Maurice & Friends

Sarah Lee Simba was filled with frustrated fury. She had not heard from her son, the President, in ages. He never attended her Sunday brunches nor did he call or invite her to the mansion. At one point in time, she could rely on Betty to try mending the bad relations between mother and son, but even that had ceased to be. Betty, totally preoccupied with the state of her sub-zero marriage, had no thought for Sarah Lee. Her life was filled with her own woes.

Since the day in Mombasa when Shane had accosted his wife for chain smoking and drinking gallons of black coffee while pregnant, he had barely strung two sentences together when in her presence. His deportment was all frostiness and disdain. It made matters much worse when her next fetal sonogram showed a cub that was not growing as it should. She had made this report to her husband, thinking to gain a bit of attention and even sympathy but that idea was not a sound one and ended in another rancorous session.

“What do you expect, Betty, when you suffocate an unborn cub in smoke, nicotine and caffeine? I hope he won’t be stillborn,” he had raged, before walking off.

Unknown to Betty, Shane had then called Dr. Frank Tigeres and told him of her squalid habits while pregnant. Frank had called her in to the clinic and read her the riot act. Betty was losing ground with those around her. She was not a happy camper these days.

On another front, great excitement was at hand when Tawny Tigeres gave birth to two liger sons by Sam Simba. They were born in the Exotic Animal Clinic with her father and uncle overseeing the event. Tawny, being a strapping tigress, sailed through her delivery and was back in Sam Simba’s river home the following day. Sam and Tawny had the baptismal at his house, with the Reverend Daryl Dik Dik officiating. Afterward was a very large party on the lawn leading to the Mara River. The grandparent’s, Frank and Melba Tigeres, were invited along with the entire Tigeres clan. The party lasted until the moon was in full view over the river’s banks with the night sounds of the bush cranking up.

“He hates me now,” sobbed Betty Simba.

She was at the Mental Health Center in a session with Dr. Lachlan Lion.

“Betty, it seems to me that this second pregnancy has truly stressed your relationship with your husband.”

“He is mad because I smoke and drink a great deal of coffee while I write, but that has always been my modus operandi when writing a new book.”

“Betty, I believe you could use an injection of instant maturity. You wanted this cub and you need to make sure he is healthy when he is born. It would be a tragedy if you continued your bad habits and the little fellow was disfigured in some way. I imagine that would be one thing you couldn’t work past with Shane Simba because he does adore his kids.”

“I wish he adored me,” she said, all sullen gloom.

On a stormy night which saw Shane working late in his office at the State House, Betty felt premature labor pains. She called the servants who notified him. They rode together to the clinic. At midnight a stillborn son was taken by caesarian section.

“He was very much underweight, Shane, he didn’t stand a chance,” explained Frank Tigeres who had performed the c-section.

The next day, at a short grave side service, Shane buried his youngest, having hastily given him the name of Sam for his litter mate. Sam, Tawny, Sloane, Lachlan, Staci and I stood beside him at the small grave after the service and comforted him as he wept. He didn’t return to the hospital to see his wife. Instead, he went directly to Jane’s home, having called her on the cell. He cried in her arms, off and on until the reddening sky indicated the arrival of dawn. Shane Simba did truly love his children. Staci stayed with him until Betty was released from the clinic.

Sam Simba comforts his litter mate, Shane at the graveside of his stillborn son...

Upon Betty’s return to the mansion, Shane had the servants move his things from the room he shared with her. He then chose a very large guest room, several doors away, for his new boudoir. The relationship was broken. Only time would tell if it was immutable or could be repaired.

Betty walked down the hall where she found Shane in his office in the mansion. He looked up from his desk.

“What is it, Betty?”

“Shane, please darling, stop freezing me out. I’ve just given birth to a dead cub.”

“By your own actions,” he snarled, his face feral, green eyes filled with wrath. “Betty, we are husband and wife in name only from now on. I won’t divorce you because it would cause scandal but don’t expect anything of an emotional nature from me – ever again.”

Sean Simba had returned from his soccer camp and was once again present at the family dining table. Shane would address all conversation to his eldest son, ignoring any tête-à-tête Betty offered. Solly, still unaware of such things as marital mishaps, would bang happily with his spoon, making gargantuan messes with his food. Finally, in a sense of desperation, Betty no longer joined her husband and the cubs for dinner, preferring to have a tray brought to her office where she was writing her book. The servants, noting the depressing state of affairs around the mansion, added to the gloom. A home that had once been filled with excitement and pleasure fell into a state of silence and misery.

The following weekend, Shane went to Mombasa with Solly and Sean, leaving Betty to her office and computer keyboard. Ashley and Leah Lyon were there as were Jane and Luke. The two couples and the President spent most of the time in each other’s company boating and windsurfing. Luke Leoparde found that he was beginning to like Shane Simba a great deal. On Friday evening, Staci joined her father and brothers. It was a restorative time filled with camaraderie, soothing sea breezes and healing salt air.

In a further turn of events, Shane spent the work week in the presidential bush home. On weekends he would either stay there or take his kids to Mombasa. He took Solly and his nanny, Miss B, and a few other needed personnel and set up a separate abode from his wife. Sean would be there as well, with multiple visits from Staci when she was free of her heavy schedule. Betty continued to dwell in the State Mansion with Babs and a large household staff. She socialized with her ex-husband, Montecore and her sister, Gloria Chimpo.

A reception was held for the new government ministers on the lower floor of the mansion. It would have been impossible not to detect the chill between the first couple. They stood side by side in the reception line, greeting the honorees and guests but never looking at or speaking with each other. Hints began to crop up in the tabloids that all was not well with the President of Kenya and his wife. After the sympathy shown Betty and Shane due to the death of their newborn, reporters began to wonder and do a bit of poking around to see what could be found. In a strange turn, Glinda Gorilla failed to do so. She had been made godmother to Jane’s daughter, Catherine, and suspected that she was also Shane Simba’s cub. The sleazy leopard owner of ANIMAL ENQUIRER was giving Glinda a hard time for being reluctant to dig up the dirt on Shane. He reduced her salary. Being general manager of the Masai Mara Daily, Jane conferred with Bob Bushbuck and returned Glinda’s job as gossip columnist for the Daily, cementing their friendship and further insuring Glinda’s loyalty.

The day had been long, dusty and hot in the town of Thika, just east of Nairobi. Dr. Juma Mnyama and his assistant, Staci Simba, were having tea under a banyan tree. In the northern quarter of the small township, they had seen many AIDS/HIV victims.

“Staci, if I asked you out to dinner some evening, would you think it strange and unseemly of me?”

Staci got that look of high spirits in her amber eyes.

“I don’t think it would be strange at all. I’d love to have dinner with you, Dr. Mnyama.”

“Okay, then, you will have to call me Juma.”

“That will be cool,” she giggled.

Dr. Juma Mnyama and Staci Simba in Thika....

Betty and Shane made a short official goodwill trip to Germany. They booked in a hotel. The suite had two bedrooms. Shane kept to his and Betty, although having made overtures to her husband, ended up in the other.

Betty was having Montecore visit her often at the state mansion. Shane had made his residence in their bush home. Betty’s ex-husband and she would have drinks in the library and chat.

“Betts, I have heard rumors throughout my discothèque that Shane is having an affair with that reporter that covers his trips – a lioness.”

Suddenly things made sense to Betty. He could have an affair with a journalist that covered his presidential activities with great ease. She now remembered all the short trips in Kenya which he had not mentioned he was taking, thus avoiding her going with him. She recalled the in-depth reporting of Jane on all trips he made.

“I think it must be true, Monte. I will get to the bottom of this.”

Betty began to recall many details, the main one being the day Jane and her husband, Luke Leoparde, had baptized their two cubs and Shane’s pressing his head to the pew in front in a state of, what she now realized, was an intense emotional reaction to the ceremony.

Bertram Baboon’s raised his brow in utter amazement. We were sitting in his home, having been invited for sundowners.

“What was that you said?” he yelped.

“I think Shane is having an affair with Luke Leoparde’s wife, the reporter who covers his trips,” said Betty, lighting up with her fifth Kool. “And, not only that, I believe her children are his.”

“Betts!” exclaimed her sister.

Knowing what I strongly suspected, I attempted a low profile but that was not to be. I was glad Lachlan was kept late at work so she wouldn’t grill him.

“Maurice, you are very close to him these days, especially having been made his chief of staff. What are your thoughts on the matter?”

Her dark eyes bore into me expecting an answer.

“Betty, Shane doesn’t share his personal life with me – just the business of his presidency. I know nothing of what you speak.”

Later at home, I found Lachlan settled with a drink on the back porch. I told him of the evening’s conversation.

“Maury, that marriage is probably finished except for the remaining particles of dust that need to be swept up. It is a bare bones situation and Shane Simba will never forgive Betty for her abuse while pregnant which helped kill their cub.”

“How sad,” I said, feeling very low indeed.

“They are virtually living apart now.”

“She said that this evening.”

“Remember me telling you that we couldn’t afford to get dragged down with Betty’s problems? We just can’t. It will make you terribly depressed too for your heart is of a very caring nature. Does Shane ever discuss anything personal with you?”

“Never, Lachlan, absolutely never. Only Betty does.”

“Listen with a deaf ear, Maurice. Betty has not managed this much wanted marriage of hers wisely at all. She should have never insisted on children by him – that’s where it went sour.”

“I have to agree.”

The following day, Betty asked Ashley Lyon to drive with her to Luke and Jane’s home at some point.

“I want to take those new cubs a gift. After all, their mother covers Shane’s presidency.”

Ashley, not privy to the truth of the cub’s paternity, was happy to comply.

“We’ll go this weekend, Betts,” answered her second ex-husband.

“Good, Ash, and thanks.”