CHARMAIN NAIDOO: Manners maketh the despot go quietly
'Good manners, good behaviour to the end. No ranting and raving; no kicking and screaming'
It was always a source of utter amazement to my dear ex-husband and me, how his stepmother – even in the throes of dementia – kept her impeccable good manners. Good manners. Hmmm. It’s the last thing to go, apparently, an incredulous Francois would say.Mrs C (on the arm of a long suffering nurse in the end) would personally answer the door to their once very grand Westcliff, Johannesburg mansion, now Miss Havisham dusty with the stale smell of old age and wet dog. She’d usher us into the stygian gloom of her sitting room with its closed tapestry curtains, the only light coming from a dim bulb under a tattered ochre lampshade. I’d never known this room, this house, in its glory days, but I’d heard tales of parties that rocked the mountain side on which this palatial home sat, overlooking the canopy of trees that is Johannesburg’s man-made forest down below, overlooking the zoo. On a clear day, you could see lion and elephant, hear them roar and trumpet. It felt Hollywood grand. I was...
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