by Jon Zackon
I read the letter at least five times. My imagination ran wild. Was Theo about to come clean and reveal secrets that had lain dormant for so long? Would I learn the truth about Ruth’s death? That’s how it appeared. But why now?
I thought of writing back for clarification but that would have been a waste of time. It was obvious that if I wanted to know more I would have to go to Durban.
I went to see my sons. Adam and his wife Faye live in Hendon these days and have two children. Paul is newly married to an investment banker named Georgia. They live in an expensive apartment overlooking the Thames.
Both sons were cordial. They asked a few perfunctory questions about their mother and me – was I getting over the break-up? Would we ever get together again? No mention of their mother’s infidelity. Or the depression that dogged my life.
I came to the conclusion that as a father and grandfather I was simply not considered much use to anyone. Way below the value of Karen as a mother and grandmother. Adam’s children were great fun and entirely lovable. Their grandmother was their regular babysitter. I could imagine them bringing her great joy.
I told each son in turn that I was going on a trip that could prove risky. They raised their eyebrows a fraction and wished me luck. You’d have thought they’d rehearsed.
***
Last week, as my flight date approached, I began to feel increasingly nervous. Sleep, or lack of it, was a major problem. A new image invaded my dreams. A huge figure with gigantic shoulders and a bull neck, standing against the light at the end of a passage. Was it malevolent? I couldn’t be sure.
The day came and I caught a taxi to Heathrow. There would be no one to see me off and that, I thought, was rather sad.
As I approached the British Airways check-in I saw Adam waiting for me.
“What a welcome surprise,” I said.
“Hi dad. Just thought you deserved a decent send-off.”
A farewell handshake turned into a hug. He couldn’t have guessed how much he’d lifted my spirits.
***
The jumbo jet bore me southwards at over five hundred miles an hour. But to what? I was up to my neck in uncertainties. The South Africa I knew was decades out of date. Even the name of my destination had been changed, from Jan Smuts Airport to Johannesburg International.
I got talking to the man in the seat next to me. He lived in the Cape and was a keen fisherman. I asked him if he had ever tried to catch a Blue Pointer – and was astonished to learn that this shark was none other than our favourite Hollywood monster, the Great White.
“Nobody calls them Blue Pointers any more, pal,” he said patronisingly.
We discussed other changes in the language. Those of the Islamic faith were referred to as Muslims rather than Mohammedans. Old fashioned British racialists were now sinister American racists. French letters had transmogrified into condoms. Homosexuals were gays. Mass murderers were serial killers.
“It’s worrying,” I said. “I think I’m in danger of becoming an old fogy.”
“Now that’s a phrase that hasn’t changed,” he said.
Chapter 31
The black lady at immigration held up my British passport and read out, “Born in Johannesburg …”
“Yes. It’s a long time since I left.”
“Something to do with apartheid, perhaps?”
“A little.”
“Well, enjoy your stay, sir.”
Apart from her smiley welcome other changes in South African society were immediately apparent. As I walked into the airport’s main hall I could see Africans working the tills in almost every shop, or dressing windows, or serving shoppers – occupations once the exclusive preserve of white workers.
Penny and her daughter, Beth, ran to greet me. Beth had been a toddler when I left South Africa. Now she was married with her own children. We piled into Penny’s car and headed for her home.
“A week’s not long enough, Danny,” she said. “You come home after all these years and then turn around and head straight back.”
I promised her that if things went well I’d be back soon enough.
“I’ve arranged a party for tonight. Some of your old friends.”
I groaned, but managed to ask if Eric Bergow would be there.
“Yes. Your friend Eric’s quite famous these days, you know. Nelson Mandela has thanked him and his father for their support.”
“Eric’s father can’t be alive, can he?”
“No, he died a few years after mom and dad. Which reminds me, if you want to go to their graves I’ll take you tomorrow or the day after.”
“That’s fine, Penny. But after that I think I might have to make my own arrangements, if that’s OK with you.”
“Danny, if this was a real holiday you’d be staying longer than a week, wouldn’t you? So there must be something else going on that you haven’t bothered to mention.”
“Look, it’s wonderful to see you, Penny – and Beth. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“You’re determined not to tell us,” she said sulking.
“Well, I can tell you this. In three or four days’ time I’m going to Durban. I’ll be away for a couple of days.”
“It’s all about what happened to that girl, isn’t it?”
“Ruth, yes.”
“Oh dear, Danny. You mean you’ve never let it go?”
“No, Penny. On the contrary. You can’t believe how angry I still am.”
***
Penny and Abie had invited more than a dozen old faces to say hello to me. I barely recognised some of them as they sat in her lounge. We were chatting about nothing in particular when Kenny Margolin, a friend from my schooldays, got up and hitched his trousers over his potbelly. I caught a glimpse under his jacket of a gun in its holster.
“Jesus, Kenny, what have you got there?”
“Nothing special, Danny. Sort of thing you need in Jo’burg these days. I bet I’m not the only one here.”
He looked at Barry Spiro, who nodded.
“Shit a brick! Would you guys use those things?”
“Barry has,” said Kenny.
“Purely in self-defence,” Barry said hurriedly. “The guy was so freaked he nearly shat himself.”
“So you shot him?”
“No way. I just scared him off.”
Suddenly everyone was talking about crime. How Mrs S was robbed of her jewellery at gun point only last week, how Solly G was shot dead six months ago by two carjackers after he’d got out of his Merc and invited them to take the vehicle so long as they didn’t harm him, and so on.
“Whatever you do, Danny,” said Kenny, “don’t wear a gold watch around this town. It’ll make you a target.”
“Chance would be a fine thing” I said.
Kenny looked at me blankly.
“Meaning I don’t have a gold watch to wear in the first place,” I said, and he laughed.
My friend Eric stayed silent. All these horror stories reflected badly on the new regime.
They also reminded me of something I’d forgotten to do. I sneaked upstairs and went into the master bedroom. Just as I’d hoped, I found Penny’s gun nestling under her pillow. I left it where it was, for now.
As I came downstairs I heard raised voices. Kenny, his wife Joyce and some of the others were in a violent argument with Eric.
“You mark my words, Eric. This ANC lot will be finished by 2000, by – what are they calling it? – the Millennium. They’ve made promises to their own people they can’t keep, they don’t understand economics, they don’t understand infrastructure, that things have to be maintained, and ...”
Eric, sitting with an arm around Lizette, was a picture of coolness. I reckoned he dealt with this sort of prejudice on a daily basis.
At last he spoke. “What you are really saying, Kenny, is that you as a white man were better off under apartheid.”
“Too true. I was.”
&n
bsp; “At the expense of the welfare of millions of people. We whites built our fortunes on the backs of the Africans.”
“The blacks hate their own government,” said Joyce. “There’ll still be a revolution one of these days.”
“That’s just nonsense, Joyce.”
“They’re the ones who suffer most from the crime. They live their lives in fear, Eric.”
The debate petered out after a while and Eric took me aside.
“If you come to my office tomorrow I’ll take you for lunch and give you that address and phone number you wanted,” he said.
“Very good of you to find her, Eric.”
“It wasn’t me, Danny. Steven Fall found her. She lives in Durban now.”
***
Grey hair has given Eric a distinguished look he no doubt cultivates. We sat eating salad and drinking wine at a pavement restaurant in Sandton. It was ten years since we’d last had a chat and that was for only a few minutes at Heathrow, while he was in transit to New York.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something for years,” I said. “When I left Jo’burg you struck me as being wary to a degree. You exhorted me to keep a low profile. It was about Mandela, wasn’t it? You’re lucky to have escaped jail and torture, Eric.”
“I didn’t escape altogether. I was questioned half a dozen times by the security police. I was once detained for three days. They were a frightening bunch.”
“Shit, I had no idea.”
“Well, we can’t dwell on the past. What’s your agenda, Danny? I know you’re up to something.”
“Seeing as you ask, I desperately want to know the truth about Ruth Fall’s death. And if I get the chance I’m going to kill the fucking shit who killed her.”
“Jesus, Danny. You could be the one who’s killed.”
“True. But even then I think I can finish the bastard off. I’m going to leave a letter with you that will explain why I’m doing it. Stuff a court wouldn’t wear from a witness. But a coroner has no choice, has he? I mean, if it helps explain someone’s death. Van Blatter wouldn’t be able to deny any of it at an inquest. In other words, I won’t mind too much if he gets me first.”
“Fucking hell, are you that desperate?”
***
I drew up a list of things I wanted to accomplish in Durban. Then I phoned a few people, Theo among them.
“I know you don’t want to say anything over the phone, Theo, but I need you to answer one question,” I said. “It affects my itinerary. Where is Koos right now?”
“He’s on his farm in the Western Transvaal, Danny. When you come to see me I’ll tell you how to get there. I’ll even draw you a map.”
Another call was to the phone number Eric had given me.
A woman answered.
“Is that Etta,” I said.
“Ye-es. Who is that, please?”
“Etta, I don’t know if you remember me … it’s Danny … you know, that night in the hotel … after your engagement party …”
“Danny? The Danny who … ? Oh my God …” she shrieked.
Chapter 32
I ARRIVED in Durban on a cloudy, blustery Tuesday afternoon. With no appointments until the next morning, I hired a car after checking into my seafront hotel and drove the twenty-odd miles to Ballito Bay.
As the road curved towards the resort I could see sand swirling off the deserted beach. The ocean, for the most part the colour of dishwater, was flecked with white horses. An uninviting, wind-blown scene.
The settlement had grown impressively into a small town. But many of the original houses needed a fresh coat of paint to counter the ravages of the sea air. This was true of the holiday bungalow once owned by the Falls. A “to let” sign teetered in the breeze next to the front gate.
I trudged down to the shoreline and put my hand in the water to taste the salt. I looked back at the house, remembering how Ruth and I had spent our “honeymoon” there, how she’d run from the water towards me waving and laughing, how we’d talked and talked, making plans for a future that was dashed from us. I wiped my eyes surreptitiously, though there wasn’t even a crab or dolphin in sight, and left.
I fervently hoped that the rest of my trip would prove less disappointing.
***
Way back in 1961, on my first night in Durban, Etta and I shared an unforgettable moment. I’d always realised what a lucky collision of two people’s lives that was. Well, from my point of view, anyway. And most young men would have been happy to leave it at that – after all, hadn’t the lady been promised to another guy only hours earlier?
But I’m a journalist. I can never let things lie. I wanted to know why she did it. It nagged at me. I also wanted to know how life had turned out for her. The morning after the event I’d gone down to reception and found out that she and her family had already left the hotel. I lied about finding her glove in the lift and said I could save the staff the bother by posting it to her. So, while it would be unlikely to happen these days, they willingly gave me her surname, Vandernoord, and her home address in Pretoria.
They wrote the information down on a piece of hotel notepaper, which I never lost. And a few weeks ago, knowing I was coming to South Africa, I asked Eric to have Etta traced.
It transpired that she’d kept the surname Vandernoord for quite a few years, indicating she never married the bloke she’d got engaged to. In 1966 she became the wife of a man named Barentz.
According to Eric, Etta and her husband moved to Durban in 1990. Steven Fall was able to confirm that they’d bought a house in the northern suburbs. And that’s where I headed in my hire car on what was certain to be a busy day.
***
Etta, I can report, is still good looking. Understandably, she has put on weight so there is more prettiness than classical beauty about her in middle age. She laughs a lot and certainly bears no signs of having lived a hard life.
She kissed me on the cheek and led me inside her house. As she poured me a cup of tea she said, “I sometimes think you saved me, Danny.”
“Oh, really?”
“That boy I got engaged to that night – André – he didn’t like to touch me. He kept saying we should wait until we were married. It was driving me a little crazy. You know, Danny, young girls don’t think they are attractive unless a man really wants them. So I was miserable that night. We came back upstairs from the party and Andre gave me a peck on the cheek and went to his room. I thought there must be something wrong with me. I even went to my parents’ room to tell my ma about Andre’s strange behaviour. She told me everything would work out all right but I doubted it and that just made me feel worse. Then I saw you – and Danny, you really, really wanted me. You made me feel good again. It also made me see that André and I could never get along together. I’m a very physical person – I think tactile is the word some people would use – and he was anything but.”
She laughed loudly, as if laughter would wash away everything that was bad or painful to her.
“Anyway, my parents could see I wasn’t happy and we called the engagement off.”
“What about André?”
“Oh, he was furious. He threatened me. Said he was going to hit me. Can you believe that? He even blamed my mother. One night he raided our garage and scratched our car down the side with a knife or a screwdriver. Isn’t that petty?”
“That’s sick, Etta. You did well to ditch him.”
“Ja, and that’s partly down to you.”
“Anyway, you seem to have had a happy marriage in the end.”
“Oh, yes. I love being Mrs Barentz. Gerry is one of the good guys. We have four grown up children and six grandchildren. We moved to Durban after he retired. Our family visit us all the time.”
“Etta, you can’t believe how much all this pleases me. I’ve worried about you for years – that I somehow ruined everything for you. Now you tell me the opposite. Terrific.”
“And you, Danny? How h
ave things worked out for you?”
“It’s been like a yo-yo. Down, up, down …”
“And at the moment?”
“Down, I’m afraid. But don’t worry. I’m working on it. I hope to arrive at an up pretty soon now.”
And that made her laugh again.
***
Steven picked me up at the hotel and we headed for Stellawood Cemetery. “Is Lola still in Durban?” I asked.
“No. She and her family moved to the States years ago. San Diego, I think.”
“And Dr Leitener?”
“He’s in New York. He’s quite successful. Lectures at Columbia.”
“So you’re the only one left in Durban?”
“No. My mom’s still with us. She’s in her eighties but she’s pretty fit. And then there’s my wife and kids, of course.”
He turned to glance at me as he drove. “I hope this doesn’t shock you,” he said, “But you weren’t the only one who loved Ruthie, you know.”
He smiled. “I did, too. Literally worshipped the ground she walked on. But she treated me exactly as you would a cousin – or a friend – and nothing more.”
“Blimey. I never guessed, Steven. Do you think she knew how you felt?”
“Whenever I touched on the subject she just made a joke of it, so I suppose she didn’t.”
We were silent for a while. “I’ve also got a confession to make,” I said. “Something that causes me sleepless nights. I blame myself for her death.”
“What? That’s nonsense, Danny. You weren’t even here.”
“No, but the bastard who killed her? I strongly suspect that it was the maniac cop who tried to kill me.”
“You can’t know that. I mean, the police investigated her death for ages and never came up with any evidence. Or so they said.”
“Or so they said – exactly.”
“Well, that’s really shocked me. Where is this individual now?”