red dress

My husband says that if we have another baby he will D-I-E. He spells this out because we are at the table with a four-year-old with big ears.

I will D-I-E and be D-E-A-D, my husband says in case I didn't quite get the message. Zimbabwe with one child is bad enough, Zimbabwe with two of the things will be much worse. It's a definite no, darling.

So I plot and I plan and I buy a new red dress from my favourite Chinese shop in the arcade next to Wimpy. It is knee-skimming and bust-skimming and full enough to twirl in seductively. I have not had a new dress for some time because a) there are very few clothes shops in Zimbabwe b) the clothes shops that have anything half-decent are wildly overpriced c) there are cash shortages. Bad ones. The sort that should stop you buying a new dress. I have been trying to feed the whole family -- two adults (one a meat-eater), a calcium-craving four year-old, two dogs and two cats -- on around £2.50 per day for some weeks now. We eat spinach, by the way.

Next morning I float into the dining room nonchalantly, as if this were Paris and I donned a new dress every day. My four-year-old has already learnt how to twist his mummy round his little finger.

"You look SO pretty, mummy," he says. "I want you to wear that dress everyday." And then -- just in case I haven't got the message -- "I want you to throw out all your other dresses and only wear that one."

"What about when it has to be washed?" I ask.

"I want you to wear it wet," he says.

My husband looks up from his mealie-meal porridge. There is no honey today. "Did you know there are cash shortages?" he asks politely.

"It's only zhing-zhong," I say. Zhing-zhong is the word Zimbabweans use when they talk about cheap poor-quality Chinese imports. It was one of the first words my child learnt.

I am having second thoughts about the dress though. Once, when I lived on a different continent, I read a piece about riots somewhere in the East. The police scanned the angry crowds and then picked out and shot someone in a red T-shirt. Our dear leader loves the East. Note to self: do not wear red dress in public, not in the next two months anyway. There are elections in March and people are getting restless. I do not want to be D-E-A-D, not for a red dress.

"So how do you like it?" I give my husband a twirl.