Entries (RSS) Marjorie Wallace: Drif en Vreugde
“When I think back to my visits to that double-storeyed house in Cheviot Place, Green Point, it is not Jan’s stern and slightly pedantic voice that I hear holding forth on some subject or the other, but that of a woman speaking English and fluent Afrikaans in a broad Scots accent. I am with her in the kitchen, getting in the way as she cooks up a huge pot of pasta while at the same time giving me another very passionate lecture on the finer points of putting paint on canvas and board. In the background I hear a murmur of strong male voices as Jan presides over a gathering of Afrikaner intellectuals. And now, jumping forward in time to our home in the little Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda, Marjorie’s voice is with me as I walk hand in hand with its owner into the sun-scorched landscape on the Isle of Crete. The painting in question hangs on the wall opposite my chair at the dining table. Studying it, as I have done so many times, and admiring its superb understanding of what harsh sunlight does to a landscape, I truly wish that Marjorie was alive to know that she still lives with me, teaching me how to ‘see’ as she did so many times while cooking food for the hungry stomach of the Afrikaner intellectual rebellion brewing in the other room. She was in so many ways the one truly ‘unforgettable character’ in my life.” Athol Fugard, playwright and lifelong friend. |
