Read Online Reeva: A Mother's Story by June Steenkamp - Free Book Online

When she was that age, she used to give me a list of what she’d eaten every day because she did not want to get fat. So I had to sit and listen to what she’d eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was her own little OCD thing, and I listened patiently because I knew it was part of her ambition to become a model. She wanted to look after herself. I’ve always been a vegetarian or a ‘fishatarian’ – because when I was younger I was obsessed with not eating animals. It was a romantic kind of thing: I gave up meat, then chicken, eggs and fish, and I ended up very sick. The doctor explained that if you’ve grown up eating animal protein, your body continues to need or expect it. But I only ate fish when I carried Reeva in my womb and she was never crazy about meat. I suppose, if your mother is a total vegetarian, you’re just not exposed as much to meat. She certainly had meat now and again. I didn’t try to influence her. She was always going to have her own ideas. As a mother, you have to let them develop their own way. More than anything, she was into fish and cakes. Banana cake was her speciality. She loved baking. Unlike me at her age, she was perfectly capable at cooking and she enjoyed trying out recipes. She wanted to be competent in everything she did.

With the modelling, it wasn’t so much being in the limelight that she enjoyed but the feeling that she was following a path that marked her out as someone who was going to do something special with their life. She wanted to make something of herself. Nobody listens to the bag lady with her trolley full of all her clothes, do they? She wanted to be somebody notable so people would listen to her. There was a tendency, I felt, in some of her early pictures for her to be over made up. She didn’t need make-up. She had strong colouring with her blue eyes, dark hair, freckles and incredibly clear skin. I think she was more beautiful without any make-up. And she had a positive choice of clothing. She always had the handbag, you know. It was in Grade 10 that Mrs Ntlangu became aware she was blossoming. ‘I looked at her one day and noticed how that child is growing and I said, “Reeva, I think you should do modelling. You’ve got a very beautiful face.” When she walked, she had nice upright shoulders. Reeva smiled and said, “Thank you, ma’am” – always so gentle and full of courtesy.’

Reeva worked for my friend Jennifer at the restaurant she owned back then, Buffalo Bills. Jennifer had her front of house because she charmed customers. She could talk to anyone as if she were one of their own. I remember once in our kitchen, Reeva was sighing to Jenny about her maths homework and Jenny just said, ‘Darling, you are so lovely and gorgeous, you won’t have to do maths for long. You are going to be a famous model, Miss South Africa!’

When she was sixteen or seventeen, Reeva wrote to Craig Native, the designer who was raised in the ghettos of South Africa at the height of apartheid, and asked him to design a dress for her. That was quite a bold thing for a schoolgirl from Port Elizabeth to do, but he responded to her in similar vein. She kept the letter in her box of special memories. ‘I would gladly like to design you a dress… obviously,’ he replied. ‘I am a fan of non-conformity… like yourself. I know you’re in PE. We’ll make it work somehow, though? We’ll innovate.’

After school, Reeva wanted to study law. She enrolled in the four-year Bachelor of Laws degree at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University which has a campus in Summerstrand, Port Elizabeth, close to the beach The course covered all the different kinds of law – constitutional, family, criminal, human rights, labour, company, administrative, property, insolvency and so on. Within the first few days of class she met Kristin, who was later to become a good friend to her in Johannesburg, too, when they were both graduates. Kristin reminded me that at this stage she