The Return

My final Mallorcan summer (as a resident) slipped away in a haze of sun, sea, and adolescent infatuations. And then, it was time to go. Time to be dropped back into South Africa, into the country I’d once called home—as if nothing had happened. As if Mallorca had just been a long, extravagant detour.

The plan was for me to rejoin the class I’d started with in Grade 1 at St. John's College. I would start the third term of the final year of prep school—Upper IV, they called it. I flew back alone, an unaccompanied minor. I remember being met at the airport by Niels and his girlfriend at the time, Sally Coulton. I was to stay at the Barclays’ place, Bruce’s family, a familiar point of light in what would become a murky landscape. Bruce, unfortunately, was away at boarding school in Natal—so there wasn’t much comfort to be found there.

I made friends with Gary Makope, the son of the Barclays' maid, Aggie. Gary was about my age, maybe a little younger, and we became tight almost immediately. It didn’t sit well with Bruce’s parents, not because of anything Gary had done, but because of the apartheid system they—and everyone around us—simply accepted as normal. I didn’t; I couldn’t. I'd grown up without a trace of racism in Mallorca, and the rules here just seemed alien and grotesque.

Eventually, Gary was sent back to his ‘homeland’—the euphemism South Africans used for the bantustans where Black citizens were forced to live, allowed into white areas only to work. Whether his departure had anything to do with our friendship, I’ll never know. But I do remember crying quietly when he left.

The night before school started, Niels and Sally took me to a little hole-in-the-wall steak joint called The Beefeater. The next day, Niels picked me up again and off we went to St. John's. I wore the standard grey shorts uniform, which might have looked more appropriate if my legs weren’t still bronzed from the Mediterranean sun. I probably looked like an exchange student from a beach town nobody had heard of.

Niels, ever the fixer, sought out a kid called Andrew “Bubs” Nabarro—someone I’d been friendly with back in pre-prep. Niels had gone to St. John’s himself and knew Bubs’ older brother from years before. It was a decent idea. The execution, not so much.

Walking into St. John’s Prep felt like stumbling into Act IV of a Shakespeare play—everyone already in costume, deep in character, and I hadn’t even seen the script

One particular moment is burned into memory. Mr. Ouseman, our English teacher, waltzed in one day with a folder of newspaper clippings. Every single one of them was about my father—Mogens Rosenfeldt—and his dramatic flight from South Africa after violating exchange control laws. And this charming educator thought the best use for them was a public show-and-tell. Welcome back, Peter.

Why a grown man—a teacher, no less—would do something that vile still escapes me. Maybe he thought it was character-building. Maybe he was just a bastard. St. John's had a few of those, in the staff room as well as the playground.

That final term of Upper IV was brutal. The depersonalisation I’d first felt in Mallorca came roaring back—this time with backup. I was having real panic attacks. I told Father Salter, the school’s gin-scented resident chaplain, that I thought I was going mad. He didn’t know what to do, so he sent me to the SAN—the school sanitarium—they called my mother.

She took me to see Dr. Sparks, the official school doctor. He was a kind, thoughtful man who explained how anxiety could make you feel like your own brain had turned against you. That the neurons sometimes misfire, and it didn’t mean I was losing my mind. He was the first adult to frame what I was feeling in terms that didn’t involve damnation or failure. Later, I was also sent to a psychiatrist, Dr. Otten. I didn’t go for many sessions and luckily he didn't try and drug me. That would come later. Whether it helped or not is still up for debate.

By the end of that term, my mom and Niels had bought a house together. 44 First Avenue Illovo, not far from the Barclays. It was a sprawling bungalow on an acre of land, with a tennis court, swimming pool, and a layout that made no architectural sense. Niels claimed the wing closest to the court—complete with bar, naturally. My mom and I took the other half. I never understood why they moved in together, but it was the moment Niels, fifteen years older, became the de facto father in my life. My actual father was still back in Mallorca, distracted and far away.

The only real joy came when our possessions finally arrived from Mallorca. And a few months later, after quarantine, so did the dogs—Honey, my loyal Labrador, and Candy, Briony’s little Maltese poodle, now nearing her twilight years after doing the round-trip from South Africa to Mallorca and back again.

Those first months back in South Africa were disorienting. I was a stranger in my own country. My Spanish was better than my English, and Afrikaans? Forget it. St. John's was cold and intimidating. My friends were far away in Mallorca. And my anxiety—ever the loyal companion—had returned with a vengeance.