Just Dessert, Dear
by Marita Van der Vyver (Tafelberg, R138)
Ideal fare for many frustrated women, but more particularly divorcees and those who have found themselves being cheated on by a spouse, Just Dessert, Dear certainly lives up to its title.
It allows the reader a little vicarious enjoyment of the payback that most women who have been wronged secretly plot against their errant exes, not to mention the catharsis of realising that someone else feels the way you do and reacts to being betrayed in a human way: with despair, tears, frustration, a measure of forbearance, dependence on others and even humour.
The story is encapsulated in the letters which Clara Brand sends to her friends, sister, husband, children and even the former friend who managed to steal away her husband from her.
Through these very real communiqués, the reader experiences the anguish of losing a spouse to another woman, the mourning of the relationship, the uncertainties associated with rediscovering life as a single mother of three (sometimes difficult) children, the knowledge that friends are available for support, and later, the ups and downs of relearning how to date after many years of marriage and motherhood. It felt like I was reading the confessions of a close friend.
Set over 10 years, against a typically South African background, one cannot help but feel “at home” reading this book. First and foremost, there are the all too familiar worries – expressed in letter form – over emigrés who’ve left their South African counterparts and struck out for “safer” climes, then there are the close calls with handbag snatchers and the contrived family Christmases.
Clara’s privileged background places her firmly in the category of a South African “Madam”, but with her experience as a food editor, (hence the cookery references) she and her domestic worker pull off a politically correct recipe book coup, showing that there is life after divorce.
Having shared a house some years ago with a woman whose husband had strayed, and who had subsequently endured the agonies of divorce, I really identified with Clara Brand’s character, and found myself rooting for the most satisfactory conclusion… which would see her serving up a nice cold plate of revenge.