The Bob Molloy Tale!

[Michael Alexander]

Ok, this is copy of the Oranjemund Tale, that Bob Molloy is teasing us with in the above SHoutbox,

[Michael Alexander]

Please note that the above tale is updated daily, but does not reflect as a new posting!

[Patricia Lotte]

Can I suggest a diffrent font colour or something else to show where the new section begins 

[Michael Alexander]

@Patricia, Yes, In hindsight, I should have done this. However, I am led to believe that there is only one installment left....

[Bob Molloy]

I think in retrospect my use of the Shoutbox for posting the story was a mistake. I wanted to vary box usage a bit and perhaps gain it more hits but I didn't take into account the word limit.

That cause some clunky rewrites to make it fit. And also each instalment was preceded by the title to show the story continued. There were also a few stutters when paragraphs were repeated. The result was less than gratifying and members rightly objected. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I will post the last instalment on the Shoutbox today and, if Michael has no objection, re-post the full story here. It will be shorn of the irritating instalment headings and the stutters. It can then be read at a single sitting and hopefully make a more pleasing read.

Michael can then delete the original post which appeared in bold here.
Apologies for the extra hassle, Mike.

[Bob Molloy]

As promised, here t'is:

THE TRIANGLE

Like Scherazade I will tell an instalment of the story on the Shoutbox at night when all you Oranjemunders are asleep. When you wake up you can read the tale and wait for the next shoe to drop.
Like all fairy stories it will be told in the traditional way.  The difference being that this story is true. So here we go.

Once upon a time in Oranjemund there was a beautiful woman who was wooed by two handsome men. Not at the same time of course. They were separated by a year and a day. An unusual length of time you might think but bear with me. All will be revealed.

As with all eternal triangles, there had to be a winner and a loser. And there was in this case. She was a tall, attractive brunette, a theatre sister at the Oranjemund Hospital, which was then a well-staffed, state of the art, newly built modern health facility.

He arrived as a young speech and drama graduate from UCT.
Oranjemund had been recommended to him by a friend as a way of earning quick cash. His plan was to stay a year and save enough to fund a couple of years wandering Europe before heading home to Johannesburg to settle down into a career.

For him it was love at first sight. For her at first there were some misgivings. Possibly because to begin with he was three years younger; possibly because there were plenty of ardent, handsome males in Oranjemund, a place where young, single women were in short supply.

But he was different from the usual males who came and went in those days. Most of them briefly held down unskilled jobs on the mine while they saved enough for a car (if they could stay out of the pub for long enough) before heading back to the farm or another unskilled job in the city.

He had dreams to share, exciting places to go, people to meet and things to do. He was also handsome, well-spoken and courteous. At first she was amused, then charmed and finally enchanted. The plans widened to include her. But foreign travel was a big step in those days. This was long before the days of backpacking. It meant other languages, several weeks of sea travel, tough entry requirements and little chance of work or income.

They talked and dreamed for a year and a day. They agreed he would go first, indulge his travel bug and – if they still felt the same about each other - she would join him. Despite all their very pragmatic arrangements and brave talk it was an anguished parting. The skies opened in a rare Oranjemund downpour on the day he left, and it wasn't only the sky that wept.

At Cape Town he boarded a Union Castle liner to work his passage to the UK as a kitchen hand, meaning more cash in hand for the big OE but not an experience to be recommended. As he recalled many years later, slavery had been abolished in the Cape in the early 1800s but somebody forgot to tell the Union Castle Company. Nevertheless he survived, kilos lighter perhaps but unbowed.

The months passed and the letters multiplied; no email or texting then, only a slow three week mail system or, if you could afford it, an expensive – and not much faster – ten day aerogramme. International phone calls were even pricier, arranged days in advance, and not recommended for conversations you might wish to have in confidence. Especially in Oranjemund where the operator listened in and relayed the juicier bits.

Despite time and distance, or perhaps because of it, love blossomed. It was a Roman poet in ancient times who first noted that:  "Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows." Or in modern parlance: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

So, a date was set and the reunion arranged. But not just any old meeting; he was a romantic. They would meet on a beach in Spain like strangers. On a certain day they would both stroll along the beach and there the other would be. Today there is not a beach in Spain, or Europe for that matter, that has not been invaded by the tourist hordes. They carpet the sands, polluting beaches with litter and noise, and the sea with sun lotion.
Not so, then. The days of cheap, mass tourism were still in the future and Spanish beaches a pristine delight.

He had chosen well: a magical beach far from city life, with one lone hut housing a ramshackle wine bar, its roof, counter and bar stools made from driftwood, where Ricardo - a wrinkled old peasant - eked out a few extra pesetas from passersby.
Ever the romantic, he had arranged that at noon on the day - without prior contact - they would meet at the bar.

It was high summer. He arrived a week early and camped in the dunes. Ricardo supplied him with fresh milk, new laid eggs and freshly baked bread. He swam daily in the warm sea, walked the length and breadth of the beach and could almost feel her presence, increasing as the days passed.

On the day arranged he was awake before dawn, rushed his daily swim and was at the bar just as the sun came up. Ricardo set out a bottle of his best and two carefully polished glasses.

Noon came and went. He walked the length of the beach a dozen times that day. As the sun went down he refused to let Ricardo to remove the bottle and glasses. "Leave them. She will come," he said.
"Women are ever late," Ricardo comforted him.

He stayed a week longer, walking the beach daily, hope slowly dying.
Was there a letter that failed to arrive? Lost in the post perhaps? More than possible; his address had changed a dozen times as he travelled around Europe.

We know very little of his travels following his sad farewell to Ricardo. All we know is that on his return to South Africa a year later he brought back a bride with him, the daughter of a Harley Street surgeon. She was a vivacious lass who loved life and – more importantly - loved him.

He took a position with the Johannesburg Star as a cadet reporter and quickly rose to be their one of their top columnists. They prospered and within several years had two beautiful children, a boy and a girl.

With the arrival of South African television he dropped his career in journalism to become a freelance scriptwriter. It was a good move. Within a couple of years he was an award winner, writing most of South Africa's earliest TV serials. These included The Villagers (based on his time in Oranjemund), Westgate, The Outlaw, Jock of the Bushveld, 1922, Two Weeks in Paradise and others.

He later relocated to Australia where for his first work Jackaroo he picked up three Logie awards. He went on to win several Awgies and an AFI award for work with top actors such as Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Russell Crowe.
But we are getting ahead of our story. While all this was going on, what was happening back in Oranjemund? Let's go back to around the time our scriptwriter said his sad farewell to Ricardo. The third person is about to join the triangle so perhaps it is time to give names to our trio of conflicted lovers. Let's call our scriptwriter John and the beautiful nursing sister Irene. Enter Larry, stage left.

He was introduced to Irene by Ivan Morrow. Larry, a tall handsome geologist, was a young man in a hurry. He too had places to go and things to do, and Oranjemund was just a stop on the way. But Irene stopped him in his tracks. He knew he wanted this woman in his life. She was friendly but talked of travel plans. He guessed perhaps another man somewhere.

She was in great demand on social occasions yet she seemed to keep men at arm's length and he couldn't identify any particular male monopolizing her attention. He ignored the competition and soon he was partnering her to dances.

They married a year later and left for Cape Town where he completed a post-graduate degree and she produced twins, a superb gift on his birthday. Then it was on to Toronto where Larry took advanced his qualifications to doctorate level.

After that Larry took a job with a Canadian mining company which promptly sent him of all places to Perth in Western Australia, a beautiful coastal city. There, as your narrator discovered, they lived all unknowingly within a few minutes of John and his English wife. How I found out is part of the denouement, which, if you bear with me, I will come to later.

In the years to follow Larry's work took him to the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and various African countries. Fortunately they were based in Johannesburg for the African tour. This gave the children the chance of a more stable education which later led to study at Wits University. Then the blow came, Larry was transferred back to the US.
That was pleasant enough, until the company asked Larry to go back to the Dominican Republic and Guatemala, neither place all that salubrious, especially the mining areas. Larry balked at more globe-trotting and resigned. He and Irene decided to return to SA where they could offer better help and support to the twins who were now at Wits.   

He took a post with Anglovaal. That too involved occasional forays to Botswana. When the children graduated, the son as an architect and the daughter as a doctor, Larry felt he'd had enough of Anglovaal and particularly the nomadic life and opted for early retirement.

He and Irene went to live in Pretoria to be close to Irene's family.  A lifetime of wandering had ended.

Or so Larry thought. The twins soon moved into their respective careers and found partners. The fond parents happily awaited the patter of tiny feet. But it was the early Nineties; the country was going through major political change. Part of it swept away a whole generation, including the twins.

The daughter with her Kiwi partner went to settle in New Zealand and the son to Australia. Instead of a short car trip to Johannesburg to see the grandchildren it was now a long distance flight.

In 2006, 43 years after they were wed, the marriage ended. Irene died after a long battle with lung cancer. Larry was left bereft, saddened and alone in a city that he felt grew more alien by the day. Urged by his son, he made one last move.

It was an inspired one, to the Gold Coast in Queensland, just south of Brisbane; a short car trip to his son's home and just a short flight across the Ditch to his daughter in New Zealand. 

Enter Michael Alexander into our story with a website linking the lives of Oranjemunders past and present. Larry came across it while surfing the Net and was fascinated. He discovered a section on the Sixties which carried anecdotes about the personalities of that era.

He recognized some of them. One in particular caught his attention.  He felt sure it was the man who had preceded him in Irene's life. If so, he had one last link in the tale to drop into place.

Through the website he contacted me. I heard his story and was intrigued. I confirmed his guess was correct. Larry was stunned to learn that John also lived in Queensland just a few hours' drive north. 

I felt we three should meet. An ideal time was coming up. John and his wife Mirella, also empty nesters, had sold up the family home in Sydney and retired to Maleny, a small resort town close to Surfer's Paradise.
There they had built their vrekplek as he called it, a stunningly beautiful home on a hilltop overlooking the town, and within a few months they landscaped the surrounding acres into a haven of blossom and bird life.

However, retirement or no, he couldn't stay away from the keyboard. He returned to an interest in stage work and turned out several one act plays. These were not only well acclaimed but also proved portable. In fact one was later staged in New Zealand and South Africa. All the while he was building up to another longstanding dream, a musical comedy. The work attracted a top musician, the conductor of the Brisbane city orchestra.

The pair added a musical score to the script. Called "Up the Tiber without a Toga" it was a hilarious look at ancient Rome. Crafted by John's light touch with comedy and backed by a large cast, great songs, superb lead singers and the Brisbane City Orchestra, it premiered for a charity week in Caboulture, a coastal town near Brisbane. Google the title for a look at some of the reviews. 

John invited Keri and me over for the event. I contacted Larry who drove up to be with us on the night. It was a sell-out audience and, as with all John's work, it was a hit. The celebrations were loud, late and long.

Next morning, feeling slightly fragile, we gathered at John's for brunch. The talk turned to days long gone and what might have been. It was then that Larry added a poignant little detail to our tale of the Triangle.

John, Larry and your narrator meet at last to look back half a century. It was then Larry revealed that in sorting through Irene's papers after her death he found an old passport. It had a Spanish visa in it!



But hey, isn't that life? Or, as the French put it: C'est la Vie.

[SandyB]

Indeed  an interesting story  Bob , Thanks , would love to know who the  real people in the tale are ,, the guessing is rattling my brains ..

[Robert Bruce]

That fella on the left - his face rings a bell.

[henniek]

Thanks for a very nice "fairy tale" Bob and Mixchael . I do remember Johnn Cundill , and Bob - of cource
but My memory fails me on " Larry " and " Irene"
Ivan and Nan Morrow are old aquintencas.

[Ricky Barron (RIP)]

G'day Bob,

Are you ever going to let us in on the identities of these folk? I dutifully printed each episode for my Mom, and when the saga ended she, Paddy Marx and Nancy Stocken, seriously intriqued, wracked their 252 years of brain power to arrive at some sort of closure, and perhaps a good night's sleep (Gordon Dally was also roped in). Besides John Cundill, they mused about Bob Little, Heather Jackson, Jonathon Fowler and a lady named Rina! Mom says seeing as it was so long ago, you can ease the minds of three sweet, God-fearing octogenarians by coming "clean" as it were! Any chance?

They (Mom, aunty Paddy and aunty Nancy) all remember you fondly and send their love!

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Ricky,
                Love to your mom, Paddy and Nancy. How could I resist such an appeal? So here goes: I'm sure the main protagonists at this age and stage would have no objection to having their part in the love story revealed.

The woman in the triangle was Irene du Toit. The geologist and successful suitor was Larry Greenman whom Nancy will remember as one of Charles' staff, and the award-winning scriptwriter was John Cundill.   

Regards,
Bob.

[Ricky Barron (RIP)]

Thank you kindly Bob!

I have sent the "final scene/climax" to my Mom, and she will pass it on to her connections. I do not remember the names but apparently aunty Nancy's recollections of those days is still pretty good.

Regards,

Ricky

[Bob Molloy]

Ricky,
         I wouldn't use the word "climax" to women of that generation if I were you. I think to them it means something rather different to your innocuous use of the word.
.
Regards,
Bob. 

[Michael Alexander]

     Bob!

[Ricky Barron (RIP)]

@ Bob

Actually it did elicit (or should that be illicit) a hearty chuckle from Mom! Die ou vrou is nog wawyd wakker........!