Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

June 29

As I write this, Zan is thrashing up and down in the pool outside despite the temperature — it’s only about sixty. I don’t want her to see me writing in this diary.

She was overjoyed to see Neels last night, and he her. He embraced her so tightly I’m amazed she managed to breathe. Despite myself, I was touched.

But I’m still furious with him, although I did my best to hide it. It worked, I don’t think Zan noticed anything was wrong, but I’m not sure how long I can keep it up. If it hadn’t been for the fact that my husband is a cheating sonofabitch, it might have been a nice evening.

I made coquilles Saint Jacques. Doris and I are a good team, I do like cooking with her. Zan told us a little of what she has been getting up to in Johannesburg. Apparently she shared an apartment with Tammy Mackie, the daughter of Don and Heather Mackie who were both members of the South African Communist Party and are now in exile. Tammy is banned, which means that she can’t go to any meetings of more than a certain number of people, but Zan can and does. I’m sure she didn’t tell us the half of what she’s up to, but it sounded quite exciting. Neels asked her to promise to be careful while she was staying with us. This she agreed to do, to my surprise.

We didn’t mention the newspaper business once, although Neels said he wants to invite the Pellings over to dinner in a couple of days. We know them a little, but we’re hardly best friends. Graham Pelling is loaded, so there’s got to be some business motive behind that, I’m sure. Perhaps Neels can get him to buy the Mail. That would be good.

I let Neels into my bed last night, but I didn’t talk to him. He tried to touch me but I shook him off.

Bastard.

June 30

It’s been raining. The Hondekop is wreathed in wisps of cloud and a couple of miles upstream the valley has disappeared into a ceiling of thick gray. Everything is dripping wet. There’s no wind. The fynbos smells wonderful in the damp air. I was standing by the slave bell, trying to decide how to protect the tulip bulbs from the moles, when I heard a complicated whoop, followed by an answering call. It was a bokmakierie and his mate, flitting about somewhere in the branches of the white stinkwood tree. They are a kind of bush shrike, small with a yellow breast, black collar and loud voice, but the Afrikaans word captures the cadence of the call. The cock sings out “ka-weet, ka-weet, bokmakierie,” and the hen answers. There is something wonderfully domestic about them; I feel as if this is their garden as much as mine.

Suddenly I found myself standing there, in the damp lush garden, with tears streaming down my face. I’m jealous of the married bliss of two dumb birds. I really need to get a grip.

July 1

Zan went to an End Conscription Campaign meeting in Cape Town this morning. I considered asking whether I could come with her, but I don’t quite have the courage.

I’ve seen very little of Neels this past couple of days, although whenever I have seen him he looks in a nasty mood. There’s some heavy criticism of him in the newspapers today. He’s gone from benevolent dictator to evil tyrant in one day. Serves him right. I hope it hurts!

It’s Caroline’s last day at school before the winter holiday. She seems more subdued than she usually does at the end of term. I’m sure she feels the tension between me and Neels. Poor girl!

July 2

Saturday, and Neels is taking the day off. The newspaper editorials, the letter pages and the journalists are all outraged over the closure of the Mail. They hate Neels, and it’s really getting to him. George and his journalists are demanding that Neels allow them to buy the Mail themselves, or find another friendly buyer. Neels told them that if they could find a buyer he would happily sell. He’s certain they won’t and I fear he is right.

He spoke to me and Zan about it this morning over breakfast. He is very bitter: disillusioned. He says he has sunk millions of rand into the Mail over the years and no one is giving him any credit for that. He is a businessman first and always has been and no one can hide from the fact that the Mail’s numbers don’t add up. When P.W. Botha first came to power ten years ago saying he would change things, Neels was optimistic. But now he says he is pretty sure that the country is going to go up in flames in a couple of years and there’s nothing he can do about it. The police are getting ever more brutal, but so are the blacks. Bombs, necklacings, schoolchildren rioting, the Zulus and the UDF killing each other, his brother’s murder. The spiral of violence that he had hoped to avoid has started and it’s going to end in the most God-awful bloodshed. It’s time to quit.

He directed most of this to Zan, and she listened sympathetically, although I could see she wasn’t convinced. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him. But he deserves all this blame! He’s right, things do look bad with the State of Emergency and the rioting, but this is when his country needs people like him the most.

And there’s the bimbo. I know I don’t have any evidence, but I know she exists. I just know it. It explains everything.

After breakfast Zan and Neels decided they would go for a long walk up into the mountains. I watched them go, two tall energetic figures cutting through the thin layer of mist hovering a couple of feet above the ground among the golden vine leaves. They left their footsteps in the dew glistening on the lawn. It’s three o’clock now and they are still out. Part of me feels a little jealous of Zan; she is taking on the role that I should have, supporting my husband in his hour of difficulty.

Neels has announced that he is going to Durban and then on to Philadelphia next week, to work on the Herald deal. I’ll be glad to have him gone, believe me. One of his bankers is coming to dinner with the Pellings tonight. I will do my wifely duty.

July 3

Had the Pellings over to dinner last night with Neels’s banker. Zan was there and behaved herself well: she looks stunning with her tan and her beaded hair and she impressed Graham Pelling. I played the perfect hostess.

Actually, I’m not bad at entertaining, especially for small groups. Neels does it a lot, and we get an interesting bunch of people, most of whom are very friendly. When we were first married in the seventies we used to invite some of the leading radicals, white and black, but nowadays they are all in prison or banned from meeting other people or just too suspicious. Then there are the academics from Stellenbosch University who are quite amusing and so gossipy. There’s one of them I particularly like, a professor of journalism of all things, called Daniel Havenga. He’s a funny-looking man: he’s probably only forty-five but he has a shock of prematurely white hair, a little round face with a beard, wicked brown eyes and little ears that stick out at right-angles from his head. He refers to Stellenbosch as “hanky-panky town,” and if half of what he tells us over the dinner table is true, the name is justified. Although none of them talk to us about their support for apartheid, I think several are members of the Broederbond, including Daniel.

I asked Neels once whether he was a brother, and he assured me he wasn’t. I believe him, but then the whole point of a secret society is that you’re not supposed to admit to being a member. I remember when my friend Nancy discovered her father was a freemason when she was twelve it freaked her out. From what I can make out it is the Broederbond who come up with all the apartheid regime’s bright ideas, so it is highly unlikely that Neels would be part of that. I bet they’d love to have him, though.