Mistress of the Game
“I’m providing a free service,” he told an envious Dia and disapproving Lefu as yet another Amazonian Czech breezed out of the apartment in hot pants. “Someone has to make the poor loves feel welcome.”
Now that Gabe had finally been promoted to foreman, he was working shorter hours and earning good money. He’d already repaid Angus Frazer and everyone who’d loaned him money for his appeal. On his thirty-fourth birthday, he put in a call to Marshall Gresham. Marshall had been released from Wormwood Scrubs the previous Christmas and was now living in splendor in a spanking-new mansion outside Basildon.
Marshall said: “I thought you’d done a runner.”
It was a joke, but Gabe was horrified.
“I would never do that. It took me a wee bit longer than I expected to raise the money, that’s all. But I’ve got it, every penny. Where should I send the check?”
“Nowhere.”
Gabe was confused.
Marshall said: “I told you five years ago, didn’t I? That money’s an investment. What I want to know is when are you going to get off your lazy Scottish arse and start a new company?”
Gabe tried not to show how touched he was.
“Even after what happened? You’d still trust me?”
“’Course I trust you, you wanker. Just don’t take on any more dodgy partners.”
“Ah. About partners.”
Gabe told Marshall about Dia and their plans to develop low-income housing close to the impoverished Pinetown and Kennedy Road areas. Marshall was skeptical.
“Your plan sounds fine. But I don’t understand why you need this black fella. What does he bring to the party?”
“He grew up in Pinetown. He knows the area far better than I do. Plus, ninety-eight percent of the population in these dumps is black. I need a black face on the team if I’m going to get the locals to trust me.”
Gabe didn’t add that Dia’s friendship meant more to him than any business. That even if it meant returning Marshall’s investment, he would never leave Dia in the lurch. Luckily he didn’t have to.
“Fine. You know what you’re doing. Call me once you’ve doubled my money.”
Gabe laughed. “I will.”
He was back in business.
Gabe and Dia called their new company Phoenix, because it had risen from the ashes of their old lives.
At first, everyone thought they were crazy. Fellow developers laughed in Gabe’s face when he told him Phoenix’s business plan.
“You’re out of your mind. None of the shack dwellers can afford a home. And anyone who can afford one isn’t going to want to live within twenty miles of those areas.”
Others went even further.
“You go home at night, the kaffirs’ll torch the place. Those shantytown kids have got nothing better to do. Who d’you think’s going to insure you in Pinetown?”
As it turned out, insurance was a problem. None of the blue-chip firms would give Phoenix the time of day. Just when Gabe was starting to give up hope, Lefu came to the rescue, introducing Dia to a boyfriend of one of her cousins who worked for an all-black building insurance agency in Johannesburg.
“The premiums are high.” Dia handed Gabe the quote.
“High?” Gabe read the number and felt faint. “This guy must have been high when he came up with this rate. Tell him we’ll pay half.”
“Gabe.”
“All right, two-thirds.”
“Gabriel.”
“What?”
“It’s our only option. He’s doing this as a favor to Lefu. As a friend.”
“With friends like him, who needs enemies?” Gabe grumbled.
They paid the full rate.
By the end of their first year, Phoenix was 700,000 rand in the red. They had built thirty small, simple prefab houses with running water and electricity and sold none. Gabe lost fifteen pounds and took up smoking. Dia, with one baby at home and a second on the way, remained inexplicably upbeat.
“They’ll sell. I’m working on it. Give me time.”
Gabe had worked out a financial model for shared ownership that he knew a number of the shanty families could afford. The problem was that none of them believed it.
“You have to understand,” Dia explained. “These people have been lied to by white men their entire lives. Many of them think it was white doctors who first spread AIDS here.”
“But that’s ridiculous.”
“Not to them. They think you’re trying to steal their money. The idea that they could afford a home-never mind a home with water and a roof that doesn’t leak-it’s totally alien to them. You may as well tell them you’ve found a way for them to live forever, or that you can turn horse manure into gold.”
“So what do we do?”
“You do nothing. Go away for a few weeks, take a vacation. Show one of your Polish teenagers something other than your bedroom ceiling for a change.”
Gabe shook his head. “No way. I can’t leave the business, not now.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” said Dia. “Bugger off. I know what I’m doing.”
Gabe spent two weeks at Muizenberg, a local beach resort, with a girl named Lenka. Once the site of a famous battle between the British and the Dutch, Muizenberg was now the go-to resort for affluent Capeto-nians, an African version of the Hamptons.
“Gorgeous!” Lenka gasped as they strolled past the Victorian mansions on the promenade.
“Gorgeous!” she enthused, taking in the wide sandy beaches and turquoise water of False Bay.