Cynthia sat with Kamvi that evening while she made the call to her mother. Kamvi’s mother worked on the long distance buses that drove between cities. There were times that the buses drove through the town where Kamvi lived in the school hostel. When she stood on the pavement with a group of girls, all in the same school uniforms, Kamvi sometimes wondered if it was her mother who she had glimpsed as a dark shape, sitting next to the driver up front.

Kamvi hardly knew where her mother was most of the time. The buses often ended their journeys at seven in the evening, and Kamvi could only hope that today was one of those days.

As it happened her mother was having a smoke break behind the Shell Garage, at the end of her shift. She was waiting for a taxi to take her to the place where she would spend the night, when she got Kamvi’s call. She was tired, half sitting on the wall next to the garage. She wasn’t meant to smoke in uniform, but she had had a very long three day shift, and she felt exhausted.

When her phone rang Kamvi’s mother hesitated. It was only the thought that it might be Kamvi that made her plunge her hand into her bag, and pull it out. She saw the call was from her daughter, and so she answered it.

Kamvi heard her mother’s deep intake of breath as she answered, and could imagine her holding the smoke in her lungs for a moment after she said, “Hello my daughter. Kunjani?”
Kamvi found that she too was holding her breath, and she hesitated before replying. Cynthia pressed her hand tightly.

“Mom,” she said, and then was silent.

“Kamvi?”

Kamvi could hear the concern in her mother’s voice, and then the long exhalation of her smokey breath.

“Are you alright?”

Kamvi sat in silence, gripping the phone and looking down into her lap. She found that everything that she thought she might say just did not make any sense. The words died on her tongue. Her mouth began to feel dry and she swallowed hard.

When she finally spoke it was after a big intake of breath, as if she was on the stage, playing a role, and her words needed to be heard in the very back row of the hall. She felt Cynthia tense up beside her, and she saw her mouth drop open, her eyes become huge, and she felt her staring at her, willing her on, as she said:

“Mom, I’m pregnant.”

Kamvi heard her mother gasp, and then she held onto the phone and listened for a full minute, while it sounded like her mother coughed her lungs out.

Kamvi waited, sitting on her bed, with her head in her hands.

“You must get rid of it,” were the first words her mother said, when she had finished coughing.

“I think it’s too late for that now Mom,” whispered Kamvi.

“Well then,” screamed her mother, and Kamvi held the phone away from her ear, and even Cynthia could hear her angry voice, “you are stupid as well as a whore!”

Silence followed. Kamvi clutched the phone, but her hand was shaking.

“Mama, I’m sorry,” Kamvi whispered, but the phone was still clutched in her hand, in her lap, and Cynthia lifted it up to her mouth. There was silence on the other end.

“Mama?” Kamvi whispered again. “Mama?”

But there was no answer.

* * * * *

Behind the Shell Garage Kamvi’s mother dropped her cellphone into her bag as if it was something hot. Then she fumbled around inside the bag until she shakily produced a slightly bent cigarette. Eventually she managed to light it, after failing to ignite her lighter flame many times.

She swore crudely and freely in between deep inhalations of her cigarette. The ash glowed, the red coal eating into the white paper of her cigarette so fast, that she was amazed when it burnt her finger, already at the filter. She tossed the butt down and ground it into the tarmac with the pointed toe of her patent leather shoe.

When her taxi pulled up only five minutes later she could hardly make it out, through the tears that were swimming over her eyes, and tumbling uncontrollably down her cheeks. She stumbled aboard, and did not greet anyone, but gratefully accepted a bouquet of tissues that the woman she ended up sitting next to pushed into her hand.

As the taxi pulled away Kamvi’s mother blew her nose hard and sniffed deeply. She dabbed her eyes gently, hoping her mascara had not run, and by the time the taxi turned the corner she was no longer slumped, and her shoulders were firmly straightened and squared. Her jaw was clamped and her eyes were looking forward, towards the well-lit road ahead.

* * * * *

Cynthia reached over and took the phone. “She’ll probably phone back,” she said, after listening and confirming that Kamvi’s mother was no longer on the line. “She’s had a bit of a shock,” said Cynthia, reaching over and giving Kamvi a hug.

“She called me a whore,” said Kamvi, the tears beginning to stream down her face. “And I never even told her about the other thing. The drinking and that…”

The two girls sat in silence. Cynthia found some tissues and handed them over, and Kamvi blew her nose loudly.

“Mom was very young when she had me, you know,” said Kamvi, twisting a tissue between her fingers.

A girl had been sent to find out why the two friends were not in Study Period, but had retreated when she saw Kamvi crying. Normally Miss Strydom would appear soon after that, but this time she didn’t. No doubt she was already busy writing out more demerits for the two of them.

Kamvi continued, “I lived with Gogo in the Eastern Cape. My mom was still at school when she had me. I know she never went back to school, and she had to get work and send money back to my gogo. She struggled a lot. My dad is around, I mean I know him, but he was a schoolboy too. So, I live in the hostel because of Mom’s job on the buses. She has always told me that I will be better than her. That I will achieve more. She said she was giving me everything she could. But I have always only really wanted her. I don’t even see her in the holidays. I stay with my Aunt. I miss her. And now she hates me.”

Cynthia sighed. “So what’s going to happen now?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Kamvi, “But I’m glad she knows. By tomorrow everyone will know. The whole family. Then they’ll decide. They’ll all decide what’s going to happen to me.”

***

Tell us: What do you think of the way Kamvi’s mom reacted to the news that Kamvi was pregnant? What do you think she should have done?