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