WE COULDN’T STOP HUGGING!
His wife stands accused of plotting his murder but Austin doesn’t believe a word of it and is just delighted to have her home after 10 months
THE last time we saw him he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Lonely and heartbroken, Austin Coetzee couldn’t fathom how his beloved wife could stand accused of plotting to kill him. But six months on he looks like a new man as he opens the door for us.
His brown shoes shine and he’s neatly dressed in dark jeans and dark-grey jacket. The aroma of a pot of curry cooking on the stove fills his home in Kenilworth, Cape Town. On the coffee table in the living room stands a bunch of orange roses with a card that reads, “Welcome home!”
Austin (66) grins from ear to ear as he confirms the news.
“She came home on Thursday afternoon,” he tells us. His wife of more than a decade, Petina Coetzee (45), is back home after being away for 10 long months.
Austin and Tina – as she’s known to family and friends – have been separated since 18 October last year after a tip-off led to her being taken into custody by police. She allegedly wanted to pay a hitman R200 000 to have Austin killed and was arrested after one of her employees informed the police of her plans (YOU, 9 March).
Tina isn’t home during our visit as her lawyers have advised her not to do interviews at this stage. One of the conditions of her and Austin’s reunion is that they may not talk about the ongoing court case as he’s a state witness.
And yet after everything that’s happened her husband still steadfastly maintains she’s innocent. The semiretired businessman says he has no
qualms about sleeping under the same roof as the woman who stands accused of plotting his murder as he believes his wife is the victim of a scam.
“Her determination in that regard reinforced my belief she got dragged into a situation and she couldn’t get out of it,” he explains.
AUSTIN doesn’t mince his words. He concedes that the past months have been hell on earth. As the terms of Tina’s R30 000 bail stipulated she was to have no contact with her husband, she was forced to live with family while Austin took care of their four-year-old as well as a son from his wife’s previous relationship.
Although her kids were permitted to visit her she wasn’t allowed to have any communication with Austin so the two saw each other only during court proceedings.
But the couple missed each other so desperately that her lawyer, William Booth, asked the Wynberg magistrate’s court to lift the restriction keeping them apart. When this request was denied Tina’s legal team took their fight to the high court in Cape Town.
“I didn’t think it was going to be granted, to be quite honest,” Austin says. But on the afternoon of Thursday 27 July, he got a huge surprise.
Tina’s family called to ask him if they could bring him some takeaway chicken. “I said, ‘But I’ve already prepared something,’ and they said: ‘No, no, we’re going to bring some Nando’s chicken for you.’ They marched in here and she was hiding in the background . . .”
When Tina emerged from behind them her first words to her husband were, “I missed you so much!”
Everyone was emotional, Austin recalls. “The kids were all over her. She cried and I cried. It was so fantastic to see her. We just couldn’t stop hugging each other.”
Austin called the neighbours and told them Tina was home. “They brought her flowers.”
That night Austin, Tina and their two children sat around a table and ate macaroni and cheese together for the first time in months.
The next day Austin spoilt Tina by taking her out for breakfast, lunch and supper.
Austin says it was incredibly difficult Earlier this year Austin was heartbroken because he missed his wife. The terms of Tina’s bail stipulated she was to have no contact with her husband. for the family to manage without his wife.
Tina – who among other things owns a photo business in Cape Town’s northern suburbs – has two sons from a previous relationship: one aged 21 who’s based in Johannesburg and a minor who lives with her and Austin.
The traumatic events took their toll on everyone. Even Austin started seeing a psychologist. He says that lonely Sundays were the worst for him. “It was just affecting everybody so badly.”
He and Tina have been together for more than 12 years. After meeting at a horseracing club, love bloomed despite their 21-year age gap.
And yet Austin acknowledges that recent events forced him to reassess their relationship and ask himself many difficult questions.
“Why don’t I just walk away from all of this? Why not just divorce my wife, take full custody of my son and go somewhere? And then I thought, ‘You know, what’s that going to do?’ If she’s not guilty, is that fair? Is it fair to take the child away from her? What are we both going to do with our lives? One’s going to go in one direction and the other is going in another?”
He pauses for a moment before he continues. “And then I came to a decision. No matter what happens I’m not going to do that. Because she’s my partner for life. And she feels exactly the same way.”
In Tina’s first week at home the family tried to find their feet and get back into their routine.
“Her being back took a lot of pressure off me at home and it’s just nice to have someone to talk to,” Austin says.
They also quickly realised that not everyone was prepared to stand by them during this difficult time. When Austin and Tina went to have Sunday lunch at a nearby sports club a couple who’d usually have greeted them simply turned their backs and ignored them.
“When you go through situations like that, people you hardly thought were friends are supportive and people you thought of as friends disappear,” Austin says, shaking his head sadly. Yes, he needs more answers. “We’ll be seeing a social worker,” he says. “There are questions I need answered. I just need to understand how everything evolved with this case.”
More than anything he hopes that once Tina’s trial – which is expected to start in November – has run its course they can put everything behind them. Even if it means uprooting themselves from their comfortable home in Kenilworth and moving somewhere new so they can start afresh.
‘Why don’t I just walk away from all of this? If she’s not guilty, is that fair?’