Daddy's Girlfriend's On T.V.
“Daddy’s Girlfriend’s On TV.”
It’s strange coming from a child. Although we don’t have the full story, we’ll assume she lives with a married mummy and daddy. Daddy’s girlfriend? She must have heard it somewhere, probably from mummy’s own mouth. It’s amazing what kids remember. That’s why mama, her sisters and the next-door neighbour talked ‘gibberish’ when we were around. Now I know it was code.
The little girl is not the problem. It is mummy and daddy watching the ‘girlfriend’ and mummy remembering that daddy used to be nuts about her. She remembers how people would say:
“You must be Thandi!”
“No maa'm. Her name is Nokusa, my fiancee.”
It is traumatic for mummy when ‘daddy’s girlfriend’ is on T.V. because although both of them are looking at the screen, she knows that mentally, he is somewhere else with Thandi, places they visited, her laughter, her clothes, the gap in her front teeth and probably her body. He ought to. They lived together while in college. According to the husband, Thandi had always wanted to be on television. The wife pinches herself for that day when curiosity killed the cat and she asked him why they never got married.
“I proposed. She said she loved me too much for that.”
Girls' Names
Thandi, means the loved one in Zulu.
Nokusa, means the dawn, maybe she was born at dawn, or her birth means a new dawn for the extended family.
Nonqaba waka Msimang
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