All Bets Are Off!

Garrett had bought the first curtains he’d found, and didn’t expect what happened next . . .

- Paul A Freeman

ROSEMARY Nzou waited until it was half-time in the Premier Soccer League match before confronting her husband over his laziness.

“The curtains,” she said bluntly. “What have you done about them?”

Garrett Nzou sighed in exasperation. He put down his can of beer and the family size bag of chips he was munching and pulled himself from his armchair. “Can’t a man get five minutes of relaxation, woman?” he grumbled. “It’s not just any soccer match on TV. It’s Kaizer Chiefs versus Vasco da Gama. You wouldn’t find me disturbing you if Generations or one of your other soap operas was on, would you?”

“You’ve been promising to get the curtains for weeks,” Rosemary reminded him. “I’m starting to lose patience.”

Cursing under his breath, Garrett put on his shoes. He could always catch the second half of the game down at the betting shop, he thought, where he had R20 on Vasco winning the game three-two. After all, the curtains weren’t such a big deal. They could wait a while longer.

When the referee blew the full-time whistle, signalling a four-nil drubbing for Vasco at the hands of Chiefs, Garrett came out of the bookmaker’s scowling and strolled miserably down First Street. He wondered unhappily how he was going to afford new curtains for the bedroom of their five-year-old son, Usher – or more importantly, how he was going to placate Rosemary.

Over the previous weeks most of the money he’d set aside for the curtains had found its way into the bookie’s pocket, most of it lost on racehorses – dead certs that had turned out to be little more than knackered old donkeys.

But as he passed Green Inspirations, the environmentally friendly shop, Garrett noticed that among the gimmicky “green” products displayed in the front window the store sold a selection of eco-friendly curtains.