A Woman's Weakness: A Mountain Too High, #1

CHAPTER 1

Silence the damn clock! That was followed by an elbow poking her in the sides. Eva opened one eye trying to hang onto some sleep. She silenced the damn alarm clock, a present from her husband for their first wedding anniversary. It’s a present we shall both enjoy, David had said and urged her to open the package. The smile on his face told her it was something special. Was she disappointed? Of course she was gutted. Who on earth gets an alarm clock for their wedding anniversary? She had made a mistake of telling her work colleagues about her wedding anniversary, how excited she was. The next day they wanted all the juicy details.

Melisa from the post room grinned at her the moment she walked in. You lucky bitch! You are glowing, what did you get up to? What did he give you? I want to hear everything.

Grinning from ear to ear, Eva delivered her lies. David was amazing! She giggled, paused, looked distant, recalling the previous night.

She had tried to hide her disappointment as she handed him his present: shopping vouchers she knew he would use to buy a snooker table. She knew that’s what he wanted. Her tears had run straight to her eardrums as they celebrated their first wedding anniversary. She wasn’t the type of person who aired her dirty linen in public. She gave Melisa a hundred watt smile. David was amazing – he prepared a three course meal. I am afraid we didn’t quite get to the third course. Nothing beats the alternative. She giggled more and reminded herself not to go further with her lies. Three course meal? The only time David went to the kitchen was to dump dirty cups and plates in the sink and to collect fresh ones.

She sighed! It seemed like a long time ago and a lot had changed. It was time to get up and prepare for work. She felt like having a lie in, at least two hours of undisturbed sleep. She shook her head; there was nothing like undisturbed sleep where her husband was concerned. He would want to be catered for between the sheets. She was out of energy and not in the mood.

She yawned and stretched her body, almost collapsing the bed.

As she stepped on the first step to the bathroom, she heard David calling her. She did a U-turn.

He glared at her. You can be very selfish, leaving my back exposed. What are you trying to do? Give me a sore back so you can find yourself a replacement? She tucked the quilt around her husband and closed her eyes, visualising his replacement. A smile lit her face as she entertained a temptation in her head. He was always accusing her of having an affair, so why not find herself a hot caring lover to make his accusations real? He mistook her smile for an invitation. He kicked back the quilt covers, and she became his quilt cover instead. She was going to be late for work. She tried to wriggle out of his arms but unsuccessfully. How she wished he could use some of his strength to do some DIY in the house instead of watching television and playing snooker all day long. She blamed herself – she shouldn’t have bought him a snooker table in the first place. She thought to hurry things up but he was having none of it. He had all the time in the world. He worked only when he felt like it. His mobile phone was switched off to stop his agency calling him for work. Tell what’s-her-name you are stuck in traffic. I don’t want you running off to some man to finish off what I started. He worked on her tits putting LA fitness out of business. She gave up but her thoughts were all over the place trying to find an excuse to feed her manager for her lateness. Her manager was not someone to cross. What about telling the truth for a change?

Eva was a managing director to several companies, the lie she fed her parents to get them off her back. She was only a receptionist to several companies who directed visitors to the right departments and that made her a director to several companies. What a joke! Her fake position, her title, made her parents happy so that she was able to breathe. Being a receptionist wasn’t something she really wanted to do for a long time. No one took receptionists really seriously; they were just programmed robots for the face of the companies. Her vocabulary was limited to a few words such as good morning, sign in, sign out, nice weather, isn’t it? All in that order, day in, day out. She needed more than that for herself. Her job was just a transport to her destiny.

Her first temporary job when she was seventeen had shocked her parents. She had made them a laughing stock in their home town where each and everybody knew each other’s business. Her parents had been disappointed when they learnt their daughter, a virgin, was an agony aunt for their local magazine solving marriage problems. For their daughter to have such knowledge, it meant she was no longer their innocent child. Her mother Elena demanded to know who was responsible for her lost innocence; she wanted to castrate the bastard with her bare hands. It was very shocking for a seventeen year old girl to come up with such hot information unless she had practised it herself. Eva refused to tell her mother how she came by such deep knowledge on marital problems.

Eva enjoyed reading and the women’s magazines were always full of juicy information, the information young girls were not allowed to know about until they were married. She enjoyed the problem page. It was unbelievable what human beings got up to. This can’t be true, she would say between giggles. How can anyone reveal such private information to the world, she would ask herself. The problem page fascinated her and she wanted to be part of it but obviously in disguise. Be careful what you wish for. She got her wish many years later.

At the age of sixteen, she was well informed about human nature and no longer naïve, thanks to the agony aunt. She submitted her little problems in disguise using different names and ages. The questions she wouldn’t be seen dead asking her own mother were answered by the agony aunt. She was rather disappointed when the problem page was replaced with spot the difference images and crosswords; she wanted the problem page back. Her prayers were answered when she saw an advertisement for an agony aunt required for one month. She wanted the job, she had to have it. It was the perfect job, perfect time. It was during a school long vacation and she had been wondering how she was going to pass the time. She badly wanted this job and was determined to go to any level to have it. She imagined herself in her little office opening letters full of problems and answering those letters but she knew she was too young for the job. She loved challenges so she applied using her elder sister’s details. Her sister Helen was twenty five years old. She had briefly worked as a journalist then switched to fashion, designing for women of all sizes. She thought that’s where money was; women like to shop. She was married with two children and lived in Kampala, five hundred miles away so she was safe – and besides, she looked older than her age.

Eva nearly jumped out of her skin when they called her for an interview. She was a nervous wreck. She checked her sister’s curriculum vitae a hundred times to get every detail right. How daring! She had been constipated for days but now there was no need to visit the pharmacy for an activation drug; she was in danger of embarrassing herself if she wasn’t careful. She liked challenges and this was one of them. She wasn’t qualified for this job but problems come from ordinary people, she reasoned. She would have to use her common sense. Breathe in, breathe out, Eva, she told herself and pinched herself to make sure she was not dreaming.

Eva looked at the writing pad in her hand and then at the magazine editor who was supposed to be interviewing her but didn’t have the time. He was puffing away on a cigarette between his chapped lips. On his desk was a bottle of wine called Uganda Waragi. She tried not to look at his puffy eyes, which were producing some whitish dots at the corners of his eyes. He was missing a few buttons on his shirt, exposing a hairy chest. She tried not to look but then eyes are very strange, they see what you don’t want them to see. He can’t be serious, she thought as she looked around her, papers everywhere, telephones ringing non-stop, fax machines screaming and giving birth to A4 size paper. It was all noisy, she had developed a headache, and she wanted to get out quickly. In her imagination she had expected a little office where she would sit comfortably reading those letters containing the problems and then she would sit back chewing on her pencil working out how to answer them. What a dream!

Are you going to stand here all day? The problems don’t come to you, you go to them. He sent some toxic fumes in her direction. She tried to dodge it by looking around, as if to familiarize herself with her surroundings. She was given a deadline. Their sales had dropped due to the missing problem page after their agony aunt had quit without giving notice. Now go out there and bring the problem page back. Chop! Chop! They wanted juicy stories and they didn’t care how she obtained such stories as long as she didn’t use real names and places. She was on trial for one week. If she didn’t produce something meaningful, she was out. What Eva didn’t know was that she was the only one who stayed longer than five minutes. Other applicants had just looked at his puffy milky eyes and too tight shirt with chest hairs peeping through the gaps, and walked out.

What a waste of time, this was not what she had imagined, Eva mumbled as she changed back into her normal clothes, returning her mother’s shoes under the bed where they would gather dust. She heard her mother arrive back from their farm where she had been supervising the workers. She had told her mother that the interview was for office work, just answering the phones and other little jobs. Her mother had said it was better than nothing and went on to warn her, Just because it’s school holidays doesn’t mean you should let your books gather dust and cobwebs. I want you to have what I missed out on: a proper education. I don’t want you to till the land for survival. Look at me looking like a question mark due to so much bending all day long, scratching the land looking for your school fees. Don’t let me down, Eva. Eva sighed, trying to figure out how to produce problems, find their answers and at the same time please her mother. Her headache increased. Yes she loved challenges but not this kind of challenge.

Elena called out to Eva, asking her how her interview had gone. Her voice was loud and Eva knew the reason – her mother was boasting to their neighbours. Especially to those whose children had not gone beyond class seven, now working in beer halls or married and producing children one after the other, the ones you see carrying a baby on her back and two on her sides and one or two in her belly. Eva gave her mother an edited version of her interview.

Speak louder, I can’t hear a word you are saying. Eva did exactly that, shouting at the top of her voice. Elena smiled at her daughter, showing some pride in her eyes. My Eva working in an office, she