On June 4, 1995, I used my first credit card for the first time. It was at Ellis Park, during the Rugby World Cup. I can’t remember how much credit I had on the card. I’m not sure I cared much. Credit takes away your cares.
My first purchase with that credit card was two Ireland rugby jerseys, one for me, and one for my brother, Brian. I think they cost R300 or R400 each. I could be wrong. They were the Nike-sponsored version, with the word “Nike” written in the cradle of the swoosh. We pulled them on straight away.
Our tickets were close to the Welsh tryline in the second half, close enough to see Eddie Halvey score Ireland’s third try to give them a 10-point lead. We screamed like banshees, spilt beer and came over all Irish. The Welsh were not yet done and in the end Ireland won by just one point. A piece in The Independent described it as one of the more dire matches of the World Cup. It may have been the beer and the fact it was the only World Cup match we watched live, but we thought it was a belter.
I recently found those old Irish jerseys in my house in Boksburg I once shared with Brian. The green had faded, the fit was a little tighter, but they spoke of a grand old time for South Africa and the McCallums. The last few weeks have been a heavy flood of memories, of remembering, rejoicing and regretting. We had a fair amount of sports gear in that house, dozens of Liverpool FC jerseys, Springbok jumpers, CBC Old Boys hockey team kit, balls, bats and bikes. Sport was not everything to us, but it was the thing that took the edge off and made everything seem a little bit easier to deal with.
When I was on the committee of the Old Boys club, Brian and I would work behind the bar, a job I would wish on no-one. It took all of our free time, but the club needed the money we generated to survive and so we gave up a year of our lives running it. Brian and my mum worked long hours alongside me in that bar. Brian never complained. He loved the club.
I found a picture of Brian the other day. It was taken, I think, when we still lived in Northern Ireland. I could be wrong. I’m guessing he was about eight years old.
It is one of those school photographs, the ones they made us sit for every year. Brian is wearing a shirt and tie, and a jersey. We didn’t have a uniform at school in Northern Ireland, but my mum always made us dress up for the school photographs. It was the smile in the picture that is typically McCallum. Brian has the cheekiest grin, a reluctant smile eked out of him by the photographer. It’s the smile that stayed with him all of his life.
That is how I will remember Brian, as the boy who became a man but never got old. Brian was the middle child, just 11 months younger than me, two years older than our brother Barry. He was born in Newtownards in Northern Ireland, a town between Belfast and the towns of Kircubbin and Portaferry, where my parents were born and grew up. Brian was blessed with a wonderful talent – the ability to make friends. People liked him immediately and liked him for the longest time. He had an easy way about him, a need to please and the time to sit and talk.
He perhaps gave too much of himself to others and didn’t spend enough time on his own needs. Brian always seemed to be on edge, searching for peace and contentment, always looking for his happy place. I think he thought he had come close to finding it a few times, but it slipped away. And yet, he never stopped giving his love and time to those around him. He never stopped making people like and care about him.
Late on the afternoon of June 11, my mother called me to tell me Brian was dead. The shock still sits heavy on us, it still seems unreal. We keep looking for him, waiting for a call. He was just 46. Brian was the boy who was never going to grow old, but now I suspect he and my dad, who passed away on Christmas Day in 2010, are finally having that talk they needed to have. I miss them both more than I ever told them.