CHAPTER #3

My brother, Edward.

I have always felt extremely blessed to have a brother whom I love dearly. Of course, we squabbled with each other when we were very young, as most children do, but as we grew older we always knew that we could count on each other's support whenever it was needed.

Eddie, with his blue eyes, blond hair and pouty lips, inherited our father's colouring while I got Mum's dark brown eyes and hair. Why is it that girls always want to be blue-eyed blondes? We were both well-behaved little children but Ed had more of a devil in him than I did so he usually got blamed for anything that went wrong. Quite right, too.

Being a year older than my brother meant that I was also taller than he was (at least for a number of years) and during that time I felt it my duty to exert as much control over his actions as possible. This did not sit too well with my little brother who has always had a very definite mind of his own.

Our home in Cottesloe had a wonderful back yard with many trees in it. The branches of a big willow tree provided whips when we played at being Zorro, or served as ropes for Tarzan and Jane; and the oak tree which overhung the garage allowed us to climb onto its flat roof whenever we wanted to hide or to just bask in the sun. Sometimes a swallowed watermelon pip would cause alarm because there was always the chance it would grow into a tree right through our belly buttons... and we never, ever drank water after eating peanuts for fear our stomachs would blow up and burst!

As we grew older, and my brother surpassed me in height, the dynamics of our relationship changed. I didn't feel compelled to boss him around quite as much anymore and he became a lot more protective of me.

Ed is one of those people who knows what he wants and sets out to get it with great tenacity. It was like that with Joan Symington. When they were both in their mid-teens, Eddie and Joan fell in love with each other. Actually I think Ed fell first and Joan succumbed to his persistence some time later.... but the truth is, once my brother met Joan he never had eyes for anyone else.

One night, having returned his sweetheart safely to her home after a date, Eddie was waiting at the bus stop to go home. It was pitch dark, around 10 p.m., when he suddenly became aware of a swift movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to deflect a lethal blow to the back of his head by a burly attacker. In the ensuing fight my brother was beaten up and bloodied but strong enough to repel the attacker who eventually gave up and disappeared back into the darkness.

When Eddie arrived home, bruised and covered in blood, we were frightened out of our wits at the sight of him. Fortunately the wounds were superficial and no great harm was done but it was a violent and sobering incident that, sadly, occurs far too often in our troubled native land.

New beginnings.

After my broken engagement, Bill Howard stepped into the role of being my sole companion without missing a beat. He was around the office all day long and would appear at our home most evenings as well. It was fun for me, though, because for the first time I was experiencing all of the things that many young people take for granted: going regularly to concerts, to the ballet, dancing at nightclubs, and more.

Although I was 20 years old by now, and Bill was 25, my father still expected me to be home before midnight. It must have been very trying for him on the occasions when we went night-clubbing and didn't get in until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Bill loved jazz music and we spent hours listening to it in the company of several friends - or at one of the nightclubs we began to frequent quite regularly. He also taught ballroom dancing as a hobby and I learned to dance really well under his tutelage.

Those were the days when people used to attend large public New Year's Eve Balls, women wearing long formal gowns and the men in tuxedos. It was all very glamorous. I remember two of my own gowns in particular: one was a sexy, silvery-green slipper-satin dress with a halter top, and the other a strapless, iced-pink confection with beads embroidered across the bodice. To complete these ensembles would be long lace mittens, a silk fan, a little beaded purse and a corsage of white gardenias. Talk about a fairy princess!

Bill's family lived in Pretoria, which is the capital city of the Transvaal (now Gauteng). I remember Pretoria as having long avenues lined with beautiful mauve Jacaranda trees. At times the Jacarandas' overhanging, blossom-laden branches would blend seamlessly with a carpet of petals below. Driving down those avenues, surrounded by clouds of lilac and mauve, felt much like floating through a celestial pathway into heaven.

Bill had a younger brother whose cheek had been bitten by a cousin when they were both young, paralyzing one whole side of his face. This gave him a slightly sinister look. His older sister, Sheila, was married and had six children ranging in age from small to not very big. His mother was a kind, overweight lady with watery blue eyes, who suffered frequent asthma attacks and had an oxygen tank beside her bed for emergencies. Bill's father was a sarcastic, grumpy old man with quite a lot of teeth missing. Maybe that's why he was so grumpy.

The Howard family assumed that one day Bill and I would get married but Bill, after going out with me exclusively for almost two years, had made no such request. Here I was 21 years old, primed for marriage, with a trousseau all collected, at an age when most unmarried girls were considered to have been left on the shelf! Unfortunately, nice girls were not advised to take any romantic initiative in those days otherwise I might have rattled his chain a bit to find out what his intentions were - but, being a nice girl, I didn't.

During the next year Bill was sent to London, England, to attend a conference of aerial survey companies from all over the world. Among the many people he met at the conference was a man who worked for a Canadian company called The Photographic Survey Corporation, Stu Scott. Exhilarated by all the new ideas, Bill put Stu's business card in his coat pocket and returned to South Africa a more informed, but extremely restless man.

Unable to settle back into the routine of business as usual, Bill eventually wrote to Stu Scott about getting a job with the Canadian company. The letter was forwarded to Petropolis, Brazil, where Stu was visiting a subsidiary company being run by Canadian, Don MacFadyen. Stu and Don discussed Bill's letter. As there were no job openings available in Canada, Don agreed to give the South African a trial if he would travel to Brazil under his own steam.

Would he ever! Within six weeks Bill had handed in his notice, packed his bags and was ready to go..... without, I might add, making any promises to me or exacting any in return. This was definitely food for thought.

Keeping busy spreading my wings

Although Bill professed to love me deeply, the fact that he left South Africa without asking me to marry him certainly made me doubt the depth of his love. It was later explained that he had needed to make sure the job in Brazil would pan out before he took on the added responsibility of a wife. Well, maybe.

Never one to mope around, however, I immediately set about keeping myself occupied. To build on the lessons in French learned at school, I enrolled in a course at the Alliance Francaise. Then I signed up for dressmaking lessons and discovered how to make shirts and dresses. Next I took up fencing, encouraged by two Polish brothers working at AOC who were masters of the sabre - which, by the way, is a much heavier weapon than the foil used by most fencers. Fencing is a graceful and athletic sport and, although I never became good at it, I did end up discovering several muscles in my legs that I had never known existed before.

Bill was writing regularly: missing me, he said, but enjoying the new job. I, too, wrote regularly. I wanted to make sure he was kept up-to-date on all my activities so that he would know I was not moping around in lonely spinsterhood. I may have even thrown in a few asides about a couple of the AOC men I dated every once in a while.

Seaside holidays and other events.

The clickety-clack sounds of a train traveling at high speed along iron tracks always take me back to the seaside trips we took as children - remembering the excitement of climbing onto a train and squeezing through people-clogged corridors to find our reserved compartment. In this compact space there would be two opposing green leather bunk seats, with tightly-rolled leather cushions at each end, and two upper bunks on both sides which would be lowered at bedtime for sleeping. A mirror on the wall hid a tiny washbasin which was pulled down when required and folded up again into the wall after use. Traveling at high speeds, the train always rocked vigorously from side to side so it was something of an adventure to get to a toilet at the end of the coach or to the dining car further along the train.

Through two large windows in the compartment we could watch the landscape sliding by..... first the rail yards, then back yards of houses, lots of advertising billboards, industrial buildings, automobiles and buses.

Gradually these city sights would be replaced by less populated areas: farm houses with cattle grazing on dry withered grass or gathered around muddy water holes, until at last we were speeding across the flat open veldt, dotted here and there with scrubby trees and bushes.

The train always stopped at small towns like Escourt (where they made great sausages), Newcastle (Aunt Doris once lived here), and Ladysmith (the site of a famous battle during the Boer War). Sometimes passengers would get out to stretch their legs or vendors would come to the windows hawking homemade cakes and lemonade, along with rough wooden carvings and colourful native beadwork. It could not have been very profitable for the vendors because the trains never stopped for very long.

As soon as it got dark a porter would appear with fresh-smelling, folded up beds which he would unroll onto as many bunks as were needed. We would fall asleep easily, lulled by the rocking motion of the speeding train, jerked awake only when the squealing of brakes heralded arrival at a station.

A brightly lit platform would be visible outside, the name of the town painted in large letters on a wooden sign. In the distance strings of lights described invisible roads and muffled sounds drifted upwards: voices, the hiss of water being fed into storage tanks, signal men crunching back and forth along the tracks, until a long drawn-out "All abooaard!" and the slow chuff-chuff of the engine starting up again.

Once out of the Transvaal and into Natal, the scenery changed dramatically. Rolling tree-covered hills appeared, pockets of small African settlements, and young children waving to us enthusiastically as we waved back. Moving closer to the Drakensberg mountain range the descent from Johannesburg's altitude of 6,000 ft. to sea level became more noticeable.

Surrounded now by dense tree coverage, the train snaked its way down into the Valley of a Thousand Hills and stopped at the Pietermaritzburg station. Ed and I were reminded that this was where we had been born. Once a quiet sleepy hollow, Pietermaritzburg is now a thriving, bustling metropolis.

At this point - if our destination was Durban - the journey was almost over. Soon we would reach sea level where the vegetation was decidedly tropical: palm trees, banana plants, bougainvillea, flame trees and a profusion of many other flowering bushes. Durban was a steamy, sprawling city stretching from the foothills of the Drakensberg to the golden coastal beaches of surf-laced sea.

A Vacation and a Big Surprise.

It was the Spring of 1955 and time for me to take another vacation. Ed and Joan were persuaded to accompany me and we set off one morning at dawn, Squeak loaded to the gills with our bags. We had made trips to coastal towns, north and south of Durban, many times before - and since - as they are all favoured destinations, especially for my brother who enjoys fishing off the rocks and getting soaked to the skin by waves crashing all around him.

On this trip, after travelling for 12 hours or so, we were looking forward to supping off a buffet table laden with appetizing salads and seafood and to staying at a comfortable hotel only steps away from sea and sand.

Since Bill knew of our travel arrangements in advance and had promised to write, it was no surprise to find a letter waiting for me on arrival at the Palmiston Hotel. The letter was filled with expressions of love and loneliness - and a surprise proposal of marriage!

Lying in bed that night, I thought long and hard about what my answer to Bill's proposal should be. Part of me dreaded leaving my beloved family and being separated from them by many thousands of miles. On the other hand, I loved Bill and found the idea of starting up my own home in a new and exotic country very tempting.

What was the duration of Bill's contract? Could it be a year or two? If so, this was a manageable period of time to be separated from my family. So, without really knowing what the long-term consequences would be, I decided to take a leap of faith and accept Bill's proposal of marriage.

When at last I fell asleep, it was to the sound of ocean waves breaking nearby and the smell of fresh salt air wafting through the open windows. Perhaps that's the way we should all live our lives: in the moment - not dwelling too much on what the future might bring.

The next morning I telephoned my mother and father with the news. Then Ed, Joan and I went to an antique store to buy a small eternity ring set with tiny diamond chips. I wore it on the third finger of my left hand as a symbol of my new status.

At home again Eddie became totally focussed on getting married to Joan. Unfortunately, Joan's mother was not as keen as Eddie was for this to happen. Matters came to a head when Joan chose to defy her mother by throwing her lot in with my steadfast, romantic brother. Squeak and I were called into service to transport Joan's belongings to our home and plans were made for a wedding in July.

Decked out in a new turquoise-green suit I served as Joan's bridesmaid and Eddie's friend Tommy de Bruyn became his best man. It was wonderful to be present at my brother's wedding but I remember thinking, sadly, that there would be no family or friends present at my own several months later.

After Ed's wedding I moved out of the large room my grandparents had once occupied so that the newlyweds could stay there until they could afford a home of their own. Joan became the sister I had never had and Ed finally succeeded in marrying his one and only soul mate.

There was no doubt in our minds that the two of them would live happily ever after - and we were absolutely right. They have!