Rambles on the Edge. Wendy Maitland

disturbed by the sound of a car arriving outside my house, loudly hooting its horn to indicate some kind of emergency.

      The front door was open and a furious woman came running inside shouting at me, while dragging a reluctant Peter behind her. ‘Is this your child?’ she demanded. Not waiting for a reply, she went on, ‘He was on a tricycle in the fast lane of the highway. In the fast lane – do you hear? Just pedalling along, oblivious to all the traffic swerving around him. A miracle he wasn’t killed.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘It’s a very fast road. Very dangerous. If I hadn’t stopped to rescue him there would have been a terrible accident. No one else was stopping. I picked up the tricycle as well as him.’ She stood there red in the face, trembling with anger and shock, her voice coming in gasps with the effort of telling me this. Peter had already run off.

      I held out my hand to her in abject apology: ‘I had no idea he’d gone out onto the big road. How could he have got there? I thought he was in the garden where he’s supposed to be,’ I added lamely.

      ‘You were on the phone yakking to someone instead of keeping an eye on him,’ the woman said accusingly.

      ‘Yes, I know. But he also knows he’s not supposed to go out of the garden on his own.’

      ‘He’s only a child. Children his age have to be supervised.’

      ‘I know that, and I’m completely in the wrong, and mortified about what happened. Thank God you were there. How can I thank you enough? What can I do to make it up to you?’

      ‘You can thank God, like you said. And keep your gate closed.’

      With that parting advice she returned to her car, extricated the tricycle from the boot, set it down and drove off before I had a chance to ask her name or thank her again. I needed to find Peter and make sure he understood the enormity of his foolishness in going for a ride on the highway, but he was already entertaining the staff with a graphic description of his exploit, making them laugh and clap so much for its audacity that I didn’t have the heart to be too cross. When he was told about it, Adam too was impressed, though not so much by my lapse in child care as Peter’s daring escapade.

      ‘He needs to go to nursery school instead of getting bored at home on his own,’ Louise remarked after this incident, and I agreed. It was time, too, for me to get a job, and I was taken on as nurse/receptionist by a partnership of consultant paediatricians: Doctors Zilberg, Sanders and Pichanick, at their Baines Avenue rooms. Working for these three outstanding child specialists was a very happy and rewarding time for me because it was a great learning experience as well as a privilege to be part of their team. Each morning when I arrived at the surgery, phones would be ringing and this filled me with anticipation for the day ahead. GPs dealt with routine conditions and referred anything that was complicated or evading diagnosis, so the cases seen at Baines Avenue were interesting and unusual. Two other nurses were employed in addition to a book-keeper and secretary, and when patients started arriving each morning the surgery became a noisy hub of activity with children and toys spilling everywhere.

      It was a time when Vietnamese orphans were being adopted by kindhearted couples in different parts of the world, including Rhodesia. Some of these children had been through traumatic experiences resulting in disturbed behaviour which could be difficult to manage as problems became more evident. Other children brought for advice on disordered behaviour were often equally challenging, but the young patients whose conditions distressed us most were the child cancers. We became very involved with the parents and whole families in these situations for emotional as well as medical support, and when a child died it left all of us stricken. Bereaved parents often continued to come to the surgery for months or years afterwards, simply for the compassion and understanding of the doctors. Another group much in need of sympathetic care were refugees from Mozambique. They arrived destitute and speaking only Portuguese, as the battle for freedom in that country led to the disintegration of public services. The desperate plight of these people, who very often had sick children in need of urgent care, was met by Rhodesian relief agencies who made referrals to relevant professional specialities like ours.

      Through all these varied demands the doctors dispensed kindness and expertise with a ready sense of humour, handed out with supplies of sweets from bowls in the waiting room and their consulting rooms. On Friday afternoons all three doctors left early, wearing prayer shawls, and the rooms went quiet, so the rest of us could clear up and put all the toys away that had been scattered around during the crowded week.

      Unseen by most of us and for a time suppressed in national news outlets was that Rhodesia had its own liberation war, and this was gathering pace on northern and western borders. Young white men of military age were being called up to serve in the Rhodesian defence forces and when families began to lose sons killed in action, the truth of what was called the ‘Bush War’ began to be felt. Adam volunteered for the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit (PATU) which was a para-military force of civilian volunteers, requiring compulsory commitment to a set number of days on active service each year. It meant that he was often away, but all businesses and employers shouldered this burden willingly, in the cause of what they believed to be defence of the country against communist infiltration and takeover by a Marxist regime, as had happened in Mozambique. Prime Minister Ian Smith declared that Rhodesia stood as one of the last bastions against communism in Africa and this justification for the Bush War did not seem unreasonable at the time, since it was widely reported that insurgents were trained by North Korea and Russia. My own experience of the Mau Mau uprising which led to independence in Kenya, suggested to me that instead of war, a better strategy would be the inclusion of Africans in government, starting a process of integration. There were indications that Ian Smith may have considered similar options but his political party, the Rhodesian Front, was reported to be ideologically opposed to this.

      During the early years of the seventies, the war still seemed far away and Salisbury was vibrant with social life. Adam soon became popular on the party circuit; his gift for mimicry and entertainment made him a favourite with hostesses so we were never without invitations and he was always ready for an evening out. It was a time of bottle parties when guests took a bottle and plate of finger food, providing a cheap way to get together at someone’s house where the principle activity was dancing and circulating. More elaborate parties were given by a friend whose family owned estates in both Rhodesia and England, and although she was titled she had no pretensions and was refreshingly scatty. An invitation arrived from her in the flamboyant handwriting style that went with her personality; this time for a fancy dress ball in one of the grand rooms of a mansion hired for the occasion. Fancy dress was one of my least favourite party themes, but Adam loved dressing up. We couldn’t afford to hire costumes so it had to be something homemade or borrowed. Adam was already in a theatre group where they had been staging a production of South Pacific and had a selection of grass skirts, shell necklaces and gaudy flower garlands made of paper. Adam thought it would be fun to wear these and grass skirts could be twirled impressively during the dances.

      When we arrived for the ball, our invitation was scrutinised and we were escorted by an attendant to meet the master of ceremonies who was announcing names of guests as they entered the ballroom. That is when we noticed that everyone else was wearing evening dress. Our hostess, who was greeting people, quickly took us aside. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘there’s been a mix-up. At the last minute my dad arrived unexpectedly on a visit from London and brought with him a couple of cronies from the House of Lords. When he heard about the party, he insisted that some of the ministers in government who are friends of his, should be invited. Of course I couldn’t refuse. But fancy dress had to go out of the window as soon as lords and ladies were to be present. I phoned in a mad panic all the people I could reach, but you must have got missed somehow.’ She started giggling, and continued in a stage whisper, ‘I love it though. You’re not the only ones who didn’t get the message. Come over here.’ Huddled behind some potted palms we found others lingering in embarrassment, like ourselves dressed in ludicrous costumes. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘everyone will think you are the cabaret waiting in the wings. I’ll make sure you have your own waiters looking after you with loads of drinks and food.’ Adam, seizing on the idea of a cabaret with a chorus line already to hand, rehearsed us in an improvised comedy act hidden behind the palms while dancing was underway