Standing: James, Ian, Irma, John, Ginn, and David
Seated: Bill and Viccie
“Don’t pack your wedding clothes too deep. We will have another wedding soon!”
Sooner than I believe possible! In December 1969, Johann and I decide to drive to Rhodesia to meet the parents! Anne and Abie Fourie, Johann’s parents, live in Durban and are planning to spend Christmas with old friends in the northern reaches of Rhodesia, near Marendelas. Mum and Dad have moved to a small farm called Greenfields, ten miles outside Bulawayo, growing lucerne. John and Barbara are staying in a flat in Bulawayo and are in the process of buying a trading store near Gwaai Railway Siding, on the outskirts of Wankie Game Reserve and adjacent to a giant Tribal Trust Land.
I single Dad out after Johann has spoken to him about our intention to marry. He asks me one single question,
“Do you really want to marry an Afrikaner?”
I am stunned.
“But Dad, his mother is as English as we are.”
“Well, I want you to be sure of what you are doing! Our values are different,” he says.
Granny’s voice comes back to me,
“If you want a home where the shadows are never lifted, marry one with whom you are unequally yoked together...”
I brush it aside because we are both Adventists, surely that is being equally yoked together. I forget all about my mistrust of Afrikaners and that Johann is also Afrikaans. This drama will play itself out until we become conscious of the ‘skeletons in the closet’ and lovingly deal with them.
Ian and Irma are home from Malawi, where they are now teaching at Malamulo Mission Hospital and College near Blantyre. David is home from studying at Helderberg College, and James is to follow him there the next year. Anne and Abie are comfortably able to make the four-hour journey by train. When we realise that as far as family are concerned, it is only Johann’s twin brothers in Durban and eldest brother Harry in Australia who are not readily available; we decide on a quick marriage to avoid getting everyone together again in the April 1970, as per our original plan. Oh, my pragmatic self! Barbara offers her lovely wedding gown, made by her talented mother out of an Indian Sari; she also provides the use of one of her friend’s bridal veil and headdress.
We go for legal council on drawing up an ante-nuptial contract, only to discover that with all the festive holidays it is not possible before the wedding date, now set for 2 January 1970.
On our return to Cape Town, we find out what a grave mistake that is and must pay for the Contract - after the fact, with all of the money we have received as wedding presents. Ho-hum.
There is a flurry of activity at Greenfields; the reception will be in our garden. London, who has replaced Edward as the chief cook and houseboy, cooks and cleans with vigour. When Mum goes into the kitchen to check on him, London tells her to go back to her guests, he has everything under control! Mum returns with a strange expression and recounts London’s words, to which we all burst out laughing. Anne helps with icing the unused fruitcakes which Mum had put in the Freezer for Christmas and making colourful trifles for dessert. I help as much as possible, particularly helping Irma with the finishing touches to the flower-girls’ dresses. Shelley and Charmaine, Ian and Irma’s little girls are our only attendants; they are nervous about what to do in their long white replicas of the bridal gown. We make little poesies for them to carry from the many blue and white agapanthus in the garden. All seems set for the wedding day. There are many family members and our friends from Bulawayo; invited by phone. There is no time for written invitations and fuss, thank goodness.
I walk down the aisle of the burnt umber face-brick church on the arm of my Dad, feeling very glamorous, but also apprehensive about the future until I get to the chancel when I suddenly think; ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ over and over it sounds like a stuck record in my head and gets annoying. The preparation has been exciting, but what will the reality be?
Douglas Harcombe, the father of Johann’s flatmate, is the minister. He says the usual things. I don’t remember any of it. Then it’s time to leave the church - it’s hot, so hot that my soles are burning in my gold pumps. I look at the bouquet of frangipani in my hand and muse about their sweet smell and golden match for my shoes. I had been quite happy to elope until Ian asks,
”How could you do that to your parents, who only have one daughter?”
Oh dear! I guess I must suffer the conventions of society for the sake of those I love. Now it is quite fun, let’s get to the farm as soon as possible … I forgot to have breakfast, and the cold meats and salads will taste so right now. No, not yet, the photograph album is proof of it. Snap!
As we leave the church with Charmaine holding Johann’s free hand. Snap! Now we smile adoringly at each other on the steps. Snap! Confetti showers down on us. Snap! Before the vaulted arch at the front of the church, Snap! At the open door of John’s blood-red Volvo, Johann looking ever so handsome and me looking wistful and a little bit French! John has chauffeured me to the church with white ribbons tied to the front, making a stunning statement. He will drive us back to the farm, dear brother.
“Dear God! what are you doing Mrs Fourie.”
Panic sweeps over me for a moment. The adventure has all happened too fast; I’m not sure that it’s the right thing to do!
Now we are at Greenfields, and the show must go on. Mum and Dad are showing the guests where to sit, and London is bringing the food to the long buffet table, in the shade of the graceful trees. Dad makes a moving speech about his lovely, well-travelled and accomplished only daughter and welcomes the fifth son into the family. Johann responds with much laughter and joking, and everyone tucks into the delicious meal.
The photographer, whom Mum engaged, is busy taking pictures all over the place. Now Mum brings Cheelah, the only surviving cheetah of three cubs that she reared. He is purring loudly and ambles over to my frightened-looking husband. We pose with Cheelah, and the next week a newspaper article with the picture appears in The Sunday News: Spotted – A Rare Wedding Guest it says and proceeds to tell all about the cheetah, and in passing who the bride and groom are and where they married!
On our trip back to Cape Town, we have car troubles and overnight in Petersburg, Uncle Alan, Mum’s brother, is home at 45a Rabie Street, but Aunt Sally is away. He welcomes us with open arms and much joking and laughing, as is his custom. He tends to my husband’s needs about the best motor-mechanic to contact in his home town and nonchalantly gets clean sheets out of the linen cupboard to help me make the bed.
My husband is disappointed with the breakdown and grumpy, a side of his personality I haven’t seen before. Now there is no going back – c’est la vie! I hear an expression Mum often uses as though she is right there, watching as we make the bed,
“You’ve made your bed, now lie in it!”
The road is long and tiresome with seemingly minor decisions about where to stop for a meal or a pit stop becoming major discontents because our combined money bags are low to empty. Oh, dear this is what it is all about! The stark reality of
