I was twenty-three years old when they removed us. It was 1965 and my father came in from work to a letter from the government. It has been decided by the government of South Africa, under the leadership of the Right Hon. Hendrik Verwoerd, that the suburb of Kirstenbosch is to be deemed a Whites Only space.

You, and any tenants on your property, are ordered, under Law, to vacate at the earliest opportunity. If you do not have a place to go, one will be provided for you in an area demarcated for people of your race.

***

Saturday mornings at the tea house were my favourite. The energy in the gardens was electric. People of all colours lounge around, reading, sipping their tea, eating my mother’s hertzoggies which she prepared fresh every morning before opening.

“Felicity!” my mother called from the kitchen.
“Coming, Mammie,” I wiped my hands on the front of my cream-coloured apron and replaced my pencil to its spot in my hair. As I pushed through the swing-door entrance to the kitchen, my mother was standing by the stove, tray in hand, waiting for me.
“Are you flirting again? That boy has been in here every bladdy weekend for the last month. Glory, don’t let your father find out. He will moer you.”
“Joh, mammie. Don’t be so. We only friends. Besides, Ralph is already married.”
“Ai, child. Flirting with a married man so openly in public. Have I not taught you anything about manners?”
“He said he’s divorcing her–” I paused, bruised by my mother’s accusation, “But why is Mammie fighting so, I then said there’s nothing happening there.”

And yet, as the adage goes, mother knows best, because, of course, there was something happening there, even if I didn’t know it yet.

***

At church that Sunday, the priest was droning on about devotion to the Lord and about temptation and sin. As I sat there, listening, my mind trailed off, which never happened while I was in church. Ralph, I caught myself thinking, Ralph, Ralph, Ralph. A smile grew across my face and I dropped my head in giddy delight when I felt a pinch from my right where my mother was seated. When I dropped my head to hide my face, my mother had thought I’d fallen asleep, and quick as a whip, she saw no hesitation to correct what she thought was disrespectful behaviour, which only made me want to giggle more. It took one look from my father, to my left, in his three-piece suit and tie, to make me quickly snap back into Anglican submission and listen to the rest of the sermon.
“There is no fear in love,” the Priest read from John, “but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Ralph.

***

“What are we going to do, Frederick?” my mother, Christine, asked my father. The letter from the state flashed in her hand. My father, who was still in his oil-stained overalls, having just come in from the mechanic yard, went to the sink to wash his hands. “Say something, dammit. You always have something to say. Now when it’s time to rek your bek you’re silent.”
“What do you want me to say, Christine?”

I was standing by my open bedroom door where I could see into the kitchen, attempting to close the door as quietly as I could. The only thing worse than getting involved in your parents’ fight, I came to learn, was them figuring out that you could hear them all along. As much as I tried not to listen, the conversation seeped through the gap between the door and the floorboard and I nervously laid on my bed, trying to ignore it.

“Fix this! There must be something you can do. You always claim to be so connected. Mechanics mos know people, you fix all the whiteys cars. Ask one of them to stop this from happening.” I could hear my mother shuffling around the kitchen, banging cupboard doors and slamming the fridge shut, using the appliances as punctuation to her sentences. Using the clatter of dishes to further her argument.
“Look, Stinie, I don’t know what you know about this act they’ve started, but there is nothing I can do. Nothing anybody can do. We must leave, it’s the law.” A stubborn silence hung in the air between them, thick and charged with animosity. “I’ve spoken to my brother in Lotus River,” my father continued, “he says we can come and stay with him while we figure out what happens next.”
“I want nothing to do with your brother, Frederick! I want to stay here. In my house, on my land. Why must we leave? For what? For some whitey to come and demolish the only place I’ve ever known? To come and uproot my entire life so they can live lekker?” My mother’s footsteps grew softer, which signalled to me that she had walked toward the lounge. “When we got married, you promised me you would take care of me. Don’t make yourself a liar.” My mother’s footsteps retreated further and I heard the front door click shut behind her. As I looked through the lace across my room window, I could see my mother talking to the neighbour next door who was leaning over her gate with rollers in her hair.

In the kitchen, softly, and to himself, I heard my father begin to weep. His stifled sobs were broken only by his struggle to draw breath. The tears ran down my cheeks now too, steady, a slow-motion river of memory falling to the rock bottom of my crumbling life.

***

The next morning, as I was finishing up my opening duties and sweeping the floor of the tea house, I heard a light rap on the front door. The shop didn’t open for another 25 minutes and usually the only people in the gardens at this time were the bosses and the workers. Looking up, I saw him. Dapper in his waistcoat and corduroys smiling at me with flowers in his hand. Ralph.

I ran towards the door, looking behind me to make sure my mother didn’t hear in the back where she was making her pastries for the day. “What are you doing here? My mother can’t see you, she’ll get mad.”
“I left her, Felicity,” Ralph said.
“Who? What do you mean?” My heart was racing, the palms of my hands sweating. My breath caught in a shallow rhythm. Here was this man, standing in front of me, telling me that he left his wife. For me. I hardly knew him. He tried to chat me up a few times, but I saw that ring on his finger, even though he thought he was smooth in hiding it. But now, he says he’s left her.
“Don’t be silly. You know what I mean,” Ralph said, smirking at me. “I’m finally free to take you out, just like I said I would.” I didn’t mean to, but a sob escaped from my throat and I began to feel faint. Ralph’s face changed immediately as he swooped in to catch me. “Felicity, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” He set me down in one of the chairs on the patio of the teahouse. “Aren’t you happy?”
“Ralph, my God, of course I am, but this can’t happen,” I answered, weary of our surroundings, my head owling around to make sure no one was watching.
“Why not? I thought there was something here. A spark,” Ralph asked, his eyes pleading. He caught my gaze and I melted into the circumstance of his affection.
“It’s not that. I want this, but my family… They got a letter. They’re kicking us out,” I managed to say before quietly sobbing again.

Looking back, I knew, in the moments that followed, in Ralph’s steady arms and caring eyes, that I had decided that I would place my bet on whatever it was that was blooming between us.
“Where are they sending you?” he asked, drying my tears with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Lotus River, to my uncle.”
“Then, it’s decided. We’ll go together.” Ralph took my hand and led me into the teashop before I could realise what was happening. He was going inside too. I stopped in my tracks, shocked. “I have to meet the mother of the woman I want to marry,” he winked at me. “You don’t mind if I give her the flowers, do you? A man must make a good first impression.”

To say my mother was mortified would be an understatement. It was customary that if a man was interested in a woman, it was her father he should speak to. So, my mother set a meeting that evening for Ralph to speak to my dad.

All day at work, I was distracted. I got customers’ orders wrong. Apricot jam instead of strawberry with their scones, milk in an order for black coffee. My mother did not say a word to me, she barely looked at me. The thing about people of her generation is that they are big on tradition and respect, and to her, Ralph bursting in here unannounced with wild thoughts of swooping up her only daughter and leading her away to a fantastical land of love and fidelity, after he had just left his wife, was just not right.

That evening, Ralph arrived 5 minutes early driving his 1962 Ford Cortina. I could see him through my window and he spent all 5 of those minutes making sure he looked presentable in his car’s wing mirror. I couldn’t help but smile. This confident man, grabbing life head on, was nervous, and it was because of me. As he made his way up the path to the front door, I checked myself over in the mirror one last time. I was wearing my favourite lavender dress my grandmother made for me before she died. Knee length with an intricate lace collar and white Mary-Jane straps. I joined my mother in the kitchen, where we had our dining table, while my father opened the door. Surprisingly, their initial conversation was quite jovial.
“Ralph, come in, come in,” My father said, ushering him through the front door. “The ladies are in the kitchen.”
“Thank you, uncle. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard very good things,” Ralph responded. I think he may have just been saying that to be kind, because I’m pretty sure I haven’t said much about my dad to him.

When he walked into the kitchen, my breath caught in my throat. Seeing him outside of the teahouse, in my kitchen, with my family, the connection I felt to him intensified. He shot me a quick smile and greeted my mother with a kiss on her cheek and complimented her hair. My father directed us to the table and my mom brought the tea and a plate of Romany Creams.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, uncle. Aunty was saying it would be best to talk to you, you see I heard about the letter from Felicity and I wanted to talk to you about the future. I want to make a life with Felicity and put down roots with her and I would like your blessing to do that. We would obviously move with you to Lotus River, and–”
“Let me stop you there, son,” my father interrupted. “While all of that sounds good, which our plans for the future always do, there are bigger issues at play here. We have to be out within the next six months. How do you plan to get sorted before then? How, in a country where being a coloured is a crime, where travelling through whites-only-areas requires a pas? How, with a job like yours, as a what? Entrepreneur? Do you plan on convincing a landlord to let you rent a house with a teagirl? We need to be realistic about the state of our country. We can’t assume that things will fall into place, because they won’t. We as a people have to work twice as hard to get a fraction of what they get. We have to prove ourselves to them, again and again. Now while I can’t tell Felicity what to do, she’s a grown girl, my only girl, but a grown girl nonetheless. You two can do what you need to do, but I have one condition. Ralph, in a world designed against us, where the colour of your skin determines the level of respect you receive, I need you to promise me that your only priority will be to protect my daughter and make sure that no one and nothing can come to harm her,” my father’s eyes welled with tears, my mother shooting daggers in his direction. This was not what she expected him to say.

Ralph looked at my father misty eyed, “That’s all I ever want to do, uncle. She deserves the best and that’s what I want to give her.”
“Where does your family live, son?” my father asked, blowing his nose into his handkerchief.
“Claremont, uncle. Near the train station.”
“Good. Then I will organise with the Pastor and you two will get married, but you’re not coming to Lotus River with us.” My mothers face dropped in surprise. Mine joined hers. “I think it would be best,” my father continued, “that Felicity moved in with you after the wedding. Your father owns that house? He’s better off, yes?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Good, they can’t remove you there. Fine. That’s done. Let’s eat.” My father’s attention turned to my mother for the first time in that conversation. They shared a look and then, understanding, my mother simply nodded and got up to fetch the pot of curry from the stove. The rest of the evening passed in easy conversation, my father asking about Ralph’s parents, my mother providing an oral history of our family, Ralph lapping up everything she said.

That night, lying in bed again, I could hear my parents in the kitchen, talking.
“I did what I had to do,” my father said.
“I know,” my mother answered, “I know.”
“We don’t know what Lotus River will hold for us. You know how unreliable my brother is.”
“It’s not just that, Freddie. You know what he did to me that night at your fathers seventieth.” What was she talking about? What did uncle Teddy do? “I don’t want to live with him, Freddie, it’s enough I had to forgive him for doing that to me.”
“Ai, Stienie, I promise that I will figure this out, we won’t have to live with him forever. That’s why Felicity needs to go with Ralph, it’s not ideal, but I don’t want Teddy near her.”
“Come, let’s get to bed.” Their footsteps passed my bedroom and their bedroom door clicked shut. My father made this choice for me. He did this so I would be safe. I drifted into a fitful sleep.

Six months later, on the morning of my wedding, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, my head racing with excitement and nerves. I heard a knock on my door and my mother came in with a photo album under her arm and rollers in her hair.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, sitting down next to me.
“Good. Fine, nervous, but fine,” I answered.
She held my hand, “On the day I married your father, my mother came to me with this photo album. It was from her wedding. Look, there she is with your pa Albert.” She pointed at a photo of a young couple, who, if you looked quickly enough, you would think were my parents. My grandmother, also called Christine, who I never got to meet, stood smiling at the camera. The black and white photograph capturing an emotion that translates even to today – the fear of a woman about to start anew, but the courage and bravery to know that it’s time. “She didn’t know your pa for long before they got married. Six months. Just like you and Ralph. Their marriage was not easy, but they made it work. That’s the difference between those days and now. Everyone runs at the first sign of trouble. No one wants to do the work.”

She flipped the page and showed me another photo, this time of her and my father on their wedding day. “This is me and daddy,” her fingers ran across the line of her younger, slimmer jaw. “We couldn’t afford a photographer for the full day but your pa had a camera with enough spool on it for one more picture. He used it that day to take this photograph,” tears formed in my mother’s eyes which she caught with the tissue she always had tucked in her sleeve. “Today, we will take photos of you and Ralph, but promise me that you will give me one to put in my album.” Her eyes met mine, “Promise me.”
“I promise, mommy.”
“Good. Enough of this crying. Let’s get you dressed and ready,” she answered, already standing and heading for the door.
“Mammie?” I found myself asking, unsure of where I was going with my question. “When Ralph came and asked daddy for my hand, I overheard you talking to daddy in the kitchen that night. Something about uncle Teddy and him doing something to you.”
Her face dropped and just as quickly as it fell, she picked it back up with a sturdy, well-practiced smile, “What do you mean, child? Are you making up stories again?” I looked at her, and she looked at me, and just as I thought she would waver and tell me, all she said was, “You don’t have to worry about that. Nothing like that will ever happen to you. Not while you have me.” She walked to me and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead and with that she turned towards my wardrobe where my dress hung, ready to be worn.

In silence, she dressed me. For the last time mother, for the last time caregiver, for the last time her daughter ready to be given to a man she didn’t choose.

That night, after the ceremony and at the reception, my father and I were dancing to our favourite song, Ella Fitzgerald crooning through the speakers. He spun me around and caught me. In that catch was the steadfast love I had always known and a feeling that fell on us both of the finality of the decision that we had taken.
“You know, Felicity, I only want you to be happy.”
“I know, daddy.”
“Things are not going to be easy, not for a long time, especially for us in Lotus River. You’ve got Ralph and he promises me he will take good care of you.” My father turns me one way, then another, back in his embrace, swaying to the music he says,
“Promise me only one thing, Felicity.”
“Anything, daddy.”
“Wherever you go, whatever you do, never forget what has always been yours.”
“What’s that, daddy?”
“Your right to live and love exactly as you wish.”

As the evening drew to a close, Ralph and I left the venue and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of finality. Like the world I had known would never be the same again. Ralph helped me into the car which was adorned with ribbons and a string of cans tied to the exhaust pipe, wide red letters of Just Married drawn on the window in my mother’s lipstick. As I looked back on the people I love in the rear windscreen, waving and crying and smiling, I knew this: Onwards, forwards and never, ever back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Anh Tuan To on Unsplash