Yesterday Christopher said:” Make sure everybody in that blog knows that I have been paying for your bloody horses since 1988.” True story. That’s why he has now been dubbed Saint Christopher, patron saint of Yvette and her beings.
Let me go back to 1988.
Our romance blossomed. We were spending all our off time together, living the best life and Christopher had introduced me to some of his friends, Chris & Sam. They were a young married couple that he had met whilst he was living in Benoni. Chris had engineered the interview that landed Christopher the position as Slots Technician for the Main Hotel in April 1987. Christopher got the interview and the job followed. I got the casual position 8 months later and so our stars collided. In the end we can thank Chris and Sammy for this matrimonial masterpiece.
Chris was the Techincal Manager at the Main Hotel and Sammy worked at the cash desk, they lived off complex at Sundown Ranch which we called Rundown Ranch as it was rather the jin to Sun City’s yang. It was situated approx 10 km from Sun City on the road to Rustenburg. Although rather rundown and dilapidated the staff that lived there loved it. We visited the Robinsons a lot because they had a huge white Pyrenese Mountain dog named Zaza and a Siamese cat called Ming. I loved them.
My new position at the Welcome Centre meeting all the bus passengers was a delight. I had a wonderful new boss, a colourful lady that had fierce red hair and a fantastic personality. Her hands were so beautiful, long slim fingers with picture perfect nails, even today I can close my eyes and recall those beautiful, slim, tapered hands. Fran, was a master at organising and although she had a lot of girls (Drama Lama’s as I called them) working for her she kept us all in check, motivated and the Welcome Centre bloomed. We worked 8 hour shifts around the clock and it was great because I could sync my shifts with Christopher’s.
Life could not get better.
Chris and Sam asked us to housesit for them in the June/July of 1988. They were going to tour Europe during their annual leave break and wanted somebody to look after the animals. On the evening of the 3 July 1988 Christopher was working the graveyard shift (2am to 10 am) and I was alone with all the animals when I heard a knock on the door of the chalet that the Robinsons occupied. It was rather late and with great trepidation I opened the door with the security chain attached to see my brother standing on the threshold. For a second I was dumbfounded and as I opened the door I asked :” What is wrong?” He told me my dad had passed away earlier the evening. I have very little recollection of what transpired immediately after that. I know I went home and for the next two weeks I worked my way through the mixed emotions that came with the loss of a parent. There was sadness, anger, recriminations and more sadness. The last time I had lost anybody near and dear to me was my Grandpa( my moms father) and he passed when I was 9. Unaccustomed to dealing with a situation like this I just put on a brave face and soldiered on. My mom was a mess so nobody else could afford to be a mess, we had to make funeral arrangements and tell the family, between my brother and I we just carried on.
The day of the funeral was bright and sunny despite it being winter. My dad died at the age of 48, basically his organs gave in due to alcohol abuse. When I think of him I think of a life wasted. He had so much potential as a young man. He was a great scholar and had a natural sportsmanship which saw him excellent at rugby and cricket. Unfortunately he was also one a of very large family and when he went to high school he was basically told to go and earn his keep. The school tried to intervene and offered bursaries for him to stay on but with so many mouths to feed his parents couldn’t see their way through. He left school and made his way to the mines. He started there at a very young age and worked himself up into a management position but in the process became a heavy drinker. He never drank a drop in the week as he had to be at work early in the morning but come Friday afternoon he would arrive home with his bottle under the arm and that would keep him company until Sunday night. I think he drank to forget what could have been. The curse of the mining industry, one of the reasons I wanted to leave so badly.
My dad, Desrail Storm Bedser, was laid to rest with a full congregation of black and white gathering for the service. He was a very well liked man and his staff had travelled to the church in busses arranged by the mine. In those days it was unheard of having a mixed race congregation but on that day the Methodist church was one colour, all bleeding red from the heart, for a man that died too young. My dad was well liked by all that crossed his path when he wasn’t drinking. He was a man with a big heart and cared passionately for his staff, black & white. Christopher was at my side throughout the day, not saying much but lending support by just being there.
The next few months were rather difficult but we made it work. Then Christopher decided to buy a car that was being sold by a colleague. It was a red Triumph TR7 and it had a convertible roof. Oh my word, did we have fun in that car! We would finish work at 2am, hop in the car, put the roof down and drive to Hartebeespoort Dam just to get there and turn around to come back. We listened to the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours on the cassette player and even today I can’t listen to the album without seeing the star filled heavens above me, feel the wind in my hair and the night sky hugging us in a cloak of darkness.
One Saturday afternoon we decided to go to Sandton to have something to eat and watch a movie. It was early afternoon when we left and unfortunately for us we took a small detour which landed us in the heart of Brixton. We were still trying to find our way out when we were stopped by traffic officers. We had done nothing wrong but the red car and the two young people in it were easy pickings for lunch money. I quietly sat in the car whilst Christopher spoke to the guys. They wanted license / Id and when they saw that we were from Sun City they immediately changed tactics. They wanted money and they wanted it now. Christopher spoke to them in English and they stupidly thought nobody could understand their conversation when they conversed in Afrikaans. I overheard them making “plannetjies’ bordering on extortion. They wanted us to accompany them to the Brixton Murder and Robbery HQ, and they put an officer on a motorbike infront of us and behind us escorting us like we were going to flee. Unfortunately the office riding the motorbike infront of us had clearly never been on a bike before and this was very evident as he swerved and struggled to keep the bike upright. This and the fact that we were being treated as law breakers brought out a demon in Christopher and when we stopped at the Brixton HQ it all turned nasty quickly. Christopher demanded to see the guy’s licence and it became a screaming match. Within seconds we were surrounded by police wheeling batons and it took a lot of sweet talking to get us out of that situation. I employed all my newly acquired skills as a Public Relations Officer and managed to get us out of there. We paid a hefty fine and I wrote a long letter to the station commander the following week when I was back in the safety of Sun City but nothing came of it. Thats when I first saw the DFWM ( Don’t Fuck With Me) in Christopher. The signs have stayed the same throughout the years.
Towards the end of 1988 we were alternating staying at his place or mine and this did not go down well with my very religious mom. I never confirmed the fact that I was now “living in sin” when asked but one Saturday afternoon after shift I arrived back at my flat and found my mom and Christopher’s mom waiting for me. I was appalled to see that she literally had the Holy Bible under the arm…
Let me just say it was a difficult weekend.
The ambush did not go as they thought it would and the next week we moved into a 2 bedroom flat of our own. Living in sin had just became official. Quite a little rebel I was in my young days…
One morning, a year later in September 1989 we had just come back from working the late night shift and we were standing in our flat watching the sun come up over the Pilansberg, coffee in hand when Christopher said: “I would like to buy you a ring.”
I said:” You know there will always be animals?” and together we said yes.
Who decides what path we will take and who will end up being our life partner? Life is just so funny with all its twists and turns, ups and downs. I had to take a very long road to meet my match but I certainly didn’t do too badly. If I thought I loved him then, I know now that I love him more. He has stayed the constant beacon throughout my life and although there has been times that I have thought about quietly putting a pillow on his sleeping, sweet countenance it has been few and far between. I often look at him and wonder if he knows how much I love him. I don’t think he would ever know.
The purchase of the engagement ring will be a story on its own in the next chapter of yesterdays.
