MY DAPPLED LIFE - A QUILT OF MEMORIES. CHAPTER ELEVEN. SÉAN'S MINE ACCIDENT

 

                                                               Séan Whittle and friend

Mine accident

One day Séan fell off a six foot ledge underground and hurt his back.  In terms of his contract, he should have reported the incident in case he might need workmen’s compensation, but he was in a hurry to go home and play with his babies.  Later on he landed in hospital in Johannesburg for six weeks but by then it was too late for him to claim. 

In those days sick ‘day’s pay’ miners received only twelve days sick leave  per annum.  Taxes were not deducted on a monthly basis but annually and we had earned good money between us, all now spent on the stolen car, so we owed a lot of tax for the previous year.  The timing of the tax demand coincided with Séan’s hospitalisation.  When we were unable to pay, the taxman garnisheed a part of Séan’s salary.  Séan was supposed to get two or three pounds a week at work from some benevolent fund, details of which I cannot now recall, but even that the taxman took before I could get my hands on it.  So it was back to the grindstone.

Temporary work

This time I did temporary work in Johannesburg so that I could stay home in case our son or Nicolette became ill.  After work I visited Séan at the hospital if there was time before catching the five o’clock train back to Brakpan and making it to the crèche by six by the skin of my teeth.  Then I’d carry the kids back to the next bus home and I can assure you that when our heads hit the pillow by seven thirty the three of us slept like logs until the alarm rang at five the next morning.  It’s amazing what you can do when you have to.

Daily grind

In the mornings, I left the house with the children fully washed and dressed in time for the six o’clock bus to the crèche behind the station where, fortunately they were given a full cooked breakfast.  Then there was a brisk walk back to the station for me, followed by a seat on the train to Johannesburg if there was one vacant.  

Wrong train

One afternoon I took the wrong train home and failed to discover my mistake until I arrived in Randfontein at the end of the West Rand line.  Because this particular train stopped at nearly all the stations on the line I knew it would take me almost an hour to go back to Johannesburg by the next train, never mind the time I’d have to spend in Johannesburg awaiting the East Rand connection.

At the Randfontein station I telephoned the Brakpan crèche from a telephone booth and explained the situation.  The woman at the other end was furious.

“I’ve been looking after your children for almost twelve hours now and I have my own children waiting for me at home,” she said. 

“I’ll phone my sister in Springs and ask her to drive through,” I said.

My fabulous sister

Elly was now married.  She was working and awaiting the birth of her first child.  In those days we had no cellphones and so it was a toss up whether I’d reach her.  I phoned my brother-in-law's work and he said he and Elly were going to supper with friends. “Speak to Elly,” my brother-in-law said.  When I heard my sister’s voice I burst into tears. Elly said:

“Never mind the supper.  I’ll phone our friends.  This is more important. Explain how we can get to that crèche and we’ll be on our way at once.”

When I arrived at Brakpan station two hours later my children were enjoying the attention they were receiving from their uncle and aunt.

Successor to dear Aline

After this I took them out of the crèche and employed another lady, who took good care of the children and kept the place spotless.  Although I earned three pounds a day five days a week, there was hardly any money left after I had paid the rent, wages, water and lights, our son's formula and my train season ticket.  Most of what was left over was used to pay whichever one of our creditors I drew from the hat that month. 

One day the housekeeper waited until eight when I arrived home after visiting Séan in Johannesburg before making food for herself and her husband.  It smelled so heavenly, just onions, tomatoes and toast, and I longed for her to offer me some but she must have thought I had eaten in Johburg.  Nicolette ate little and our son had his formula.  However, I have listened to the parable of the Prodigal Son with different ears since then.

Needing the pay

One weekend while I was still temping and Séan was still off sick after the mine accident, our son's formula had run out.  I was supposed to get paid on Fridays and the petty cash box was put into the safe at three every afternoon.  By ten to three I whispered to the accountant:

“You do remember I haven’t been paid yet, don’t you?”  He lost his temper and screamed at the top of his voice, causing the rest of the staff to sit up and take notice:

“Don’t worry Mrs Whittle.  You’ll GET your money.” 

I wanted the earth to swallow me up but the staff looked at me, not judgementally but with sincere empathy.  He might have been working for his health but clearly I was not the only one who needed every cent I earned.  I realised that day that one can take a lot if one needs money to feed one’s child.

Lovely visit

My monthly season ticket was valid for the weekends too so I would take the train to Johannesburg on Saturdays and Sundays to visit Séan in hospital.  One of my Springs friends and her daughter were visiting her husband.  She offered to take me home past Brakpan in her car.

Her husband being in hospital and most of her relatives having congregated in the passage (I assure you, there were more than twenty standing or sitting there), my acquaintance and her daughter had been invited to coffee with the family.  I watched the party with absorbed interest.

Once inside the flat, the people so suave and sophisticated in their behaviour outside were transformed and the place became like a beehive, buzzing with their voluble conversation.

Entranced, I listened until my beautiful hostess steered me from the kitchen into the lounge where two gentleman were chatting together.  They took me under their wing with genuine kindness and interesting stories.  

Age of courtesy is past

A week after my visit to the family, Séan came back home from hospital.  In due course he returned to work but he had developed a fear of mining, so I encouraged him to resign and find a job as a clerk in Johannesburg.  I stopped temping and found full-time work there myself.  We went to work together in the mornings.  I was earning more than he was but together we were struggling to pay our debts off and I imagined that we had landed in that area of life which is called the darkest hour of the night that comes before the dawn.

We walked through a large patch of veld after leaving the train and there was a little footpath we used to follow.  During the rainy season the path had become muddy and my foot slipped in the mud.  I landed on my hands and feet and stayed in that position for a while, thinking: “This is just too much!”

In the pitch dark of the evening, Séan stood with his back to me and his shoulders were shaking.  “Don’t cry Séan, I’m all right.  Truly!” I said and struggled up.  When I reached him I discovered that, far from crying, he was laughing soundlessly, the tears of mirth running down his face.

“The age of courtesy is past indeed,” I commented acidly as I wiped my mud-smeared hands dry on my skirt as best I could.  Then I burst out laughing myself.  We must have looked a strange pair, making our way into the house, me covered in mud, and laughing fit to beat the band, while my housekeeper looked at us and the children clapped their hands for joy to see us come home.

Best sandwich ever

Food was still at a premium in my home and one day my colleague had organised a sales meeting and was left with a number of toasted sandwiches with mayonnaise.  She gave me two.  I ate one – it tasted like the Swedish bread and butter sent to Holland after the war – and phoned Séan to come to a spot midway between his office and mine at lunchtime.  

When I got there he was waiting for me.  He ate his sandwich with the utmost relish.  Even when we were over forty years married, he occasionally recalled that instance to my mind and expressed how I had won his heart again that day.    It’s that kind of love our marriage was made of, despite all the arguments his Irish temper and my Dutch obstinacy caused during those years.  First generation immigrants have such days and they form character.  I will say that in those days I never battled with my weight.

Electricity cut off

Another evening we arrived home to darkness.  The electricity had been cut off because it hadn’t been paid for.  It was a happy family occasion, each of us with a child on our lap, eating bread and jam and drinking milk in the flickering candlelight, and planning how to get out of our financial hurdle.  After all, we argued, it wasn’t possible for bad luck to continue forever.

Impromptu party

Because we no longer had a car, we took to walking to Holy Mass on Sunday afternoons.  An English Dominican celebrated Mass in a classroom.  We sat at the school desks and there was a lady who sang so beautifully that I was sure you could not have heard better in La Scala.

“This parish is so poor,” Séan said after the prayers after Mass we said before these were discontinued in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.  “I know we’re battling but their need seems to be greater.  Would you mind if I gave three pounds to Father?”

“Of course not,” I answered for the Dutch have a saying: ”De arme gegeven is Gode geleend” – what’s given to the poor is lent to God. I believed we surely needed to make an investment into the heavenly vaults.  Maybe Our Lord would pay us favourable dividends, I hoped.  We waited for the priest who rushed past us to his battered car, driving off without realizing our presence.

I could see Séan was feeling very foolish, looking at the three pounds in his hand::

“What shall I do with this now?”

The Amsterdam practical side of my character came to the fore.

“It’s money from home,” I said.  “On the way back, we’ll stop at the café and buy all the cold drink, ice creams, chocolates, sweets and biscuits we never can afford.  Tonight we’ll all celebrate.”

At home Séan told me that he’d take care of the children. Our pigeon pair were still sleeping in our bedroom to share in the benison of the electric heater.  I took my time getting ready for bed, and when I returned the children were half asleep, holding their bottles, having been bathed and had their treat.  I cannot tell you how snug we were in the middle of all our hardships. The room looked beautiful in the dim light of a bedside lamp and the heater was plugged in.  There was a plate with food on my bedside table, next to my library book and my rosary.  I lifted my glass of Coke and proposed a toast to the Father who had been the unwitting host at our table while at the same time I knew that God would bless Séan’s generous intentions.  The lack of material wealth always drew Séan and I close instead of apart as some people say happens when poverty comes in the door.

 

*Some names have been changed

MY DAPPLED LIFE - A QUILT OF MEMORIES. CHAPTER TEN. OUR BEAUTIFUL SON WAS BORN

 

Nicolette’s first Christmas and our second one as a married couple approached.  At my parents’ home we always used to receive dozens of Christmas cards but Séan and I received only five.  The year before we received only four.  The two lots together made a goodly little show on the mantelpiece, although they were mostly from the same people.

Teddy-bear Sandy

However, by that second Christmas we had a little baby who spent her days collapsing with laughter at the antics of her usually so reserved father.  She got a teddy bear at the mine Christmas tree.  It had a tag on it, proclaiming: “My name is Sandy.”  She could speak no English but had mastered a few words in Zulu.  She pronounced her toy’s name as Sheshie, lisping the sibilants and using Aline’s Zulu pronunciation.

She, her father, the teddy bear and I had our Christmas dinner together, she in her high chair, screaming with laughter at the sight of her father wearing a paper hat.

Return to work

The new year approached and we returned to work.  I worked as secretary to a firm in Johannesburg. 

Soon my pregnant state began to show.  Hardened by my warehouse experience, I didn’t hide my situation but once again I had a lovable boss who allowed me to stay on.  He was an ex-army man who was one of the first South Africans to go up north to Egypt during World War II. He had a heart for everyone on the staff, which I really appreciated.

Baby leapt

One day at work as I was typing I felt the baby give an unprecedentedly huge leap in my womb and I wondered what had happened but later I forgot about it.  A colleague at the desk beside me, looked up:

“What was that all about?” she asked. 

“He seems to be very busy today,” I answered.

Though again it was not easy to work during a pregnancy, I had taken pity on Séan.  He had had nothing but trouble with the mine manager’s car which spent more time in the garage than anywhere else and simply guzzled petrol.    The firm I worked for was an auto engineering company, so I had our car done up as new at reduced rates during the last three months of my pregnancy, decking it out with white walled tyres and a new massive curved windscreen because the old one had a crack.  When I had paid for all the parts and repairs,  I retired once more from the working class.  I was seven months pregnant.

Heavy payments for car

The day I left work, I gave back nearly my entire salary and holiday money to finish paying all the car parts I had bought but there was enough left to celebrate that night, Séan took Nicolette and me to bioscope in Benoni.  It was an Oriental kind of show about a girl singing how pretty she felt.  I still become uneasy whenever I hear that song fifty-two years later, because of what happened afterwards. 

Stolen car

Having been up since five thirty, I felt drowsy and handed Nicolette, who was already out for the count, to Séan before falling asleep myself.  Feeling refreshed from my two hour nap, I stumbled out with the rest of the audience afterwards.  Since the car which had looked so shiny and beautiful had been parked in front of the cinema, it didn’t take us long discover that it had been stolen.  A good Samaritan saw us wandering pathetically through the streets of Benoni, looking for the police station and looking lost, and stopped his car.  He took us first to the police and then home, a long distance.  I have known guardian angels in human form.  He was one.

Total destruction

At twelve o’clock that night there was a knock on the front door.  The police told us our car had been found in a veld near Dunnottar, totally destroyed.  What contents the thieves had not removed had been dragged out of the car and sabotaged.  The curved windscreen which had cost two months of my salary had been dragged out and smashed with a hammer and the car seats slashed with a knife.  Worst of all, we weren’t insured.  We sold the car for scrap for a hundred pounds the following week.  I prayed for the perpetrators for many years.  Totally unthinkingly they had done more harm than they could ever imagine.  Séan, who wanted nothing for himself but loved his car, could never bear to mention it again.

Junior bike

Jos had borrowed Séan’s racing bike but when Séan went to ask him for it back Jos confessed that it had been stolen outside his friend’s house and my parents were unable to replace it.  As a quid pro quo Jos gave Séan his own bike, a junior model, which was held together by string and we were back to square one in the transport stakes.  Ten days after leaving work I landed back in the maternity ward in Springs, six weeks before my due date.

I felt no pain.  I went to sleep in the hospital bed at seven in the evening and woke up at midnight. The sister-on-duty attended to me. One hour and forty-five minutes later, our beautiful son was born.  There had been no time to call the doctor.

Our beautiful son

Our son was six pounds in weight and looked more beautiful than Nicolette ever had, but there was a very worrying thing which the sister showed me.  There was a loose knot in the umbilical cord.  I remember again that big leap in my womb at work and wondered if it had happened then. 

“If the knot had tightened any more, the oxygen to the brain would have been cut off,” the sister said.  I understood then that if our son had been a full term baby and that loose knot had tightened during the remaining six weeks, he would probably have been hurt or dead and gave profound thanks to God for bringing him soon.

I thought my mother would tell me now that Nicolette had been a plain-looking baby after all but all she said was:

“I always thought your first child was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.  But this one is even more beautiful.”

Sad farewell to Aline

Aline got a job with a more affluent neighbour.  Her new employer was not amused when Séan asked her to look after Nicolette when Séan went to see us on Jos’s junior bike.  He had to cross an overhead railway bridge on the way and two or three times on his trips he needed to stop the bike and retie the ropes.

Our son was in an incubator and back at home, after I had left the hospital, I experienced a severe attack of baby blues.

Our son was baptised on 15 August, the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption.  My sister Miekie was still in high school and was wearing her school uniform when she stood as godmother.  Then she said goodbye and had to rush off to school.

Sweet baby

Our son was different from sixteen-month-old Nicolette, who had been like a little monkey, always wriggling out of my arms.  He lay quietly in my arms, barely cried and quietly lay in his pram.  The place looked a shambles because I never was an inspired housewife.  Though I worked with determination, the results were generally below par in the housekeeping stakes.  Nicolette thought her brother was the most beautiful baby in the world.  She cooed and pulled a motherly little face whenever he was awake: “Ag shame, de baba!” she said. Nicolette was trying to say, "how sweet is the baby!"

Good father

Séan made a tremendous fuss of our son.  He was always so good with our babies.  We used to look at our son and laugh and talk with him.

The confinement having come so early had put our finances right back where they had been before I had gone to work.  Fortunately we had the hundred pounds and could cover the doctor and the nursing home.  We also put a deposit on a fridge, no luxury in that climate.  When the bills were settled, we were poorer than ever.  But luckily, as a later colleague of Séan’s would one day say: “Compensitis set in.”  The unemployment fee I received was not massive but it helped to feed us for a number of weeks.

Doing the best I could

I was trying all in my power to refrain from having to go back to work.  Though I was still doing the best I could, I sometimes lost the plot.  A lady in the street behind us had two children a little older than my two.  She was the perfect housewife and mother and I blushed at the thought of the difference between us.  I managed to keep most of the house tidy but my bedroom where the kids were sleeping with us because we could only afford one electric fire between us looked like a building site.

I'll clean when I get back

We had run out of baby formula and Séan was working night shift.  I left him with my pigeon pair and took the ten o’clock bus to go to the chemist and the supermarket.  Before I went I had bathed our son and changed the bedding in his pram and he looked like a little prince.  But the bed was unmade, the ashtray was littered with stubs, there were towels and discarded clothes on the floor and there were pages of newspaper everywhere.  “I’ll clean all this up when I get back,” I promised myself and came back on the very next bus.

Mrs Smith

“Your neighbour Mrs Smith arrived to congratulate you,” Séan told me, “and she left you a present.  She asked to see the baby.”

“Oh?  Did you bring him out?”

“No, of course not, he was fast asleep.  But I brought her in.”

“What?  Into the bedroom?  How could you drop me like that?  What did she say?”

“Well she looked rather stunned but she was too polite to comment.  I said: ‘If we can find the pram, we’ll find the baby’.”

Loan

I had asked my dad and my sister to sign surety for us for a loan to a lending bank.  I thought another hundred pounds should see us right.  My father arrived by bicycle from Springs and I made us coffee.  He had brought the forms over to our house to complete them for me.

“What’s the name of your bank?” he asked.  For a moment I was stumped.  Would I be borrowing money if I had a bank account?  Then I brightened.

“The bank in town!” I suggested.  “That’s if they’ll have me.”

Not so welcome

I was making a huge effort with the garden which had run to seed and had had the entire lawn replanted with grass of the Kikuyu variety. 

“I’ll get my husband to loan you our roller,” said the friendly lady across the road who had explained to my gardener how it was done. 

But when my gardener and I crossed the road one Saturday, she was less forthcoming.  Her husband was all smiles and invited me in for tea.  I was yearning to return to my lawn but did not want to look as if I only visited them to see what I could get out of them.  He went to call his wife and left by the door which led from the sitting room via the kitchen into the passage.  She had recently had an operation and in retrospect I assume she was experiencing some post-operation blues. 

There was a second door in that wall.  This one led straight from the living room in into the passage and stood wide open.  Thus it happened that I saw him arrive at their open bedroom door.  His wife came out.

“That Dutchwoman from across the road is here,” he mimed.

“Oh h***!” she mimed.

“She says she’s come to talk to you,” he said in swift signs.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” she gesticulated.

“You’ve jolly well got to,” he gestured.  “What on earth am I to tell her?”

“I don’t care.  Tell her anything you like but for goodness’ sake, get rid of her!”

Haerendel's "The Old Fisherman"

Suddenly, realising the door behind him was open, he shied like a nervous horse and looked over his shoulder into the sitting room, only to find me gazing in rapt admiration at the reproduction of an old sea salt in oilskins, a pipe clenched between his teeth.  Moments later his wife shot into the room via the kitchen, all black chignon and perfect figure, her face wreathed in hospitable smiles. 

“My dear, how kind of you to call on us!  What will it be, tea or coffee?” 

Talk about tea choking you, my dear, but I manfully drained my cup.  And I must say the garden looked professional after the gardener had worked his magic with the roller.  

*Some names have been changed

Image courtesy of ChatGPT and CN Whittle "Baby booties"

 

MY DAPPLED LIFE - A QUILT OF MEMORIES. CHAPTER NINE. EARLY DAYS

 

I had lost forty pounds in weight by the day Sean, Nicolette and I went back to my old office to get some papers needed for my tax return.  It’s surprising how easy it is to lose weight when you have no money for luxury foods.  Everyone was delighted to welcome me.  

One of the ladies with whom I had worked, said of the baby; “Well, she certainly is beautiful and you must be very proud."  My friend, Mrs Riet, was fantastic.  “I told you it was nothing to have a baby.”  “We-e-ell,” I answered,  “I can assure you I wasn’t playing cards the night she was born.”  And both of us laughed.

If I had not been poor for so long I would not have been able to handle the poverty we experienced the following few months.  Winter set in and we turned on a little electric fire in the lounge wall but the rest of the house went unheated.  I rushed around performing chores when Nicolette slept in her cosy pram. 

One Sunday when she was two months old I took her to Mass in a beautiful white woollen suit my mother had bought for her and wrapped in a magnificent white shawl, also given by her grandmother.  We stopped at the café to buy food after church.  Afterwards we left to get into our car.

Saved by guardian angel

As we returned to the car, my arm hooked on to the car window handle. Nicolette - whom I had been holding in my arms - could surely have been badly hurt. We were saved a tragedy, surely by Nicolette's guardian angel. Sometimes people give me pitying smiles because I believe in guardian angels but I have proof that my children have all been blessed by guardian angels.  That’s why I’d encourage anyone to pray:

"Oh angel of God my guardian dear, to whom God’s Love commits me here,

Ever this day (or night) be at my side, to watch and guard, to rule and guide."

Held her to my heart

When Nicolette was a few weeks old, I put her in her own bedroom – still in the pram.  One day she was asleep and I was busy in my bedroom when I suddenly got a dreadful sense of panic and tore down the long passage to her room.  She had turned onto her tummy and was trying desperately not to suffocate in her little cushion by pulling back her head repeatedly.  She could not have been more than three months.  I snatched her up and held her to my heart.  

Sean used to be paid by the week and received a bonus cheque at the end of every month.  The weekly pay took care of immediate living expenses and the bonus cheque was used for our monthly instalments.

When Nicolette was not yet four months old Sean brought home his bonus cheque and handed it to me to pay the accounts the following day.  It was for forty pounds and covered our rent, water and lights, chemist, furniture instalments and monthly car payments.  He remembered something he needed to buy and drove back to town to cash the cheque.  “Careful not to spend too much,” I called after him.  When he came home he handed me thirty-seven pounds which I stuffed in my bag.

My bag was gone

The bus to town came at ten but my chores were finished half an hour early, so I rushed to the café and stood at the back of the queue.  Nicolette started crying and I put my bag in the pram and picked her up to console her.  When I laid her down again my bag was gone.  I was distraught.  There was no way in the world we could survive the month, as we were already battling to pay our accounts and there was nothing in the bank. I left her with a neighbour, borrowed the fare and took a train to Johannesburg to find a job.  

Back to work

I started working two days later and the neighbour undertook to take care of Nicolette.  Sean would collect the baby from the neighbour who was living across the road. My heart lurched to think that Nicolette, the light of my life, was not with me as I was at work. 

Eventually, I got the baby into the crèche but that was very difficult because Sean could not always make it in time from work when the car was malfunctioning and my train from Johannesburg arrived later than the crèche closed. 

Dear Aline

That is when Aline came into our life. Aline was a mother of three, whose children stayed with her mother while Aline was at work. Aline's mother came to visit my husband and I in a huge black car, bigger than the mine manager’s former car which Sean now drove, and I invited them into the lounge where they sat down. Aline brought us tea.

“Aline is a good daughter, but I am strict with her,” the mother informed me.  “Please keep an eye on her.”

I said I would and she and her quiet husband went back home.  Aline was very awed by her and so was I.  Aline's mother reminded me very much of my mother. They both possessed a dignified demeanour. 

I rejoiced in the love that Aline and Nicolette shared. Nicolette throve on Aline’s motherly care and grew plump and happy.  I was paying our debts off in record time with my secretary’s pay.  

Motherhood again

To my delight I discovered I was pregnant in 1962 and I did not want to be unprepared financially when my second child was born.  When I went into maternity dresses I gave Aline some of my clothes which looked better on her than on me because she had a sensational figure. I then looked forward to becoming a mother a second time.

*Some names have been changed

Image courtesy of ChatGPT with CN Whittle "Guardian angel watches over sleep" 

MY DAPPLED LIFE - A QUILT OF MEMORIES. CHAPTER EIGHT. PARENTHOOD AND US

 

Catherine Nicolette, Photograph by Sean Whittle

CHAPTER EIGHT

PARENTHOOD AND US

I became pregnant just two weeks after our wedding.  When I told Sean that we were going to be parents, his face lit up like the lights of a Christmas tree.  Nothing in life ever excited him as much as a baby.  He adored all our children and tried to play as big a role in their lives as I did long before this became politically correct.  From the first he helped me to bathe, feed, and dress them.  I can truly say that the two of us were crazy about our babies and ready to sacrifice our lives for them.

I was working in the mail order department of a massive Johannesburg warehouse after an interview with Mr Boom who said it was not his company's policy to employ pregnant women. So I resigned before my services were dispensed with.  

Every morning at half past six I left the house we had bought six weeks after our marriage, though we could not really afford the instalments. I caught the Johannesburg train at the station of Schapenrust, a suburb in the town where we lived.  By then Sean would have left for the mine hours earlier.  My train journey took just under an hour and I would walk to the warehouse from the station to be at my desk by half past eight.  

It was my job and that of some fifteen colleagues with whom I worked in the department to write letters to people who ordered items they had selected from catalogues we had sent out at the change of each season. We had to tell them what we were short of, what had been dispatched to them, what we had ordered on their behalf and when they could expect delivery, what colours were out of stock and what have you. I churned the letters out like pancakes for the employer to sign. I worked until five, caught the train back at half past, arrived in my hometown by half past six and then often had to walk home for nearly a further half an hour. 

When the car was running, things were better and Sean would fetch me from the station, but that poor car, bought second hand from a mine manager by Sean in more affluent times, spent less time on the road than in the garage waiting for pay day when we could take it to a mechanic.  It was a time of financial hardship for both of us which would continue for a very long time.

I could not afford to lose this job and tried to cover up my interesting condition for as long as possible. The people I worked for were renowned for their enlightened attitude for differently abled.  We had a woman with visual disability on the switchboard, a woman with mobility challenge in the accounts department and the lady who was in charge of the mail had just celebrated her eighty-third birthday. Most of the workers had reached their sixties and not a few of them their seventies. So fortunately when the situation of my pregnancy came to light, no-one turned a hair. My boss whose wife was expecting their first child allowed me to work as long as I liked.  “You make me think of my wife,” he said, smiling broadly at the thought of her.  “She is also pregnant and she fires up just the way you do.  Simmer down!” 

At lunchtime I was sent up to the warehouse nurse who lent me armfuls of glossy women's magazines before putting me to rest in a spotless bed in a white cubicle and waking me up five minutes before it was time to return downstairs. This is how I managed to carry on working for eight months. 

Some of the senior ladies were disapproving of me because they thought me unladylike for working.  One of them would say: “Who are you trying to kid that you’re only four months pregnant?  I can tell you’re much further along.  You can't fool an old hand like me. Why don’t you own up to the truth?”  

In fairness to her I was swelling up like a balloon because the only thing that quenched my thirst was the king-size bottle of Pepsi I drank daily.  I had no idea of the number of calories I was consuming. 

I was concerned that my baby might be premature, because the people of today cannot believe how big a deal it was in those days to be married less than nine months before producing their first infant.

Another woman told me it was indecorous for a woman in my position to go out to work every day.  “I never worked during my pregnancies,” she said, “and I had three lovely sons.  I was a nurse and a doctor once told me that my family was the healthiest he had ever had as patients.  But I would not have stooped to show myself outside while I was obviously pregnant.”  Well, if I had not done so they would have had to take back our house, the car and the furniture.  

One day, looking like a beached whale on legs, I walked outside and almost bumped into one of my acquaintances, walking with some other girls.  She was supposed to be at university in Cape Town.  I wanted to duck, because to crown the indignity of my billowing curves I was devouring a peach I had bought on a street corner after an interminable day at work and with an hour and a half more to go before I’d be having supper at home.   She saw me, looked again, raised her eyebrows and and looked clean through me.  I wanted the ground to swallow me up and was almost relieved to be ignored.  But I made sure never again to eat a peach in the street and always saw to it that my hair was set and that I wore makeup.

A friend on the train who was also pregnant and made the daily train return journey with me, taught me to knit. We knitted our way through dozens of patterns. She was a switchboard operator and knitted more than me because she was allowed to knit at the switchboard whenever calls eased up. Our babies were due about the same time and her friendship brought me endless comfort. She was deeply spiritual and we had our love of God in common.

Sean and I were living on a shoestring, while trying to keep our various payments up to date. It broke my heart to give notice at work the day I was seven months and to take my departure a month later. My friend and I visited to and fro because she had also retired from work. She had her baby a week before mine.

I was exhausted after leaving home from seven to seven during eight months of pregnancy and slept away the last month. One day I kissed my husband goodbye when he left for the mine. Moments later he knocked. I thought that he must have forgotten his bag and opened the door. It turned out that he had spent the entire day at work and  finished his shift, while I thought only five minutes had passed.

One Saturday morning he had gone to work when I went into labour. There were five hours to go before he was coming home because he worked fewer hours on Saturdays.  I put a meal into the oven and cleaned the house.  I got pains but they were not nearly as severe as I had expected.  My suitcase for the nursing home had been ready for weeks. When Sean came home, the meal was standing on the open door of the oven.  I had burned my hand with the steam as I opened the tin.  He would not wait but took me immediately to the maternity hospital.

During my labour, Sean sat by my bed, holding my hand. "Just try and stick it out," he said. "Once our baby is born you and I will never be lonely again." 

The doctor came in and sent him outside.   Shortly thereafter Nicolette was born.  I was totally relieved for suddenly all pain was gone.  I heard a smack and then my baby started crying and her voice sounded as if she was singing an aria like a little prima donna in La Scala.  I wasn’t surprised when by the time she was twenty her voice became exceedingly sweet after she had been trained by a singing teacher.  I had known she would become a singer the moment she was born.  After all, wasn’t she a scion of the Nooij and Hogenhout families?  Later I found out that Sean’s father had also been a gifted singer who had entertained many an audience in Ireland.  Sean himself could not keep a note.  Alas, that never stopped him from lifting his voice in song at good moments.

Joy filled me: “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked.  “A girl,” the doctor said and I wanted to float to the ceiling with joy.  They called Sean and he looked at Nicolette, as did I.  It was two o’clock in the morning, nine months and two weeks after our wedding day.  Oddly enough, the majority of my subsequent infants were premature.

Next morning I had the ward in stitches.  Two new mothers introduced themselves to me and they asked me how I had experienced the confinement.  “Let’s put it this way,” I replied.  “I’m very happy this experience won’t be repeated for at least ten and a half months.”  And I still can’t see why that made them nearly roll off from their beds with mirth.

At ten in the morning my parents arrived on their way to Mass at the church of Our Lady of Mercy around the corner.  My mother breathed: “That is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen!”  Sean, Elly and Miekie took the baby to church where she was baptized straight after Mass by the parish priest.  Elly was her godmother.

I thought I had known what love was before she was born, but this little creature, who became daily more adorable, had me in the palm of her little hand,

My mother went to the shop and bought three tiny lengths of gingham material in red and white, green and white and black and white before going home and cutting three proper little girl dresses on Oma Nooij’s electrical Singer machine wedding present.  Nicolette picked up very little weight and by the time she learned to walk she still wore those little dresses.  

The sisters at St Mary's Maternity Home at Springs spent a lot of time teaching us how to take care of our babies.  Sean fetched Nicolette and me from the maternity home on Easter Saturday. 

“There goes the little guinea pig,” the matron said, and she wasn’t far wrong.  Over her little night dress, our daughter wore a matching bonnet, jersey and bootees, all wrought by my nimble fingers on the seven twenty from our home town and the five twenty from Joburg.  She  looked adorable.  We had bought a second-hand cot and on one of its corners I casually slung the baby's outdoor outfit -  jersey, bonnet and the bootees I had tied together on the cot post.  Sean and I had a good laugh about that but the smiles were soon wiped off our faces.

It was one in the afternoon when we placed her into her cot after which I gratefully got into my bed.  Then she started crying and her piercing screams went on until eleven o’clock that night.  Nothing helped.  Sean went to Easter midnight Mass as exhaustedly Nicolette fell asleep and I did likewise.  On the way out he made a little quip: “I’m going to ask Nicolette to put on her little jacket, bonnet and bootees and put her on the path in the front yard to leave the house.  I’ve never heard so much noise!”  The idea of that tiny little creature marching down the front path made me laugh, despite my anxiety.

At ten in the morning the next day my former library colleague, loaded with presents, all of a very useful nature, came to visit.  Nicolette was awake again and just as unhappy.  “I can do nothing with this baby.  She’s been crying and crying.”  My visitor, who was expecting her third child in four years, was already an experienced mother.

“Where’s your pram?” she asked. 

“I haven’t bought a mattress yet.” 

“What about a flat hard pillow?” 

I managed that and she changed the baby into clean clothes, and laid the child down. 

"Poor little soul," she commiserated, rubbing her hand gently. "She's come out of such a little space and now you abandon her in that massive cot. No wonder she's feeling insecure. There you are, my little love. That's right." 

Before she had covered the baby, Nicolette was asleep.  When my former colleague had left, all I could think was God bless her. 

Nicolette and I adored each other and I could not bear to think of ever leaving her behind and going back to work.  Although we missed the money, I was getting a little unemployment allowance from the State, although that soon came to an end.  When it did there was a massive tax demand and we barely survived.  But Sean and I, being first generation immigrants, were both able to live frugally.

 

*Some names have been changed

MY DAPPLED LIFE - A QUILT OF MEMORIES. CHAPTER SEVEN. WORK LAY-OFF AND MARRIAGE

 

Luky smiling for Sean who was standing behind the photographer

CHAPTER SEVEN

WORK LAY-OFF AND MARRIAGE

Mr Riet called me in and regretfully informed me that in terms of new legislation, as a Dutch citizen I either had to surrender my Dutch passport and become a South African citizen or I could no longer be employed at the municipality.  I had been thinking of maybe one day going back to Holland.  Elly was living there now and working in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, my evening studies had paid off.  A library offered me a job as library assistant but that would mean working evening shift and I was not sure about wandering by myself in the city at night.   In addition I was now also a qualified shorthand-typist and had no difficulty in finding work as a secretary in the city, which on average paid more per month than the library did.

For a month the lady whom I was to replace taught me my job.  At the age of fifty-three she had met a man she could love and who loved her in return.  Having been at the beck and call of our manager Mr Boom for half a lifetime, she looked like Cinderella must have when the glass slipper fitted.

Mr Boom was debonair and sophisticated, handsome as a film star.  Though I regret to admit that I have always noted an attractive man, I only had eyes for Sean who to me eclipsed any other man in the world.  

My companion in the office after my predecessor got married and left was a formidable British lady, Miss Jane, from a consular or ambassadorial family whose patriarch had served in China and Japan.  Over time she developed a deep friendship for me, which was cordially reciprocated.  

Miss Jane had a massive collection of African violets in whites, pinks and mauves.  She used to propagate them by shearing off a leaf and putting it into a glass of water to the top of which she taped cardboard squares with a hole in the centre.  She secured the leaf with the assistance of a bent paper clip. As soon as her leaves grew roots, she would transplant them into flower pots. They were a sight to behold in our office.

When a violet’s head fell off, she would place it on a leaf on the plant from which it came and there it would remain, looking fresh between seven to eleven days.  I thought they just grew there so one day I said:  “Miss Jane, those violets of yours are fascinating.  They have heads on the leaves as well as the stems.  How can that be?”

“It is a well-known feature of this particular hybrid.”

“My goodness,” I marvelled.  “I have never heard of that.  But don’t mind me.  I only got an F for biology in matric.  I had to do a supplementary exam to get my exemption.”

I returned to my typing but suddenly Miss Jane started shaking.  She laughed and laughed until the tears came down her face.  Then she got up and took a head from a leaf to show they were not attached.  I joined in her laughter and from then on we were firm friends. 

One day while preparing a colleague's desk for the day, I spotted a note on his agenda for the day: “Fire Miss Jane.”  My heart broke and I spent the next weeks praying for my friend who was husbandless and childless.  At the age of sixty-three she was unlikely to find other employment.  I continued praying for her quietly in the days that followed but relaxed when she never mentioned having been fired, and devoutly hoped the colleague had changed his mind. Alas, I was wrong.

A month later I was told by the colleague, “I have been told how inefficient and what a thoroughly unpleasant person Miss Jane is.  You will be pleased to learn that we have decided to dismiss her.”

“Oh but she’s not unpleasant at all.  She is most friendly and we get on extremely well.  She is highly efficient.  I check all her typed letters while she reads the drafts to me. She is meticulous.  She won’t get another job.  What is she going to do now?”

The colleague's face hardened.   “That is not a problem for the company to solve.  We cannot carry deadwood.  She has to go.”

A day or two later I got to the office and found Miss Jane looking a little pale about the mouth.  “I got the letter,” she said.

“Which one?”

She examined the letter in front of her and saw that the typist’s initials were not mine but those of the secretary of the director of the company.

“The one with my marching orders.  Didn’t you know?  They have told me I must leave but they will allow me to work out three months’ notice.”

“Are you going to?”

“What choice do I have?  But I do feel this is rather inhuman.”

“So do I and I told him so to his face,” I retorted hotly, before realising I had given myself away.  She smiled very sweetly.

“When?”

“He told me you were going, a day or two ago,” I said.  “I said it was a great pity and told him how hardworking you were and how meticulous.”

“How very sweet, my dear.  Thank you.  That makes me feel much better.”

In those remaining three months she and I became better friends than ever.  She showered me with gifts for the home I was about to set up and explained to me how to cook.  She had found sanctuary with a widowed sister in England.  We kept in touch until her death thirty years later and I would even visit her in England.  

Eventually Sean and I were married in church. Sean had spent the night in a hotel and that morning he washed his car and put a white satin ribbon on his it to make it look festive.  Then he lost the car key and had no spare.  After an agonising thirty minutes, he finally found the key and picked me up for the wedding. 

We arrived at the church barely in time for the wedding.  After the wedding, Miss Jane had prepared an enjoyable wedding breakfast.  A man on the radio sang: “This is my lovely day."  The photographer took our photos in Joubert Park.  We thanked Miss Jane and drove Elly and Miekie to the station.  Sean gave them a pound out of our wedding gift to remember the occasion by.  We were now inextricably married in the sight of God and our neighbour "for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part".  Forty-eight years later a very sick and practically paralysed Sean would die in my arms.

On the way to our new hometown, our car battery died and the car spluttered to a halt not far from a garage.  By the time the battery had been replaced, Sean had ten shillings left from the ten pound wedding gift.  That took us to bioscope twice during our honeymoon – a week’s unpaid leave.  But when we got to our new home, there was a knock on the door.  Betje in Holland had sent us a lovely flower arrangement by Interflora. 

God blessed us with lovely children and Sean and I would seldom be apart until he died in my arms.  It was never an easy marriage, however.  My Dutch obstinacy often clashed with his Irish temper and not only the engagement brought tears as predicted by the Scots lady.  There were a few in the marriage as well.  

I think things might have been easier if we had not been so desperately short of money the first years of our married life. All we could now hope for was to be married for fifty years, keep our jobs and pay off our monthly furniture instalments as well as the car. And we wished to start a family.

 *Some names have been changed