It was a spring day in Johannesburg—September 11th, 2001. I walked from the main house to my office, past the pool, through my mom's sitting room. She was watching TV, and as I wished her good morning, she turned to me.
"There's a plane that's flown into the World Trade Center."
"What do you mean a plane's flown into the World Trade Center?"
"What I said."
I turned to the TV. CNN was playing. My immediate thought: some idiot in a light aircraft had wandered so far off course he'd hit the World Trade Center. Then they showed the Twin Towers—one tower on fire halfway up.
The next second, we watched another plane slam into the second tower. To say we were speechless would be an understatement. It was absolutely insane. America was under attack.
I went into shock. The whole world went into shock. Thinking back now, twenty-five years later, I couldn't have begun to imagine how profoundly that day would impact my life—and more importantly, the life of the entire world. Everything changed. Absolutely everything.
The next few days are a blur. Glued to the TV. Orders on our website stopped completely. Nobody was buying anything, and they wouldn't for months. America was paralyzed.
We had Natasha and Stephen's wedding coming up in October—Briony had insisted on having it in South Africa. Stephen's mother refused to fly, understandably. So it would just be Stephen and his dad making the trip. Stephen asked me to be best man, which was at least one bright spot on the horizon.
But I can't begin to describe how that single day changed everything for everybody, everywhere. Monumental. Cataclysmic.
Natasha's wedding went off beautifully. I gave what I thought was a kick-ass speech. Terry wore a stunning blue dress that had cost me fifteen thousand rand—an absolute fortune. She wanted to look beautiful, and she did. I loved my wife.
Not long after, she sat me down and told me she was in love with Doug McCullum.
After Jonathan. After Mike. Now Doug.
I don't even know how to begin to tell you where that left me. Three beautiful kids. A business going through hell along with the rest of the world. And now this. Again.
She said she still wanted to work on the marriage. She was in love with Doug, but she hadn't slept with him. She just needed time to think.
You must be thinking: why the fuck weren't we in couples therapy? I honestly don't know. I'm not blaming her—clearly, there was something fundamentally wrong with me for her to behave like this. That's an obvious conclusion. But my heart was in the right place. That's all I can tell you.
Not long after, she announced she was going away for the weekend to deliver a table to the Natal South Coast. Her, Dave, and Kim.
"Just the three of you?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. She'd come back with concrete steps forward for our marriage.
That Saturday, Briony called.
"Where's Terry?"
"She's away for the weekend with Dave and Kim."
"Are you sure it's just Dave and Kim?"
My stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"
Turned out they used the same beautician. Terry had been in for a wax before Briony's appointment, and the woman—clearly unburdened by professional ethics—had told Briony how disgusted she was that this married woman was getting waxed for a dirty weekend away.
I called Terry. They were at a petrol station halfway to Natal.
"How's the trip?"
"Oh, it's fine. Going well."
"Who are you with?"
Silence.
"Doug?"
"Yes."
"Terry, why do you keep lying to me? Why? And why do you keep telling me you haven't slept with him?"
"Well, I have now."
Second time in my life. Knife through the heart.
Looking back at that younger self, I see how fucking naive I was. I still believed this woman loved me. Now, with twenty-five years' distance, I can see clearly: nobody treats someone they love like that. I didn't have enough self-respect or self-esteem to refuse to be treated that way.
When they got back, I desperately tried to keep it from the kids. Easy with Angie and Olie—they were too young. Mikey, not so much.
We had a holiday booked—the same place we'd been to the year before, that idyllic break at Ballito. We decided to go ahead with it.
It was an absolute nightmare.
I made sure there were no arguments in front of the kids—no scenes, no drama. But sharing a bed with your wife of ten years, mother of your three children, while she's in love with another man... the pain was indescribable. I was seeing a psychologist by then, fully medicated on antidepressants, benzos, and self-medicating with alcohol on top of that.
One day we drove into Durban without the kids to see a movie—A Knight's Tale. I sat through the entire film quietly weeping in the dark.
Pathetic, I know. But that was the reality.
Afterwards, we had dinner at the Saint Geran with Robert Mauvis. Charming as always. At one point, Terry went to the loo and I said to him, "It's over."
"No," he said. "It's not possible. Of course it's not over."
But I knew it was.
Before we left for that holiday, something else happened that belongs in this story. Terry's mother Mary was having an affair with a Catholic priest named Richard from Zimbabwe. They came to stay with us at the holiday rental.
Being Mary, she insisted we all attend Mass on Sunday.
We sat in the pews—Terry and me with the three kids, Mary and Richard presumably passing as grandparents. Mid-sermon, the priest spotted us and decided we'd make the perfect illustration of Christian family life. He called us all up to the altar to present us to the congregation as an example.
Oh, my fucking word. The irony.
Mary screwing a Catholic priest. Terry, serially adulterous. And there we were—the perfect Christian family.
The human capacity for self-deception is truly breathtaking.
We returned to Johannesburg for Christmas. Christmas Day, Terry fucked off to Doug's place, leaving me with the kids.
And that was the sad end to 2001.
Compared to what other people went through that year—the thousands who died, the families shattered—I probably got off lucky. But Fishy Pete's was limping badly. The Treacle board decided we needed to do eight trade shows back-to-back in America—every weekend in January and February. I'd take January, Clinton would take February.
You can imagine how thrilled I was at the prospect of leaving for a month in America in January 2002.
But that's for the next chapter.