or to any other real recipient, or to anybody in fact, that is, the message, ‘send him my love’, was actually sent to a non-existing someone or is there actually a somebody who really received the message that you have just mentioned?
Well yes and no.
That is a typical South African way of answering a question. But in this instance what do you really mean by saying yes and no?
To answer your question, let me get on with the story and lets both see how it unravels in the actual telling. Let’s not get bogged down on questions of whether the characters in the story actually exist or have existed in space and time. Let’s also not assume that the story is an autobiography. Let’s treat it as fiction, even if it were true. As I said I write fiction, this is what I do. I am not trying to write accurate and verifiable personal histories or social histories.
But the girl does exist? I want her to exist.
OK then, yes she exists or at least she existed. She has now vanished and cannot be traced, so she is as good as a fictionalized character and as the story unfolds she will grow into a fully fictionalized character. The story begins when the girl or rather a young woman was twenty two years of age, which also happens to be your age. Like you she was beautiful or at least very attractive.
Well who is this mysterious girl or young woman? I cannot help not being intrigued. I want her to be real. I want her to be a real life character, a real flesh and blood person.
You are indomitable! OK for the sake of the story let us make her real or a real life character as you put it. And for the sake of good fiction or good literature she is actually going to be a real character in a manner of speaking. So let’s make her real. Let’s make everything real in the story. The novel ‘Send Him My Love’ will be an exercise in Realism then. It will be based on the real and it will be told realistically.
How are you going to do that?
Easy, we can embed the characters in real history, in real space and time. A character’s mind has to be not only embodied in a person who is real, it also has to be embedded in a real world, in real history, and in real space and time. I am using the word real in a very qualified and specialist literary sense.
I understand perfectly the point that you are making about the idea of what is real or what it means for something to be real in literature or in a literary sense. So in this context I want to know something about the real world and the real history in which they happened to be embedded as real characters.
Well for starters the characters all went to the same school in Boksburg, they in fact went to Boksburg High School. That makes the girl real. Does that make you happy now?
Yes it makes me very happy, thank you.
For the sake of the story I am going to narrate it in the first person if you know what I mean.
No problem. Don’t worry. I understand what you implying by first person narration, I am not going to confuse the speaker in the story with you the author or the writer. You are God, the creator of the story. You are the artist.
Ok now that we are done with the preliminaries let’s get on with the story. While at school I was a year ahead of her. I only knew her by sight while we were at school. She probably also knew me by sight. We were never on speaking terms while at school. I only really got to know her a few years later after we had both finished school.
How did you eventually become involved with her?
Well at first I was not actually involved with her personally. We initially became acquainted while she was going out with a friend of mine. At the time I was in the second year of my BA, I was majoring in Philosophy and English. Remember before I went to university I was in the army for a year. So that is how I lost a year of my life. My friend was a doing a BSc degree in sport science and she was doing a diploma in radiography. We all went to the same church, a Pentecostal church and this is an important feature in the story.
Are you religious?
No I am not religious. How could I be religious if I have been a professor of philosophy?
OK. Let me put it this way. Were you once religious?
Yes. I became very religious while in my first year at university.
Why did you become religious?
I think loneliness was a major contributory factor. At that time I was experiencing loneliness because I happened to be socially awkward, I was also insecure and I lacked self-confidence. I was an introvert.
But now you are not socially awkward and you definitely don’t lack confidence, and I find it hard to be believe after our brief acquaintance that you once suffered from insecurity, and that you lacked self-confidence.
Well that may be true for now, but it was not true then.
But now you are cured of these…what should I call them, emotional or psychological infirmities of the soul?
Yes I think am now cured of these infirmities of the soul as you have put it. I wish I could have been in this cured state right from the start. I would have been much better off if I had no emotional and psychological infirmities as you put it. I would have been spared a great deal of emotional pain, angst and anxiety, and there would not have been any element of tragedy in my life. Everything would have been plain sailing and blissful.
Let me go back now to how we first became acquainted. For this I need to give my characters names. For the sake of the story let us call them Sheldon Eagleton and Cheryl Nightingale. And also for the sake of the story I will be Richard Cunningham and as Richard Cunningham I am going to tell you the story about Cheryl Nightingale and myself.
Pleased to meet you Mr Richard Cunningham.
Well I am also delighted to have met you tonight on this flight to Paris.
OK going back to the story. It was through Sheldon that I became a member of the United Apostolic Pentecostal Church. By the way, I was born, baptised and confirmed as a Roman Catholic. So we can say that Richard has a Catholic soul.
What do mean by having a Catholic soul?
Well for the sake of the story let’s state that he was strong on forgiveness and absolution. It will explain a lot about his character. OK getting back to the story. With regard to Sheldon, we grew up in the same town or suburb, and we went to the same schools, but we were never close or intimate friends until I met Sheldon by chance at Johannesburg Park Station one afternoon while waiting for a train to take us back to Boksburg where we both lived. We got talking and soon he was telling me about his faith and how he became born again. I told him that I had also become a born again Christian and from that moment we became firm friends. He told me about his church and invited me to come to a service and from the very next Sunday I started going to his church. We lived down the street from each other and we used to walk together to church. I always think of those days as the ‘Taliban days’. We practically lived at the church, our entire lives were centred on going to church and on the strict adherence to the Evangelical and Pentecostal practice of Christianity in our lives. On a Tuesday evening there was the prayer meeting, on Thursday evening there was Bible study, on Friday nights there was the youth meeting or youth guild, on Saturday nights there was a chorus singing service and a social, and then on Sundays there was youth church at 8.00 am, normal service at 10.00 am and an evening service at 7.00 pm. So on Sundays the whole day was taken up with church.
Now Sheldon was tall, athletic, highly intelligent and incredibly good looking. He was also extremely charismatic, in fact he had an electrifying and magnetic personality. In the church he was incredibly popular. All the women folk at the church, both young and old were smitten by his good looks, charm and personality. He became my best friend. We became exceptionally close, almost like brothers, I did not mind living in his shadow. Being a superb athlete and gifted sportsman he was awarded an exceptionally generous bursary. He had also been head hunted by an elite private school as a prospective sports coach. It was a very well-paid position and the job was his if he wanted it once he had completed his degree. Because he was living for free with his parents he had quite a bit of spar
e cash. He bought a VW Kombi. This was odd, I don’t know why he bought a VW Kombi and not a VW Beetle. Anyway, as the story unfolds you will have good reasons to conclude that the Kombi played a pivotal role in his downfall, and that is all I am going to say about the Kombi. While we were still at high school he had an on-off relationship with Cheryl. One moment they were going steady, the next moment they broke up. Anyway shortly after buying the Kombi he pitched up at a Friday youth meeting with Cheryl on his arm. She was as beautiful as ever and they made a stunning couple. She stayed in Boksburg South close to St Dominic’s Convent and he would fetch her in Kombi for all the church meetings. And as I have said the Kombi played a significant role in his downfall. Maybe subconsciously he bought the Kombi for a specific purpose, and I did entertain this theory retrospectively, much later in life. We formed a kind of threesome. Well it was only a threesome in the context of the church. We were always together as friends at church. Outside of church I never went along with them when they went out on a date. So there was a private intimate aspect to their relationship of which I knew nothing about. But the three of us remained firm friends, bound together by our shared Christian faith. So this was how I became acquainted with Cheryl in her role as Sheldon’s girlfriend. Now and then I bumped into Cheryl at Park