, Lola, I really think you need to pull up your socks as maid of honour – you’re meant to be leading us, now you’re in here sleeping in the middle of the day, two days before the wedding. It was unheard of in my day! Simply unheard of.”

She swept out and I looked at Bonang who stared down at the photos sadly. “But I don’t want this hairstyle. Mrs Wang and I already agreed on my hair. We bought gold stars and pink and red flowers.”

She was near tears. I’d have to do something, but I was near tears myself. I’d really been trying my best under very harsh conditions, if I must say so myself, and I was dead tired. It seemed like things just kept going wrong no matter what I did.

Just then Amogelang, my brilliant little sister, came in. “Oh, there you are. I’d be hiding in here too if I was you. Mrs Unheard-Of-In-My-Day was looking for you.”

“She found us,” I said. Amogelang looked down at the photos and deduced what had happened.

“Ignore her. Do the hairstyle you want, just keep agreeing with her. I find it’s the best way to deal with such people,” Amogelang said.

“That’s perfect! Yes, from now on we agree to everything she says and do only what we want,” I said. I held out my hand to Bonang. “Deal?”

“Deal!” Bonang said, significantly happier.

Just then there was a tiny knock at the door and a small voice said. “Ko! Ko!”

I looked up and there was Bonang’s mother, the exact opposite to Jomo’s mother in every way. Where Jomo’s mother was tall and big, prone to wearing bright reds and purples with complicated matching headscarves, Bonang’s mother was tiny and quiet and wore German print dresses in brown and blue. She bossed no one around; she barely had full control over herself.

“Excuse me, but I wondered if I might come in,” she said. “I need to speak to you about something.”

“Yes, Mother,” Bonang said.

Her mother sat on the edge of the bed and we all waited for her to speak. “I had thought I wouldn’t say anything … that maybe it would all pass you by … but I can see it will not. With everything going wrong, I just wanted you to know the real reason.”

Bonang’s face changed from momentary relief to her permanent pre-wedding face of terror. “What is it? What must you tell me?”

“It’s about the wedding curse. I think it’s time I told you about it.”

***

Tell us what you think: Have you been involved in organising a wedding? Was it stressful? What sort of things can go wrong?