1996 began with anticipation—Angela’s birth in February, and Bernie’s wedding to John. Bernie, Terry’s sister, was preparing to marry a genuinely lovely guy. On the darker side, Malachy’s health was failing.
The business was doing well. The Dullstroom house was coming along beautifully. Terry and I made regular trips from Lydenburg—fifty kilometres—to check progress. Theo was doing a fantastic job.
At some point, we moved from Valentine Farm to Nooitgedacht. I can’t recall why, but it was just before Angie was born. Around that time, I decided—in a fit of hubris—to buy a Land Rover Discovery. Niels had one, and I fancied myself a successful businessman, so I thought I deserved one too. I cringe now at the ego and naïveté of that moment. The truth was less glamorous: the business was still fledgling, dependent on one big client in Finland and a handful of retail outlets.
Nevertheless, I went ahead—drove to Johannesburg to pick up the top-of-the-line ES petrol model, all bells and whistles—for R267,000, on hire purchase through the company. As soon as I hit the last 16 kilometres of dirt road to Nooitgedacht, I got two flat tyres. Factory tyres—absolute rubbish. The Land Rover turned out to be a disaster; something was always going wrong.
Angie’s birth on 9 February—that was pure delight. Graham Naylor, the same doctor who delivered Mikey, brought her into the world. Terry and I stayed in Linden with her mom and increasingly ill father until she was well enough to travel to Nooitgedacht.
In March or April came Bernie’s wedding—a lovely day—but soon after, the sadness deepened. Malachy succumbed to cancer.
This is one of my great personal failures. He’d been moved from hospital back home, under the care of Paddy, Terry’s brother, now a doctor. Terry’s uncle Alec—a priest from Argentina—held a Mass around Malachy’s bed. I attended. It was incredibly sad.
And then, ashamed as I still am to admit it, I told Terry I had to get back to Lydenburg to pay wages the next day. I could have made another plan, but I didn’t. I wanted to escape the sadness. It wasn’t obvious that Malachy would die that night—so I drove. The next morning, Terry called to say her father had passed. I hadn’t been there to support her.
Even now, all these years later, I wonder: if I’d stayed, might things have turned out differently? I’ll never know.
We moved soon after—into the new Dullstroom house. I remember it was winter, the cold biting, but we were warm inside by the fireplaces. Snow lay on the ground for the first time in years. We quickly befriended Kim and Mark—a couple about our age, living locally.
One evening, we went to a fancy dinner at the Walkersons Hotel. Our waiter, a young man in a kilt called Jonathan, took our order and walked away. I turned to Terry and saw the look on her face.
“What, do you fancy him?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, “he’s a bit of all right.”
We settled into life in the Dullstroom house. We had two maids—maybe three; I can’t quite remember. I commuted to Lydenburg daily, returning each night to a warm home. I should have been more aware of what was happening with Terry. She’d been through enormous emotional upheaval—her father’s death, Angie’s birth—and now, living a privileged life, she wanted for nothing material. So, what could go wrong?
She’d never touched a drop during pregnancy, but after Angie was born, she fell into a pattern: meeting Kim and Mark and sometimes Jonathan at the Duck and Trout. I’d come home from Lydenburg to find they’d been drinking all day, with the maids left to watch the children.
The sense of unease grew. This wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t right. And telling it now brings back the foreboding I felt then—something bad was coming.
The rest of this chapter is going to be hard to tell.
By mid‑1996, life was sweet on the surface. I was working hard, sure—but I had a wonderful son, a new daughter, and a beautiful wife. Business was ticking over. We had our dream home, new friends, regular bridge games with Kim and Mark, and a young crowd in town. Dullstroom was alive—weekend visitors, new restaurants, good energy.
But there was a niggling feeling that Terry wasn’t happy.
There was nothing materially she could’ve wanted for: maids, my love, her children. But there were unaddressed issues, and maybe that’s where the unrest came from.
That brings me to a weekend in early September.
Pete Immelman’s friend PJ Jacobs—a clever lawyer from Pretoria—had started The Complete Fly Fisherman a couple of years earlier. When we were still in Jukskei Park, I’d published the first couple issues on my super-powered computer. The magazine began as an insert but had since gone standalone.
PJ contacted me—wanted to go to Margaruque for a fly-fishing weekend and shoot a ton of photos. I could promote Fishy Pete’s while we were at it. Niels was invited too, to provide the plane—KAJ had been sold by that point. So off we went: Pete, PJ, me, and Niels. No wives or girlfriends allowed.
All weekend I sensed unease. The Belfast Festival was on—the little town about 15 km from Lydenburg—and Terry had volunteered to help with catering. I knew there’d be drinking and socialising. I didn’t not trust her—but I was still relieved to get back to Dullstroom.
That’s when things got weird.
The atmosphere shifted the moment I walked in. Terry’s mother had been looking after the kids—our three maids didn’t do nights—and at dinner, she revealed that Terry hadn’t spent Saturday night at home after the festival.
I asked, “What happened?”
Mary said, “Oh, she came home late and didn’t want to wake me, so she slept in the car.”
Odd. But stranger still was Terry herself—something was off. Over the next few weeks, it worsened. I thought, There’s something going on.
I asked Kim—Terry’s best friend at the time—and she said, “Definitely not.” She didn’t know of anything.
Meanwhile, the anxiety and depression I’d battled in my twenties started creeping back. I stopped sleeping. Became suspicious. Work suffered. I second-guessed everything. I asked Terry directly—and then turned everything on myself. No—it’s me. I’m going nuts.
The black dog returned with a vengeance—this time, with a wife, kids, a business dependent on me financially. I had to function, but I couldn’t cope.
I went to the GP in Lydenburg. He prescribed sleeping pills and tranquilisers, which helped slightly. I was open with Terry. We saw her uncle in Johannesburg—a doctor—who diagnosed major depression and anxiety and prescribed antidepressants. The same medications I’d thought I’d left behind in my twenties.
It was crushing.
Terry suggested a holiday at that same apartment in Llandudno we’d used the year before. No phones, no laptops. Just us and the kids.
It seemed perfect. But when we arrived, I noticed the landline used an old-style manual counter. Something urged me to memorize the number—in case she was calling someone. I didn’t. I let it go.
Several days in—after another sleepless night—I snapped. I decided to fly back to Lydenburg and confront Pete Immelman. In my unwell state, I’d convinced myself he was the cause of my depression—taking advantage of me in business.
I didn’t want to leave Terry alone with the kids, so I booked Kim a ticket to keep her company and flew to Johannesburg, then drove to Lydenburg.
But something made me stop and think: See Dave Hinton first. He was a good friend, living there full time now. He took one look and said, “Do yourself a favour: don’t make any decisions in this state. Get yourself right before you do anything.”
So I drove back to Johannesburg—over 700 km in a day.
Another sleepless night. Then I flew to Cape Town.
The rest of the trip was a nightmare. I remember walking with Angie on the rocks, holding her close and silently promising I would always protect her. Inside though, I was broken.
We flew back to Johannesburg and drove to Dullstroom—Terry driving. I was in no state to.
Throughout the drive, waves of anxiety washed over me like storms. That night, we lay in bed. I was wide awake. She lay beside me, on her back.
Suddenly, she began sobbing.
I asked, “What’s the matter?”
She whispered, “I fucked it all up.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
“I’ve had an affair.”
“With who?”
“Who do you think?”
“Jonathan?”
“Yes.”
She got up, left the room, and slept in Angie’s bed. I—ashamed—grabbed a handful of sleeping pills. Not my proudest moment.
The next day, I asked what she wanted.
She said it had been a mistake and she wanted to make a go of it—but asked that no one know. I agreed.
Strangely, the fact that I hadn’t imagined it—that my psyche had responded to something real—gave me strength. I began clawing my way out of that hole.
Later that month, we holidayed with her family—her mom, dad, Bernie, John. Terry still wouldn’t tell me where it happened. Then one night, watching a film with a sex scene in a car, I turned to her:
“You fucked him in the Discovery, didn’t you?”
She said, “Yes.”
That was the end of innocence. The end of the happiest six years of my life.
I kept the secret. We returned to Dullstroom. Bernie and John came for Christmas. One night, we were all at the Duck and Trout, and Jonathan was there with his parents.
During the meal, Terry vanished. Bernie checked the toilets—nothing. I found her in the kitchen, sobbing in the arms of Stephen de Meyer, a lovely gay cook.
Nobody knew what was happening. I didn’t explain.
Then Terry returned to the table and blurted it out—to her entire family.
The next day, I went to work. She told me she’d talk to Bernie and explain everything. When I returned, I remember exactly where I was standing—our master bedroom.
I asked, “How did it go with Bernie?”
She said, “Really well. She understands.”
I asked, “What did you tell her?”
She said, “I explained that I’ve fallen in love with Jonathan, but I’m more committed to my marriage and my kids. So it’s over.”
People talk about a knife to the heart. That’s what it felt like. The woman I loved telling me she was staying with me—but in love with someone else.
Holy shit, that was hard to hear.
We carried on. To this day, I wonder: if I’d reacted differently, would things have turned out differently?
She later told me she’d expected me to kick her out. But I didn’t. Maybe—maybe—that’s when she lost respect for me. Maybe I should’ve been tougher.
But that’s speculation.
This has been a brutally hard chapter to write, but I’ve told it as honestly as I can. I don’t want to paint Terry as a villain. I believe she was suffering—from postnatal depression, her dad’s death, too much alcohol, too much partying, too much temptation. She was too young. We were both too young.
But that was the end of innocence for me.
.