Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

They call South Africa God’s own country, and sitting here I can see why. No, I can feel why. We’ve lived here seventeen years now, I think. I’m not sure how I fit into the great teeming mass of contradictions that is South Africa, but I do know this about Hondehoek. It’s home.

June 22

Todd called. He hasn’t called for a couple of weeks now, he knew I’d be angry with him because of his letter, and I was. It turns out that he has a new girlfriend, Francesca, and the boy he wants to stay with over the summer vacation lives near her.

I’m glad he talks to me about his girlfriends and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to see her. But spending the whole summer away from his family? He’s only sixteen, for Christ’s sake, he’s going to be spending the next ten years at least running around after women.

Pathetic, really, isn’t it? A mother jealous of her son’s girl. But I really need him around here, especially now Neels is behaving so strangely.

Todd did tell me about the “Free Nelson Mandela” Concert he went to last weekend at Wembley Stadium. He said it was amazing; it lasted ten hours and a billion people watched it on TV around the world. He saw Eric Clapton and Dire Straits and some girl called Tracy Chapman who he said was “brilliant.” There was no coverage here, of course.

But he’s so far away! Caroline’s going to high school next year, but I want to keep her near me. Especially if Neels leaves.

June 24

Neels and I made love last night. It was nice. I was a little drunk, and relieved not to be fighting. He was very affectionate, I think he feels badly about our fight the other day, and so he should.

Afterwards he asked me whether the family should move to Philadelphia. We could buy a house, send Caroline to school there. We could keep Hondehoek and still spend some time here during vacations and so on. He said that he really thinks the regime is going to collapse sometime in the next five to ten years, and when it does it’s going to be ugly. He says he wants to make sure his family is safe.

We talked about Hennie. It’s two months ago today that he was murdered. We read about deaths all the time in the papers, but when the ANC blow up your brother with a landmine on his own farm, it really brings things home to you. He admitted that it was what had made him question whether South Africa could survive the fall of apartheid. He says he can’t get it out of his mind.

I started talking about not wanting to run away from this country, but he kissed me. “Be quiet, liefie ,” he said gently. “Don’t answer me yet. Let’s go to sleep now and we can talk about it later, when you’ve had a chance to think about it.”

So what about it? What about moving to America? My knee-jerk reaction is “no,” of course. It would mean abandoning all that our marriage has stood for, all our history together. It would imply that I have wasted the last twenty years of my life stuck down here hoping and praying for the collapse of the system. We can’t leave just when it’s about to happen!

But America is my country, after all. Maybe I should just forget South Africa; it was a phase in my life that has come to an end. There will be other things to do in Philadelphia. Neels is very ambitious, I’ve always known that. He wants to build up a truly international newspaper empire. He’ll have the Philadelphia Intelligencer and the Herald, and all those local US papers. Then he’ll buy more. And I’ll be a media tycoon’s wife. I suppose I am that here, but I don’t feel like it, I feel as if I’m helping Neels right a terrible wrong. I know a lot of people would like the glitter and the glamour of all those parties in Philadelphia and New York and London. But not me. Really not me.

It might save our marriage, though. That is important to me. Maybe that should be more important than what happens in this screwed-up country.

Neels was clever to tell me not to say anything and just think about it.

I love him. I miss the old Neels, but what I need to figure out is if I can love the new Neels just as much. Or maybe there is no difference between the two. Maybe it’s all in my imagination, he hasn’t really changed.

June 26

Neels said Zan called him. She’s coming to stay with us in a couple of days, for two whole months. She’s got a place at the London School of Economics in September, and she wants to spend some time with her father first.

I am really not looking forward to it at all. She’s been in Johannesburg the last six years, getting herself into all kinds of trouble with the End Conscription Campaign and the Black Sash. I have no problem with that, in fact I admire her for it, but we’ve hardly seen her that whole time. Ever since she was fourteen she has been vile to me and to her father, but especially to me. Given how things are between Neels and me I’m not optimistic about her stay.

June 27

I am so angry I could spit. More than spit. I could rip Neels’s balls off.

I got a call from George Field this afternoon saying that Neels had summoned him into his office and told him he was going to announce the closure of the Mail tomorrow morning. He wants George as editor to stand by him when he makes the announcement to staff. George was in deep shock. He hadn’t seen it coming and he wanted to ask me what was going on. I told him about Neels’s international ambitions and the demands of American investors that he get rid of his South African interests. We talked about why he didn’t sell the paper and George confirmed that there are financial problems. But Neels could have tried, for Christ’s sake. I like George and I don’t like the way Neels is treating him.

I snapped at Caroline who ran off to do her homework. When Neels came home, I gave him hell. He was expecting it, I guess; he didn’t fight back. But he looked really angry. He stood still with his fists clenched, kind of shaking. He looked like he was only just managing to control himself. It worried me. Then I told him he wasn’t sleeping in my room that night, or any night, and he turned around and left, just walked out of the house.

Probably gone to drown his sorrows.

Asshole!

Later... technically it’s the morning of June 28.

Cornelius isn’t back yet. For a moment I was worried. I thought perhaps he had gone out somewhere, gotten drunk and then crashed the car on the way home.

But now I know what’s happened. There’s another woman. I know there’s another woman. I don’t know who she is or where she is, but that’s where he’s gone. He had this strange expression on his face just before he left this evening. He decided then that if I wouldn’t let him sleep with me he’d go and sleep with her.

That would explain this feeling I’ve been having that I’m losing him, that he’s slipping away. I was losing him. It’s not just about the Mail. As I write this he’s out there fucking some bimbo.

Well, screw him! The bastard. The absolute total fucking bastard!

‘Take a seat please. I’ll tell Kim you’re here.’

The nurse disappeared through the doors marked ‘Critical Care Unit’. After the rushing around of the last couple of hours, Calder found it very hard to sit still even for a minute. The helicopter had taken Todd and him directly to a hospital on the edge of King’s Lynn. Langthorpe Aerodrome had been contacted and Kim informed about what had happened. Todd had been rushed into intensive care, but Calder was undamaged. He had returned to the airfield by taxi to file the accident report and call the owner of the Yak. The man’s dismay at what had happened to his beloved aircraft was overwhelmed by concern for Todd plus a tinge of fear that it could have been him injured in that plane. Then Calder had driven back to King’s Lynn to join Kim.