Kitchen Boy

by Jenny Hobbs

  On the dais, he positions himself too close to Bishop Chauncey who moves a few steps away. Clamping one hand on the corner of the lectern, then raising his massive head to address the microphones, Ferdy begins his eulogy with, ‘Friends, ladies and players, lend me your ears. I come to bury J J and to praise him –’

  ‘This is going to be a good fifteen minutes,’ Lofty sighs.

  Kenneth says in a judicial voice, ‘Interesting, though. Who’d guess the Bull of the Boland could quote Shakespeare?’

  ‘Nothing surprises me any more. But the bishop is going to explode.’

  Purkey has also noticed and mutters to Clyde. ‘His Grace is taking heavy strain.’

  ‘You reckon he’s got a problem? My feet are sore.’

  ‘So are mine. It’s part of the job, sonny.’

  ‘I’m not used to standing still for so long.’

  As Clyde shifts from one foot to the other the copper horns in his ears glimmer, catching the eyes of a number of women. Unlike the men who’ve perked up, rugby talk doesn’t rivet them.

  Bridget thinks, I wonder if the holes go septic?

  Barbara sees Clyde as the Devil in a modern-day Faust: very pale in moth-eaten tails, with horns sticking out of his ears rather than his head. Subtle and insinuating.

  Petronella nudges Bobby and whispers, ‘See that one? D’you think he’s a drug dealer?’

  ‘You can’t tell these days.’ Bobby adds, ‘But this is an expensive funeral. They wouldn’t use skollies.’

  Petronella giggles, ‘Skollies. You’re so old-fashioned, Bobby.’

  ‘That’s me.’ He smiles at her, squeezing her hand. ‘Still around, though.’

  She gives an answering squeeze.

  ‘And then there’s the time J J says at a Bok reunion, he says, “We are going to win that World Cup for Madiba. I feel it in my bones.” Some of the younger ones start singing, “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry Kitchen bones.” And he gets mad and shouts, “Have faith, manne! Don’t you remember what Oliver Cromwell said? Work hard, trust in God and keep your bowels open.” Everyone cracks up. I tell you people, that was the turning point –’

  It’s a vintage Ferdy van der Plank performance. An older sports journalist murmurs to his editor, ‘That was Kitchen Boy. Always down to brass tacks.’

  Shirley is seething. This man’s turning his eulogy into stand-up comedy. He’s got to be stopped. The bishop promised that speeches would only be three minutes each. It’s so wrong: John lying dead and that clown making everyone laugh. All these people have only come here to be seen, and not for John. We should have had a small service and a wake at home, like I wanted.

  To keep the threatening tears at bay she turns to Lin. ‘Tell someone to stop him.’

  ‘But he’s saying all the things Dad would have loved to hear.’ Lin is enjoying the stories. Ferdy van der Plank’s voice chainsaws through the solemnity, exposing facets of her father she’s never known about.

  ‘He’s turning this – this – awful funeral into a farce.’

  Lin sees that her mother is fighting to hold back a public display of emotion and says in a gentler voice, ‘I can’t, Mum.’

  ‘You must. Or tell Hugh. Please.’

  She looks so desperate that Lin turns to signal to Hugh: Can you do something about – jerking her head at Ferdy.

  Hugh frowns: No.

  Please?

  No.

  The big man launches into another story. Reverend George glances at his watch, weighing the value of a popular speaker against the increased length of the service. It’s the calculating look on his face that makes Bishop Chauncey crack. He is not going to have the affairs of his church dictated by a rugby bruiser from the sticks. He strides forward with his cope swinging after him, taps Ferdy on the shoulder and announces, ‘Excuse me, sir. You’re in injury time.’

  ‘What?’ Ferdy swings round, tilting the lectern. The congregation freezes.

  ‘Injury time. Be a good chap and finish your tribute. There’s to be a family burial after this service and it can’t go on too long.’ The bishop holds his ground. Custer’s last stand, he’s thinking. So far and no further.

  The lectern clunks back into place as the big man raises both hands and says, ‘Okay, fair enough, man. I’m getting carried away. I just want these folks in the Last Outpost to know what Kitchen Boy contributed to SA rugby. He did us proud and goes to his rest with top honours. Top honours, hoor? Dankie, mense.’

  As he stomps back to his pew there is scattered applause, as much for the bishop’s daring as for Ferdy van der Plank’s eloquence.

  ‘Chauncey’s lucky he didn’t get a klap,’ whispers Lofty to Kenneth. ‘J J would have enjoyed a good shemozzle. All of this, actually.’

  ‘It’s a pity you never get to hear the nice things people say after you die.’

  Kenneth wonders if anyone will care or even notice when he dies.

  It’s the way in which it sweeps up the individual life and gives it an importance beyond itself which I think is the secret of war’s perennial attraction, which is that people will put up with almost anything in order to have a meaning in their life. I think the same thing is at work in terrorism very often.

  – PAT BARKER, interview on the BBC’s Hardtalk Extra, 2007

  The men who did not – or could not – join up would never understand the current that sparked between those who had gone to war, even among the captured who had sat in POW camps out of the action. Memories of rough living and the brotherhood of battle, of relying utterly on a comrade yet losing him to random death, were the overriding ones. Unspoken were the fleeting moments that gilded war: a black sky patterned with glittering arcs of tracer bullets, a cocky thumbs-up from a mate before an attack, flying through cloud canyons, watching a bird from a foxhole and knowing that it would go on pecking and tugging at worms once the gunfire stopped.

  J J felt the same about rugby. He enjoyed all the obvious things: the sweat and muscle-ache of training, the team spirit, playing with men who could take punishment and come up fiercely grinning, the games, the back-slapping after a good one, the beers. But there were singular moments that kept him going for several years after his knee began giving him trouble. The starchy crackle when putting on new shorts. The buzz of jogging out with his team at the beginning of a match. The upswelling grandeur of thousands of voices singing national anthems. The adoration in a boy’s eyes.

  He never did understand why Shirley turned against rugby as he grew older, saying it was as bad for men’s souls as for their bodies. She had a •thing about men hanging onto their youth when they should know better. Getting their kicks out of seeing others get kicked, she’d say, refusing to go with him to the private boxes, even when women were invited.

  No skin off his nose, to be honest. Wives got in the way of man-talk.

  · 24 ·

  PURKEY STIFLES A YAWN, HIS HAND CUPPED in front of his mouth. Digby & Smith’s rules don’t allow any lapses on the job, but it’s been a really long service. He glances sideways to check on Clyde and catches him exposing his tongue stud to one of the girls in the second pew.

  ‘Stop that, or else.’

  ‘Or else what?’

  ‘It’s tickets, I’m warning you. Mr Digby Senior won’t tolerate misconduct in public.’

  ‘Think I care?’ Clyde takes the gap. ‘I’m quitting, anyway. The job’s boring and my feet get sore standing around in these stupid shoes.’

  Purkey suspected as much. The boy doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. It’s clean employment with good pay and smart attire and Wendell Purkey for a mentor, the best in the business. In Durban, at least. You’ve got to know your onions, dickying up a customer to look good for a final viewing if the face is discoloured or there are head injuries. Purkey’s an artist when it comes to concealing wounds and cavities and autopsy scars, and creating a natural-looking face with plastic skin and skilful makeup. Old bruises are a challenge, though; yellow and green have a way of showing throug
h.

  ‘It’s not long now,’ he soothes. ‘We’ll soon be busy with the exit procession, then the drive to Stellawood and the interment. There’s a Herald family plot.’

  ‘Kitchen Boy was one of them? Those sugar barons are worth a fortune, man.’

  ‘His mother was. But they cut her off after his father went bung. Stuck-up bunch.’ Purkey gets his own back on the haughty and their relatives by making corpses look as if they died thinking grim thoughts. You can see the survivors having the heebie-jeebies about what’s in the will.

  Clyde looks wistful. ‘I could do with some of their bucks.’

  ‘Half of them haven’t got any, they’re just keeping up appearances. Inside those big old mansions the floorboards are being eaten away by white ants and the stuffing’s falling out the sofas and –’

  ‘Will you two stop that interminable yapping?’ The grey-haired woman’s head juts from behind the column again.

  ‘Shame, ouma.’ Clyde gives an irritating grin.

  ‘Watch it. She’s one of them too,’ Purkey warns.

  Bishop Chauncey stands taller now, his mitre erect, his hands embracing the lectern with the confidence of a person who has fought the good fight and overcome all obstacles. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are nearing the end of the service.’

  People are nudged to wake up. Old men feel for their walking sticks. Women rummage in handbags for lipsticks and car keys. Rugby players flex muscles that have gone numb. Businessmen consult their watches and yes, it’s too late to go back to the office. The mayor sits contented, her anti-crime strategy launched. The stained-glass lozenges have reached the tops of the columns and turn orange as the sun sinks into the late-afternoon smog above Berea.

  ‘There are just two more eulogies before the final prayers,’ the bishop ploughs on, ‘after which the close family will proceed to the burial. Mr Hugh Kitching will speak first.’

  Hugh has written a speech full of platitudes, though when he reaches the dais he can’t say any of it. He just says, ‘I am John’s son and I disagreed with him for most of my life, but I want to say now that I was wrong. He was patriotic and proud of it, and I am immensely, enormously proud of him and also of being his son. I hope you knew that when you left us, Dad. Rest in peace.’

  Shirley glares as he walks past. Why is she so offended by his speaking from the heart? He never seems to get it right with his mother. There is scattered applause from the Moths, stilled by a frown from the bishop as Reverend George murmurs, ‘Last, there’s Mr Rabindranath Pillay. Hotel magnate and owner of –’

  ‘I know who Mr Pillay is.’ He pauses. ‘He is a Hindu, if I’m not mistaken?’

  ‘He’s an important man. Always in the papers.’

  The bishop clenches his hands to maintain his composure. Does this pipsqueak think he doesn’t read?

  Struggling not to stutter, he manages, ‘Ah – Mr Rabindranath Pillay will give the last eulogy. Mr Pillay?’

  ‘Present and correct, sir.’

  He is already walking down the red carpet, where he stops at J J’s coffin to lay a hand on the flag and murmur something before continuing up the steps to the dais. He has a trim moustache and wears a neat Nehru jacket.

  The bishop mumbles a welcome, conscious of the unblinking eyes of the TV cameras and the keen ears of the microphones.

  ‘Thank you. Shall I stand here?’ Pillay asks, indicating the centre of the dais where the mayor and Zeke Dladla had stood, well-placed for spotlights and microphones.

  ‘If you prefer.’

  ‘I prefer.’

  ‘Very well.’ Bishop Chauncey folds his hands inside his capacious sleeves.

  ‘Greetings.’ Rabindranath Pillay looks around at the expectant congregation. He is known for speaking his mind. ‘I too am patriotic, and I am proud to be so. In this rich combination of cuisines we call KwaZulu-Natal, my people make up some of the ingredients. As all ingredients are essential to the flavour of the whole, so all of us are interdependent. John Kitching knew this. He did business with me long ago when it was not legal to do so, and we continued to do business together until he retired.

  ‘Though we were good friends, we were very different. He liked his chief product, Castle Lager, and I like Coke. He tried to dissuade me from drinking Coke and I tried to persuade him that cricket is a nobler game than rugby. Both of us failed in this. But we did not fail in our admiration of each other or in our mutual dealings. Like most South Africans, whatever their hue, we had a lot in common. We sought out the hottest curries in Durban and the fastest horses at Greyville and Clairwood. We valued politicians who play with a straight bat and people who put the good of others first.’

  ‘One minute,’ mutters Lofty.

  ‘Like our mayor here,’ Pillay raises his head and also his voice. ‘I fully agree with every word she said about the criminals who are laying waste to our children, our city and our country. Mayor Thembi, you have my backing. You may call on me at any time for support.’

  The mayor nods her appreciation with a smile.

  Now he’s starting, the bishop fumes.

  Pillay goes on, ‘We are here to give due honour to John Kitching. But in praising him, I don’t want to paint an untrue picture. He was a brave man with flaws, as we all have. He demanded a lot from people. Got impatient. Liked to win. Had some conservative ideas when he was younger. I need not enumerate what they were to this gathering of mostly KwaZulu-Natal people.’ He pauses to scan the congregation. ‘But he changed, as we all must. And then –’

  Rabindranath Pillay glances at his watch as his three minutes end, and concludes, ‘So there you have the Kitchen Boy I knew. Go well, my friend.’

  ‘On the dot,’ Lofty says. ‘Bloody amazing.’

  Pillay makes polite namaste to the bishop, Reverend George and Shirley in turn, before returning to his pew.

  The journalists have recorded his speech as well as the mayor’s. There’ll be juicy headlines tomorrow.

  Bishop Chauncey turns to the altar with a gush of relief that the ordeal is over. His chances of being promoted are nil now, but he only has to get through the actual burial before he can escape to his study with its trove of malt whiskies.

  ‘Lord have mercy on us,’ he says, with feeling.

  Sam sits with his sniffling aunt on one side and his father shiny-eyed at the end of the pew, and wonders, What would Grampa say if he was watching all this?

  He thinks he knows: ‘You’re all bloody dilly, making such a fuss and crying. I’m in Valhalla having the time of my life. Over and out.’

  Sam hopes that Valhalla makes up for the bad times that gave Grampa’s face the deep grooves which made him look as if he’d been clawed by a monster.

  A lot of women enjoyed the war – both the first and the second – because it liberated them in many respects.

  – PAT BARKER, interview on the BBC’s Hardtalk Extra, 2007

  It wasn’t all saluting and marching, the former WAAF air corporal in the Moth pew muses. There were so many young men passing through Durban and looking for a good time. They just stood by the roadside and people picked them up and took them home for a square meal, happy to be contributing to the war effort. Her mother often brought soldiers home, ever hopeful her daughter would land a good catch – perhaps a lawyer or an engineer – on his way Up North, or to the Far East to fight the Japs.

  ‘You don’t want a man whose career is the military,’ she’d instruct. ‘There’s a steely core and they’re dangerous. They only trust other men and don’t much like women.’

  ‘But I’m meeting so many lovely blokes.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, you hear? Men try to talk you into things.’

  Flaunting her new independence, she said, ‘I can look after myself, Ma.’

  Air corporals could also do a hundred other things mothers never dreamed of. The WAAFs had sent her to 77 Air School in Pretoria for a year to train as an artisan. Posted back to Durban, she could calibrate compasses, wind armatures, instal
l electrical wiring, time camshafts and crankshafts and pistons, even dismantle and reassemble aero engines. Towards the end of the war she was working on a team that could put together a plane in five days, proud of the fact that they were crucial to the war effort. General Smuts said that every woman who worked at home freed two men for Up North.

  And then she made her big mistake: let his lordship talk her into bed.

  She shifts in the pew and glances sideways at the former major with gravy stains on his tie and a nasty glint in his eye that means he’s going to try it again – talk her into a bed in a home full of rickety old people. Reckons I’m going gaga and he can manage without me, she thinks. Ha! He’s got a shock coming to him.

  She tucks stray bits of hair back into her untidy bun. Kitchen Boy would have appreciated her. She’s the one with the steely core.

  Handwritten letter from ‘Ouma’ Smuts, which was copied and distributed to homecoming servicemen at the end of the war:

  Irene, Transvaal

  We are all very glad that you will soon be coming home to your own dear land & we want you to know that our thoughts are constantly with you & our hearts are filled with gratitude & joy at the thought of seeing you ere long. You have had a hard time and faced many dangers and made great sacrifices in order that we might live in peace & security & enjoy our accustomed freedom. For all this we are truly grateful & South Africa is proud of you all who responded so loyally when she called for volunteers to help to beat back the enemy from our borders.

  It will be a great & glorious day for you & all of us when, with our other brave Boys and Girls, you will return home & receive the biggest & most joyful welcome that awaits you here. But just now we send you our heartfelt thanks & best wishes & we hope you will spend a happy time until that great day of return & reunion. God bless you!