I sleep in stops and starts, play out different scenarios in my mind. First I imagine Phaka grinning, saying, ‘Oh, a baby! I’m going to be a daddy!’ Next I imagine a cold, contemptuous look. Phaka shrinking from me.

I sleep so lightly that I hear my mother come in at dawn from her job as a night nurse. I hear her shut the door quietly and lay the keys on the table. Her sigh is so long and deep, it drenches me. I can’t possibly add to my mother’s troubles.

I get up and go to hug her. “Are you OK, Mommy?”

She is surprised. “What are you doing up?”

“No, nothing. I heard you sigh. You just sounded so tired.”

She smiles, as brave as always. “I’m fine. I just had a bit of bad night in casualties. Two stabbings. And babies with chest infections.”

I make my mom some milky tea. There is no sugar, so I spoon some syrup into it. “Try my secret ingredient,” I say mysteriously. After a night of hell, it is a treat for my mother to be waited on.

“You’re the best,” she says. And that only causes a horrible stab of guilt in my belly where the baby might be. I listen to her talk, let the trauma of the night out, but as the sun comes up outside I realise I must encourage her to sleep. I don’t want my mom to hear Phaka and me speaking about the pregnancy thing. She’s had more than enough to deal with. It wouldn’t be fair to frighten her right now.

“You should go to bed, Mama.”

“Mmm. Yes.” She pulls herself up. “Goodnight my love.” She leans on the furniture and pulls herself towards the bedroom.

I giggle. “You can’t even stand on your own two legs.” She giggles too, disappears into her bedroom.

That is one of my mother’s sayings. She has always said, “Study Bulelwa. Work. Girls must develop their minds. They must get qualified in something so they can stand on their own two legs.”

A cold thought strikes me. If I have a baby now, will I be crawling to my mother and my lover for charity?

No. If I am pregnant, I will not be helpless. I will … But I can’t think of a single way to study, make money and look after a baby. I can’t!

I hear my mother drop her earrings on the dresser. Her Nokia tune plays as she switches off her cellphone. She has no need to keep it on because she is at home with her darling child now. There will be no personal emergencies. Or so she thinks.

Still I can’t fall asleep. It feels like Lulama next door is having the same problem. He puts on music with the volume low, low, so that I can just hear if I strain my ears. So soft it must be that I am imagining it. It is gentle, slow swinging jazz. Ah, I know it. Busi Mhlongo, singing Abathenjini. Lulama has shaped my taste in music since we were both young. Sometimes softly through the walls at night, sometimes loud and vibey in the yard in the evening.

He works at World of Birds in Hout Bay and he says he has a special knack for saving baby chicks. He rears the abandoned or injured ones who have lost their mothers or been rescued from cats. Where others fail, he says he succeeds. Like now, Lulama’s very soft, slow music rocks me to sleep.

In the morning, I wash and dress in blue jeans and a clean white shirt. Classic. Self-sufficient. Today I will not be trying to look sexy. Nor begging for mercy.

I wait for Phaka on the doorstep. I want to keep the conversation outside for my mother’s sake.

Phaka arrives with his backpack full of photography equipment. He gives me a quick kiss and then steps back warily. He is in a stunning lime green shirt that I have not seen before.

When he travels by taxi to his shoots he uses this scruffy backpack to make it look like all he is carrying some broken boots, perhaps, or maybe a Bovril sandwich. Nothing that robbers would be interested in. He folds a smart bag inside it and makes the switch just before he sees the ‘client’. So when the models first see him they get the whole, cool picture.

“Do you want some coffee?” I say.

“No thanks. No time.”

Phaka slings the backpack down gently now, balancing his precious camera equipment on the toes of his shoes.

I should be broaching the subject of a baby but all I can do is stare at his back pack, thinking how his camera is his link to those luscious beauties who hope to become rich and famous, little realising that Cape Town is flooded with thin, breadboard-bum beauties from all over the world, with agency connections and overflowing portfolios. They have no idea they are wasting their money on my handsome, slick-talking lover.

Phaka is frowning at me. “Bulelwa. You said, ‘urgent’.”

***

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