Randu's journal

DADDAY’S GIRL

They say fiction is strange and I dare add life is stranger than fiction. My high school life like that of any teenage girl was full of mischief and hard labor. Labor being, trying to keep up with the slavery of the education system of the country. As for mischief, it’s all relative. Depending on how well brought up one was, mischief ranged from skipping school to skipping that horrible thing they serve in the name of food. But as I said it’s all relative. Boarding school teaches you that; relativism.

            The school I attended is in some country neighborhood and it ain’t jus away from civilization, it’s in the back of beyond. I did my damn best to stay outta trouble partly because nobody wants to be in trouble and partly because those nuns made juvenile detention more appealing.

            Nell my roommate and I were shadows of each other. She was a beautiful girl who everyone liked and rode in the high ‘circles’ of school. Even sister Mariasita loved Nell! I on the other hand was plain old Jane. Everyone stepped on me and it did not matter. There was nothing to write home about me though the accounts office would indicate that I had one of the biggest fee balances. Neighbors at home would say that I was the third child of the third wife of my father.

            I come from a middleclass polygamous family. Papa has five wives. The unspoken rule in such families is, life is good until the next wife is married and as the ranks of the wives increases, the politics of the family rises to civic levels. Of course the first wife is the rule and law and by all means she should be. Papa was the judge and the rest of his clansmen the jury. Growing up with stepbrothers and sisters was wonderful and to date even my husband thinks am kidding when I brag about the Christmas lunch; an affair that included thirty seven siblings. I know it’s a little exaggerated but that was Daddy for me.

                       

            Papa lived in the city and was an engineer in a prominent firm until his retirement. His wives including Mama were all tucked in the village where as I can now see is the only place having five wives makes sense. I grew up in the village. It was normal, I presumed to come from a polygamous family and that was until I went to high school. All of a sudden I could not speak of my big family with pride and I was shunned until Nell came along to restore my self esteem. I am just a child of my father and those are his wives not mine. Ain’t no sin in being a child.

            School holidays were heavenly. There are some things I can only eat in Mama’s house like porridge mixed with dried sweet potatoes. It is the sweetest thing but I could not take pride even in that at school. Now that am older and wiser, I know that we had that porridge because we could not afford sugar. Necessity is the mother of inventions. We lived in sheer poverty yet we were not poor. Papa was just never home but when he was things were good. Nobody complained about anything and that’s how   Mama brought us up. Lacking and poverty is not something bad. If it can be ridded, good! If not then just make the best of the little that’s there. That Papa loves me is no doubt and only I doubted it. Even my step siblings- if there is something like that- would send me on their behalf and tease me about being daddy’s little princess. I am named Maria, after my grandma, his mother.

            In school Nell and I would join different clubs every other school year so we could get chances to attend gigs outside school. In Nell’s class there was Ed who must have been the coolest girl in the school. She seemed to have come from a good family. While we were always on our way home to bring school fees hers was always fully paid on time. She liked hanging around Nell because unlike the rest of us who were village girls, Nell was one from city. Ed behaved like a shade of a blonde. She was always in our room showing off all the new stuff she had acquired while on holiday. Oh! The grass is always greener on the other lawn. How I envied that girl! How I wish Papa would spoil me the way Ed’s dad spoilt her.

            Nell seeing my eyes would light up every time I saw Ed would later murmur to something like, ‘It ain’t all gold, pretty face, no matter how much it glitters.’ I never asked her what it all meant until one day she volunteered.

‘This ain’t gossip,’ she started, ‘mark my words.’

‘It’s about Ed I suppose,’ said I.

‘Yes and I am telling you so that she doesn’t break your heart herself.’

‘Ha….ha…. you are doing the breaking up for her,’ I joked. ‘Her life is just too perfect. I wish it were mine.’

‘Oh no!’ She cried, ‘Touch wood!’

‘Why should I?’ I asked touching wood anyway.

‘Father Miller said envy was a sin, didn’t he?’ She asked confused.

 ‘Jealousy, and don’t look too serious you are scaring me,’ I said.

‘Jealousy, envy, all the same to me. And especially because you don’t know the half of it,’ she scolded.

‘I don’t know the half of anything in this school,’ answered I, ‘So you wanna gossip or what?’ I asked indifferently.

‘You know I don’t gossip, I just spread rumours.’

‘Why are rumours there?’

‘To be spread, I guess……’

‘Then spread away,’ I said jovially trying hard to hide my anxiety.

‘Apparently Ed comes from a very poor family. She claims to have a boyfriend who gives her the good things she possesses.’ She said. ‘She jokes that they are so poor she can’t afford even her own name.’

 ‘Noooo………….’ I said stopping my ears.

‘Yes. This is no word on the street. Came from the horse’s mouth.’

‘What kind of friend? You mean like the ones we have?’

‘ No dummy!’ she said impatiently, ‘those can’t even afford postage stamps to send us letters. Those men with big stomachs and big cars.’

‘Sugar da……..’ I started.

‘Oh my gosh! What have I done? Corrupted you? Oh! Marie, the one with kind thoughts.’

That was the end of it. I refused to believe it despite there being more rumours going round. Visiting days came and went and we grew from one level of puberty to another. One moment Lingala was the coolest thing, the next time rock was born in our lives and life couldn’t get any cooler. Oh blessed teenage hood. Mama kept coming to visit me with all sorts of goodies and said Papa sent hugs and kisses. Sometimes she came with those sisters of hers which meant more goodies. The only problem was Aunt Olivia. She always rubbed it in that I was becoming a young woman. Horror of horrors! Childhood is something I cling onto to date. How could she tell me about being a complicated adult? That was the plague. Now my driver’s license reads adult but I am very much a child.