Carol’s Column

Life is just a set of false teeth

"TO LOVE and cherish," say the words of the marriage service, "Til death do us part," and so on.

When I married my husband, my father was thrilled. "I'm not losing a daughter, I'm gaining an investment," he said joyfully.

My mother-in-law was more specific. "I'm not losing a son, I heard her tell her friend Mona, "I'm getting a bargain."

I should have heeded those words. There was much truth in them. Little did I realise in those early days that my husband saw me as a bargain as I came complete with 1963 Ford Prefect, a record-player and the latest Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole recordings.

I should have been warned that first week when he brought home a legless chair.

"We'll paint it fire-engine red and grow creepers over the sides," he said, placing it in our still somewhat naked lounge one-roomed flat.

That was when I realised he was a sale freak. It didn't matter who, where or what. If there was a sale in Johannesburg, my husband would be there, first in the bargain row.

After the legless chair, came a complete set of cutlery minus knives, a 41-year-old aspidistra from the old Anstey's Building and the motor (in working order) of a washing machine.

In those days I was thrilled with my husband's ingenuity. He refurbished the bathroom with fittings from the newly-demolished old Carlton Hotel.

It didn't matter that the toilet seat was a different colour to the cistern and the chain came off a disused bicycle without handlebars or wheels.

From the Railway's Lost-and-Found came a perfect set of false teeth, uppers and lowers for special occasions such as weddings or barmitzvahs, a suitcase full of black clothes and a chiffon suspender belt with red rosettes. The foundations of our marriage are built on junk.

I came to this conclusion while eating breakfast off our reject-railway sleeper table.

We're the only family in Parkwood, in fact in Africa, with a two-legged Steinway grand piano, minus upper keys — they went missing in action during the World War Two that was used as a coffin for an Austrian Count.

It balances on a piece of metal unearthed at an iron-age site near Parys which my husband bought for a song in 1972. The piece of metal, not the site.

Without a doubt, his best buy is the punctured waterbed he bought at a garage sale.

It took several weeks to locate the leak and then another two before the glue had solidified. A day to fill with lukewarm water and then we were all set for action.

We bounced our way to bed that night only to wake in a dismal puddle. Downstairs the reconditioned and newly-reupholstered land-rover seat, a perfect lounge settee in purple dralon, had floated on to the patio.

One memorable afternoon I got home from a jumble sale three doors down — you see I'd been bitten by the bug. I hauled the 1923 Singer Treadle sewing machine without the treadle but with the wheel, inside.

The priceless Georgian teapot made in Japan, the clear lines uncluttered by a bothersome spout (it had fallen off en route to Sotheby's), looked excellent as I poured tea for my little family of seven.

Seven? I didn't have six children.

I wasn't sure, but there were two that weren't mine.

My husband looked a little sheepish as he took a bite of home-made cheese muffin.

"Listen, I know you're not going to believe this," he said, smiling in that rather hesitant way he has when he brings home a new treasure.

"I bought them at the church sale. I got a special discount price for bulk because they were twins."

They were rather sweet.

"They are rather cute," I remarked to my husband. "Especially the dark-haired little girl, she looks quite a bit like me, don't you think?"

"So she should," he replied. "That's one of ours."

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