Moving to The Carousel, being on maternity leave, Christopher working in Sandton and trying to set up a house before a baby arrived proved to be a bit of a challenge.
I had swallowed a watermelon pip and it had flourished… I was scared for what would transpire when said watermelon would make its entry into this world and what my nether parts would look like… Concerning to say the least. I can recall walking in a shopping centre the weekend before Briony was born, mumbling to myself: “Look, all these people had to be born. You are going to get through this like the star you are!” WTF? !If only I knew what was waiting for me I think I would still be carrying that baby.
I still had no idea what the sex of the baby was, my husband made sure of that. We lived in a two bedroom, two bathroom flat with the lounge, kitchen, dining room and a walk out verandah area.It was a corner flat at the end of the street. Coming from Sun City where all the neighbours knew each other and were extremely friendly I immediately presumed the Carousel to be the same. My neighbours on the left were dancers and my neighbour on the right was an elderly couple, the husband being employed at the maintenance department. Jack had his garden and we were willing to live happily ever after there.
Unfortunately our elderly neighbours were not socially acceptable and had no idea what it meant to live in a small community. Their garden was their garden and my cat Mischief wasn’t allowed near it. Try telling a cat it wasn’t welcome…Never mind they also had a cat that trespassed everyday. It didn’t help that Jack took a liking to their plants at their back door and dug them up whenever he found his way out there. The front of the gardens were enclosed but the back was communal walkways. Chris and Sam lived diagonally across from us, the old people being their neighbours too. Previously the Robinsons had lived at Rundown Ranch ( Sundown Ranch) whilst they were working at Sun City and they had a big white Pyrenese Mountain dog called Zaza that roamed the property and enjoyed interacting with everybody. Zaza became a very well known personality at Rundown Ranch. Unfortunately this did not serve her well at The Carousel.
She just couldn’t be contained by fencing and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to walk around meeting and greeting everybody. She continuously broke out of her garden and would waddle all over the staff village delighting the staff and infuriating security. Between Zaza, Jack and Mischief they were giving us a few grey hairs with their sheniagans.
Our baby’s due date was set for the 24 September and on the 23rd I gathered my packed bags, checked my new Mickey Mouse baby room for the last time and we made our way to Sandton Clinic.
The drive there was rather subdued.
I checked in to the hospital but nobody told me to leave my dignity at the door. Pretty soon it became apparent that modesty was not going to be upheld in any way and that my hoohah was fair game. I had a sneaky suspicion even the cleaners could have a look if they wanted. Well, there came a time that I couldn’t give a rats arse anymore, I would have flashed any cleaner just to get the ordeal over and done with. On the night of the 23 September I was induced at 23.30. The nurse told me it would take some time before it started to work, I could go to sleep. At 01:00 I woke up with searing pain. I called Christopher who was staying over at Glyn & Rose in Benoni and told him to come. At 2:00 I was fighting with everybody and I was given an epidural. I remember sitting on the side of bed and the anaesthetist saying:” Rest your head on your husband’s chest” , Christoper was standing right in front of me. I put my forehead on his chest and the next moment Christopher said:” I don’t feel so well…”
WTF? Really?
He was banished to the corner and I went through the ordeal of being ‘epiduraled’ alone. Things became a little more civilised but then the bloody epidural wore off and it didn’t matter how much I was screaming:”Drugs! Drugs!” nobody listened. I vaguely remember the sun coming up on the 24th and watching the day dawn and then our baby was born at 8:40 am. At first the doctor said:’ It a boy!” then “its a girl!” and I remember thinking now what is it?!
Well, she turned out to be a healthy, though small 2,7 kg little girl. We found out later that 2 kg of that was lungs and the rest was baby. Oh my word, she could scream.
As per usual the mothers on both sides did their best to make this occasion all about them, giving us hell on the day we should have been celebrating. Thinking back on it we should have banned them both for bad behaviour. Another lesson on how to behave as a grandparent, Christopher and I won’t be putting our kids under this pressure I assure you.
Baby Wilde was kept in the baby room at Santon Clinic and brought out as a prize when it was visiting hours that first evening. That was the last time she was treated as a prize there. All the grannies were there so everybody was appeased. Then they all went home and The Soprano baby made her first move.
She made so much noise the staff started calling her the Preacher. I was settling into the role of being mommy and thought the screaming was what babies did until I realised all the other babies in the nursery were quiet. This came as a huge surprise. My checkout was hastily brought forward as Baby Wilde was a disruptive force in the otherwise quiet nursery, and once again we left JHB with beating hearts and a small bundle of ‘babyness’ in the car.
When I was still a little girl my dad had to go to JHB once a year for a TB check. It was an all expenses paid off day and an outing we all looked forward to. My dad would go for his checkup early. morning and then we would go for lunch at The OK Bazaars that served a buffet style lunch. We had to walk over a glass enclosed bridge that spanned the length of a busy road to get to the restaurant. All I can remember about those lunches was the peas were cooked to fuckery. Today I only serve peas that still ‘crack’ when you bite them. After lunch we would go to the movies and this day was just magic. When we drove into JHB there was a suit shop that sold mens clothes and on the window there would be the name Brioni. I didn’t know it was a brand name for a suit I just liked the name and it stuck with me. That name was synonymous with a good day for me and I asked Christopher if we could call our daughter Briony. Spelling a little different but still had the same effect. Going through my suitcase of memories as I write these stories I found a piece of paper where I practised writing my new surname and underneath it I found the scribble ‘Briony’. Even before I was married I was hooked on the name.
I later found out her name means wild, climbing plant or to grow luxuriously. How fitting?
Briony Wilde was discharged with two rather bemused parents and we set off into the sunset with our new prize. Returning to the Carousel meant Christopher had to go back to work and I was left with a screaming baby and a neighbour from hell. It won’t say it was easy but I will say that I could never have done it without Christopher. Briony literally never stopped crying for a year. Christopher would come home from work and I would hand him the baby saying I have had enough. Then I would go for a walk with Jack or go see Sammy. Sammy was my anchor from day one. She kept me sane, would take Briony when I felt like I couldn’t anymore and therefore its just became a natural thing to ask Sam & Chris to be the Fairy Godmother and Father to our little performing cherub.
I made things harder for myself because I didn’t want any granny involved. There wasn’t space at home for both of them and asking for help from the one and not the other would have brought on a new round of recriminations so they were both banned. To be honest we had such a big fright with Briony and all the drama that came from having a baby that we unanimously agreed she would be an only child.
My maternity leave was coming to and end and I was due back at work on the 1 December 1991. The Carousel was opening its doors for the first time during that time and I felt like I was walking in to a place that had had so much setup done, all without me being involved, that I was feeling rather displaced. I contacted HR and asked when and where I would be operating from on the 1 December and much to my consternation they told me there was no position for me. Another hurdle as I never resigned from my position at Sun City but was a transfer with maternity leave thrown in. The Carousel opened and we were still at a loss as to where my job had gone. No position available HR insisted. Thank God for the punters. From the first evening that the Casino opened they kept on asking:” Where is Yvette?” This resulted in HR calling me in and offering me my position back… pronto with haste. The power of the customer must never be under estimated.
I returned to work just before Christmas and fell head on back into working shifts. It was a challenge to juggle being a mom with being a working mom but somehow we managed. Late night shifts were followed by early morning Mommy sessions, then a quick sleep and back to work.
I was working in the Salon Privè, with all the blackjack, roulette and punto banco players. We had a huge new Chinese market and it was quite a culture shock for all of us working there. The carpets in the Salon Privè were specifically designed and crafted for the area, like all the furniture in there it just oozed class. The carpets were thick and luxurious and walking on them was like walking on a cloud. The PRO’s worked shifts but we were a much bigger team than in Sun City. We all had our uniforms made by a South African designer and we looked extremely smart. Background music was kept low so it wouldn’t disturb the guests but the Chinese, that favoured the Punto Banco table, had other ideas. They were LOUD but this wasn’t the biggest problem. They also cleared their nose and throats by depositing the unwanted saliva and snot on our carpet. Simply leaning back they would make this deep guttural noise and shoot the offending thing on to the carpet! Lord help me. As it is I have a very fragile stomach and changing baby nappies didn’t help the situation. It was just primitive and so out of place.
We just couldn’t get it out of them. It was stuck and we had to make alternative arrangements. A Few years later Chris Robinson went to China on casino business and he came back telling us stories about this practise that was so common in China that they had little half pipe culverts running though restaurants so people could do the spit thing. Different strokes for different folks but we had to try and curb this mess we were faced with so we bought spit bowls. They could not be put on the tables as they were a security risk, so we had to run with the bowl every time we saw somebody start craning his neck backward, preparing to launch. Ugh. It was unpleasant. Sometimes we caught it, sometimes not. Carpets were changed thereafter on a regular basis because of this.
At home the feud with the neighbour continued. She was on the war path. I tried to keep Mischief inside but we lived next to an open veld and the cat loved going there, walking through the neighbour’s yard, infuriating her even more. One night we let Jack out at the front door and he came back with muddy paws and a plant. He was so proud of his catch. Shit. We immediately knew he had been at the neighbours back door and quietly went to investigate. Lucky for us they were sleeping because we found her newly planted flowers all uprooted. That night Christopher and I did gardening in the dark with a small flashlight to salvage what could be salvaged. The little shit. It was like he new she was not a friend.
The next week my cat disappeared and I let no stone unturned to find her. When I finally found her we determined that she had been poisoned. We buried her and with that I closed the chapter of ‘before Sun City’. That’s how long I had Mischief. There could only be one person who would have stooped so low and that was the neighbour.. I stopped trying to play nice and we asked to be transferred to another house. Not long after that her cat got eaten by a python( yes, we lived in the bush, there were many) and her husband passed away. What goes round comes round, I felt no pity for her.
Briony turned one, survived and was flourishing. The crying stopped and although she had a few melt downs throughout the years she has never reverted to the Briony before ONE.
Today she is a level- headed, (outwardly) calm and collected person that can face most problems head on and solve them, with poise & grace no swearing included. Even if I must say it myself she is reliable, caring and compassionate human with a great love for animals. Briony got all these attributes from her Dad except for the overwhelming love for animals, that she gets from me. It is hard to bring myself to think of the before ONE Briony and the Briony after ONE as the same person.We were young and inexperienced and often I think we could have handled it better. But you do your best. Your best, being what you know at the time.
Christopher and I made a person that we are so proud of and that is a credit to our planet and animals. There is nothing but love for this special being that came into the world so unwillingly, voiced her displeasure for a year and then popped into this fabulous human.
I must admit that living and working at the Carousel wasn’t the highlight of my life. The best thing to come out of there was both my kids, the rest I put down to life lessons.
We moved to a new house on the complex and there I met Rob & Ali and their daughter Daniella. Briony and Bella ( as we used to call her) became best friends. Rob & Ali were part of the entertainment department and we had dancers living in the same block. Coming from Sun City we were quite used to having girls tan in their gardens with just g-strings on but for the new staff and their visiting friends it was always a culture shock. So much so that one afternoon we came home to find there had been a vehicle in an accident on the corner near our house. Apparently a dancer was sunbathing and somebody in the accounts department had her father visit. He came round the corner, saw the topless goddess of an apparition in the garden, lost control of his vehicle and hit a stop sign. The story was told so many times and so many embellishments added but it never lost its charm.
I worked in the Salon Privè until 1994 when Briony was diagnosed with hearing loss. We had been to so many different doctors and I kept saying her speech is very slow for a child her age but the doctors kept saying there was nothing wrong with her. My teacher’s training had also made me very aware of the competitive nature of parents when it comes to the development of kids so I always tried to stay away from being that person. This to the detriment of my child. Finally I heard of an amazing ENT specialist and I took Briony there without an appointment. I asked his reception to see him and said I would wait the whole day if necessary and the next and the next. I was quite prepared to sleep there. He must have taken pity on me because he made space for us and after he had checked Briony he looked at me and said:’ You have just wasted 4 years of your child’s life.” I was mortified.
Briony went for corrective surgery but needed to have speech and remedial care as she had such a huge gap in her development. We lived quite far from any person that would be able to help her so I made a choice to stay at home for that reason. My remedial teaching skills were finally coming to use. Little did I know when I was studying for my teachers diploma with remedial teaching as my main subject that I would be using it on my own child. I stayed at home for a year and it is amazing how quickly Briony caught up. Once her ears had been fixed she was like a little sponge.
I stayed home until I couldn’t anymore. I was looking for something that would give me access to dealing with people but with no pressure. Half day would do me fine. That’s when I heard about the position that was going at Arthur Kaplan Jewellers in the shopping section at the Carousel. It was basically a window and counter cleaner, vacuuming the carpets and doing all the “slog work”. I applied and got the job. Briony went to crèche and I went to clean windows. It was great. I loved it.
I will never forget my first day at work when the manager looked me up and down and said:” I know all about you Yvette. Don’t even think of taking my job.” I remember looking her in the eye and said:” Oh no, I don’t want your job. I want your regional manager’s job.”
Just over a year later I was running one the largest branches of the company, with a huge staff compliment of diverse ages, race and personalities. We were the epitome of the new South Africa all put together in a shop, and we all got on like a house on fire. I sold Rolex watches and diamond necklaces with very little knowledge of the product, but passion became success and I loved it.
We had a huge kitchen in the back of the shop where we kept a very big brass bell. Whenever a big sale was made we would go ring the bell. As a shop we had to achieve a certain amount of turnover per month to make target and get paid a monthly bonus. It was a constant push, push, push and we would dance to the Macarena when the shop closed at night and we had made our daily target
I loved those days. Briony went to school in PTA and one of my staff would fetch her every afternoon after school and bring her to the shop. It was the best of times, we travelled from Carousel to Pretoria everyday but we worked in a shop with the most beautiful things. The staff became family.
It was also during this time that I gave up eating red meat ( the second time in my life). I used to drive to work and en route the trucks bound for the abattoir flanked my little car. I looked at the animals and I just couldn’t be a part of it. So I just stopped eating meat. Today, I still whiff the air when my neighbours have a braai but I won’t ever eat red meat again. How can I when I have Mowgli & Mulan as pets? Don’t get me wrong, I do not have a problem with preparing a steak for my boys. Keagen always says I am a closet meat eater as my food is so good he is sure I eat meat on the quiet.
Christopher likes a good steak and he does a lot for me. The least I can do for him is prepare what he likes. My problem is not with the fact that people eat meat, it is with the methods employed to slaughter the animals.The inhumane conveyer belt of inhumanity. There is a lot of argument that can come from this but I always think what would happen to all the animals if they no longer of use to the humans? We inhabit a planet where humans rule and there is very little space left for something that is of no use. The debate on eating meat or not is like religion. You don’t really discuss your opinions with others unless you want to start a war. I don’t want to go into combat with anybody, my opinions are my own and I will never make people feel bad for their choices I just think we need to become more aware of the methods used for knowledge is power and will bring about change. Maybe not in my lifetime but I am always hopeful. That all I have to say about that.
I worked at Arthur Kaplan jewellers until Aug 1997. One day I woke up feeling rather ill and when I wasn’t getting better, I went to the doctor.
Christopher was doing a management course through Sun International that put him at a different casino every month and at that time he was at the Wild Coast. I got the news whilst I was at work and I immediately called him. Over the phone I told him:” I am pregnant.” Then came his reply: “Hold, the line, I am just going to hang myself…”
It seemed that not only did the universe have that little present in mind for us but soon after that I was contacted by one of my casino punters. He was building a shopping centre in Pretoria and was desperate for me to head up the marketing and public relations. I loved the couple, had become good friends with them over the years and his wife was pregnant at the same time as I was with baby no 2. Whilst working in Pretoria I had done my marketing and public relations diploma through Damelin College and I felt excited to take on the new challenge.
I started at the shopping centre months before its completion with a belly that was growing by the day. My due date was February 1998 and the shopping centre would open its doors In December 1997. I was going to be very busy for the next few months.
Once we had gotten over the initial shock we were rather excited about the new little Wilde. Time heals all wounds as they say and we remembered that Briony was tough but we were optimistic that Baby no 2 would be handled by matured, more experienced parents and Briony was so excited her excitement was contagious.We were 35 when baby Wilde no 2 arrived. A Little older and a lot wiser.
As I sit here writing this all the emotions are lying at the surface. Little did we know that baby no 2 would complete our circle of family and today I am so grateful for the fact that we had them both. Imagine life without them… I just can’t. Everything happens for a reason. I should have had more kids, all 7 years apart then I would still have some at home.
Next Chapter… Keagen Reece.
The Carousel
Arthur Kaplan
