Dirinda was Natal’s mother only I didn’t know him then. I was vaguely aware Dirinda had two teenage sons but I wasn’t curious. They were shadowy figures in my mind – my relationship was with her.
Women can be possessive of their female friends. We are like lovers, bristling with jealousy if forced to share our loved one with someone else. So I wasn’t interested to hear about her children (my rivals to her attention).
“Sharing is the hardest thing,” said Dirinda. She had, as always, the knack of expressing the very thing I was thinking – but did not dream of voicing. Dirinda’s talk of sharing was not personal was not personal however; she was talking about a nursery kid in the school where she worked.
Or did it apply to us too? The three of us sitting in the Night Owl cafe.
Kheila as usual took a theoretical approach.
“The current system rewards greed with big salaries,” said Kheila. “We need a law that makes sharing compulsory.”
“Not exactly a vote catcher,” I said. Kheila was my best friend but I didn’t share her political convictions.
Kheila and I had known each since we were little girls, living in the same concrete high rise block. We never ran out of games because we were endlessly inventive.
We lost touch in our twenties when Kheila went travelling. Our separation was like a river, which splits in two. Our lives went on energetically but separately. We built different worlds for ourselves. But as soon as we met up again, the two streams reunited.
It was Kheila who introduced me to Dirinda. They were colleagues, as well as comrades. Then Dirinda and I hit it off so well, I worried about leaving out Kheila, my oldest best friend.
My country was marching towards dictatorship and here I was obsessing about my female friendships. I was 46 going on 14. Would I ever grow up?
