Read Online Kitchen Boy by Jenny Hobbs - Free Book Online Page B

Moths too,’ Hugh objected.
    ‘Old men go on too long.’
    ‘They were his comrades in arms.’
    ‘A dying generation. Sadly,’ the Reverend added to appease him.
    ‘A generation that made sacrifices from which we’ve all benefited.’
    ‘Maybe. But –’
    ‘Those men went through hell with Dad. People should hear what they have to say.’
    ‘We don’t have enough time for reminiscences.’
    ‘I’ll make sure the speaker keeps it short.’
    ‘It may mean cutting out someone important.’
    ‘So be it. Being a Moth was important to my father.’
    ‘Very well, then.’ It was a grudging concession.
    Having won the argument, Hugh had to warn Lofty Munn not to talk for longer than three minutes.
    ‘It’s not enough.’
    ‘It’s all you’re allowed. There are other speakers. Please understand.’
    Lofty grumbled, ‘Nobody wants to listen these days. War’s two a penny. But I’ll pin their ears back. Owe it to J J.’
    ‘Three minutes at the most?’
    A bitter smile bared yellowed teeth. ‘Understood.’
    Pint-sized Lofty had lost a leg to gangrene at Campo 47 near Modena. He’ll tell them how it was, for effing sure. He sits at the aisle end of the second Moth pew, his notes shaking in the hand gripping his crutches as he awaits his cue.
    ‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord hath taken away.’ With a flourish, the bishop raises both hands. ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord.’
    Bobby Brewitt sits next to his wife Petronella in the third pew, thinking, The Lord hath taken away, for sure. Can’t believe J J has gone. It seems just like yesterday that we were kids, and here I am, eighty-two in the shade, still alive and kicking.
    He nudges Petronella and whispers, ‘Thanks to you.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ she mouths back.
    ‘You’ve looked after me. I’m grateful to still be here, girl.’
    ‘Girl!’ she snorts, a cheerful hippo in a floral dress with matching picture hat bought at Milady’s for the important funeral, not wanting to let Bobby down by looking like a boerevrou from the sticks. He’d married her when he started as a porter on the railways. It took them thirty years to work up from a plot to a small banana farm near Port Shepstone, but they got there. Now they have grandchildren going to school with Zulu kids like the ones who used to hang around the back steps of the trading store with nothing to do.
    Bobby couldn’t go to war because of bad eyesight; it seemed terrible at the time, but he was grateful when he saw the problems war sicked up afterwards. J J wasn’t the same when he came home. But he never forgot his old friend, making sure that Bobby got a complimentary ticket for every match he played in Durban, and in later years sending him invitations to the Breweries hospitality suite. Bobby only went once, because he felt out of place in velskoens and a sports coat that had seen better days. It was also hard to get used to J J being so famous.
    He prefers to remember way back to Umfolozi. How his father Reg walked out onto the platform just before noon every day in his stationmaster’s black suit with waistcoat – his Zobo watch on its looped chain – wearing a peaked cap and carrying red and green flags. Soon there’d be a toot-toot among the thorn trees and a steam locomotive came chuffing in, pulling trucks and a guard’s van. The brass pipes were shining, and the engine driver hung his elbow out the window.
    Half the village turned out when the train came, to unload or just stand and watch. The hatches and doors on the trucks clanged open. Boxes and cartons and sacks and farming implements were hustled out. Canvas postbags were dumped from the guard’s van onto the platform. Drums rumbled down gangplanks. People shouted. Dogs barked. On the siding, the last bundles of sugar cane were stamped down into place. A ganger uncoupled empty cane trucks, signalled the driver to shunt forward, then back into the siding, and hitched on the loaded ones. At last Reg Brewitt’s