AUTHOR’S NOTE

Although autobiographical in tone, here I intertwine fact and fiction. Memory and imagination go hand in hand. I have changed all names, including my own, and in some instances have even changed physical attributes. Many of the events have filtered down to me from older children, cousins, aunts and neighbours.

At the time, we were innocents brainwashed by a cruel system and so became a product of our time. Although the world has moved on – thankfully – my childhood was plagued by confusion at the world around me. Mystified, I spent my time observing the adults and the odd assortment of characters who touched my life. There were betrayals, disappointments and many tears, but there were also sympathetic neighbours, loving aunts and caring grandmothers.

Battered families can look normal to the rest of the world. They present a brave face, but behind closed doors it’s a different matter altogether. No one knows when the next disaster will strike or where it will end. There can be joy one minute and tears the next, and home can be the most dangerous place on earth. It’s a little like being cast in a movie, only not a soul knows the plot. The children are players in a complicated game that leaves them with a cruel blueprint for life.

Sexual abuse affects every part of the victim’s life, harming the soul and the psyche, and, for children, destroys the very core of innocence. Living with secrets and guarded silence becomes the norm. Relationships are skewed and there’s bound to be some form of self-abuse. Family members display the worst and best of attributes; on one hand there is dishonesty, manipulation, self-deception and procrastination; on the other hand a fierce loyalty, great courage and fortitude.

Along the same lines, families living with an alcoholic or binge-drinker become co-dependants. Living with dysfunctional behavioural patterns means that family members become super alert, hyper vigilant. They become experts at scanning facial expressions and nothing escapes their attention, not even the nuances of light and shade that make up their day. These children remain alert through every conversation and every situation, looking for the smallest sign of dissatisfaction and the ramifications, particularly physical punishment. Eventually, the result is that they are out of touch with their own needs and emotions.

It is, however, too easy to lay blame at the feet of the parents; dysfunctional family behaviour is not something parents fabricate in one generation. Parents had parents too. Some people skip through life. Others pay the price.

A child who suffers hostile life circumstances is open to lack of self-esteem and confidence, to anxiety, fearfulness and immaturity. The emotional roller-coaster ride leads to frequent tears, nightmares and nervousness, leaving the child sucked dry, bogged down by paralysing fears and undirected anger. This story is seen through the eyes of a child, written from the heart, warts and all. Read it with your heart.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

– Plato

Jacob Le Seuer was born in 1906 on an apple farm in the Grabouw district of the Western Cape. He opened his eyes to a wide blue sky surrounded by hills awash with a froth of delicate pink apple blossoms. Growing up here he caught eels by lamplight in the Palmiet River and developed a passion for the birds of the air. With a shock of black wavy hair falling across his forehead, he was an exceptionally handsome man and always immaculately turned out. He was thirty years old when Mavis met him and he was quite the man about town. Some people called him a poser.

In 1915, Mavis Lourens was born in Cape Town, in the shadow of Table Mountain where the tablecloth drapes itself magically over the top. As a young woman, she was blonde and beautiful, vulnerable, long-legged, with a sweater-girl figure that earned wolf-whistles and calls of “Hubba hubba!” Jacob and Mavis met at a party in the northern suburbs of the city. She was captivated by his charm and fell head over heels in love. And so their fate was sealed, the start of a co-dependant relationship.