guessing

After eight years living here, I still find it impossible to gauge Zimbabweans' ages. The sister who takes blood from me tosses her ringlets as she writes my name on the test-tube. They're reddish-purple corkscrew ringlets, the sort you could thread your little finger through. It's an elegant wig, I realise (there's a tell-tale gape at the neckline)"Do you have children?" she says. "A boy." I've warned her I might faint. "I have two, a boy and a girl. But they were close together and the girl did whatever the boy did so it was like having two boys." We discuss night wakings, how if you've only had girls you'd never understand how exhausting it is having a boy. "How old are your children?" I ask as she corks up the tube. Her face is smooth, unlined, firm - she's not much older than me, surely. "Old," she laughs. "What, 8 and 9?" "No, 21 and 20," she says. I gasp. "But that means you are.." She laughs.

It works both ways. A few minutes later, hurrying from the vegetable shop with a sachet of cayenne pepper I hear a steady "Sss." And again. "Sss." Yes? "Please, come over here." I take a few steps towards a trio of well, what are they, youths? Not so long ago, this would have been an offer of sugar, US dollar change or diamonds. One of the youths steps towards me. He's wearing a cap and a white-striped polo shirt. Breathtakingly white. He probably is a diamond dealer, come to think of it. Definitely a dealer of some kind, anyway. "I just want to say," he says, staring into my face. ""that I think you're very beautiful." "Thankyou." I laugh. I've slipped to the wrong side of 35 now, if I'd started having babies at 16 I could probably be your mother. That's if you're as old as I think you are, which you probably aren't. I hold bag, laptop and pepper tight and turn to cross the road. His voice floats after me. "Please, are you married?" .