by Jenny Hobbs
Green matting is laid over the soil from the freshly dug grave, with the brass rails and lowering mechanism in place, and a semicircle of plastic chairs set out.
‘Thoughtful,’ Lofty says, collapsing into the nearest of them. ‘My stump is giving me what-for.’
‘The daughter – Linda, is it? – arranged everything.’
‘She’s taking J J’s death hard.’ Kenneth had watched her sobbing exodus during the service.
‘All death is hard. But he had a good innings.’
‘Herbie will too, by the looks of him,’ Lofty says. ‘Quite the mogul. Funny how we all went in different directions after being demobbed. You share some wooden boards and a blanket with a chap, swapping fleas and lice, and next thing he’s a millionaire.’
‘Good man, Herbie. I represented him when he needed an advocate. Won all the cases.’ Kenneth stands a little straighter at the memory.
‘He was bloody lucky to get through the war without being spotted.’
‘Being in a work camp had its advantages. No gas chambers.’
‘We had our terrors, but that –’ Lofty shivers. Herbie had told them about the poor buggers in his labour camp who were sent to Auschwitz to construct a so-called synthetic oil plant, which supposedly explained the black smoke later coming from the chimneys.
‘Called ethnic cleansing now. Hard to believe it’s still happening.’
‘Hard to believe war, full stop. We must have been mad to volunteer.’
‘I’d call it ignorant.’
‘Some men loved it.’
‘Some men are fools.’
The conversation peters out as they wait for the other mourners to arrive. After a while Kenneth sits down too, feeling for the coin in its paper wrapping in his blazer pocket. He knows what to do now.
As soon as Lin has Shirley settled next to her in the leading limo, she says, ‘Are you going to tell Hugh, or shall I?’
Shirley looks at her son and the limo driver helping Purkey slide the wreaths into position down the sides of the coffin. ‘You mean now?’
‘Yes. You owe it to him.’ Lin tries not to look accusing.
‘Right now?’
Her mother looks a mess: swollen eyelids, rumpled dress, lipstick worn off and her hairdo awry. Lin says, ‘Yes. You’ve avoided telling us long enough.’
‘I don’t want it spread around. I couldn’t bear people gossiping about John not knowing. It would make him seem less of a –’ She falters.
‘We know he wasn’t a paragon of virtue.’
‘I thought you idolised him.’ The flatness in Shirley’s voice betrays what she has always felt about her children: that they admired their father more than her. She may have been the dutiful wife and mother who’d given up her career, but he was the valiant breadwinning father they respected and loved.
‘Oh, Mum.’ Lin looks into her mother’s uncertain eyes. ‘No more than we idolise you. Hugh and I think you’re a great mother. We wouldn’t dream of hurting you. Please don’t worry. We’ll keep your other son’s existence a secret.’
‘My other son’s name is Langley Adamson, after his adoptive father.’
‘Langley Adamson. Frightfully English.’ Lin tries to sound flippant to cover the rawness she feels. ‘Are the parents still alive?’
‘No, and nor are his wife’s. My grandchildren need a granny, not just a photograph. They’re quite young still: ten, eight and five. Two girls and a boy. I’m longing to meet them.’
Not just a half-brother, then. A whole family, with kids. It’s a dizzying thought. Lin says, ‘I wonder how Sam will feel.’
‘Sam thought the sun shone out of John. He won’t like it.’
‘Hugh’s reaction might be more of a problem.’
‘Yes. He was a dear little boy, sensitive like Sam.’
Lin can’t help saying, ‘Not tough like me?’
‘Different. You are so like your father. But both of you were a tremendous comfort to me after losing my baby. To hold a child, feeling a little body warm against you, knowing how much you’re needed –’ Her eyes fill with tears that spill down her cheeks past her dabbing tissue.
Lin puts an arm around her shoulders and says, ‘We still need you, Mum. And it’s okay to cry. Nobody’s watching. I’ll tell Hugh.’
The hearse enters the second cemetery gate and drives slowly up the road, followed by a songololo of three hired black limos and several cars carrying Moths glad of a break from the quietude of retirement. The press and general public have not been invited to this private burial.
As soon as Purkey has pulled up, he opens the door and hurries back to the third limo where he gestures at Theodora to open the window. ‘I’m all right now. Managed to contact one of my assistants and he’ll be here any minute.’
‘So you don’t need more help.’
‘No, but thanks, eh? I really appreciate the way you assisted at the church.’ He is all bashful gratitude above the formal tails and wing collar that has started to wilt under assault from his chins. ‘People see undertakers as untouchables, a caste that deals with death. But we’re artists, you know? Laying out clients so they look decent. Helping loved ones to choose a suitable casket. Orchestrating funerals. Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth for evermore. Ecclesiasticus.’
The words have gushed out and he stands panting a little as he waits for her response. He looks so eager to impress that she is impelled to say, ‘It can’t be an easy job.’
‘No, it’s not. But every now and again someone notices my efforts and I feel vindicated, if that’s the right word. Thanks, eh?’
‘You’re welcome, Mr Purkey.’ She smiles and moves towards the front limo where Lin is sitting between her mother and her brother.
A fine woman, Purkey thinks as he turns to watch Theodora go.
The South African War Museum … will remind us, I hope, not only of the part we played in the recent great struggle to save civilisation, but also of the horrors, the loss of life and the devastation, and serve as a warning to us to create a world in which we shall never have to use again the weapons of death and destruction we see here today, or those dreadful weapons to follow them.
– GENERAL JAN CHRISTIAAN SMUTS at the opening of the South African National War Museum, 29 August 1947
J J found an interesting quote about cards towards the end of his life, by a writer called Javier Marais: ‘Be patient and shuffle the cards.’
Young men had to learn patience in the prison camps. But it was hard when you itched to be up and doing. Flying somewhere. Fighting the enemy. Killing Huns.
Udwayi Dent, who’d shuffled the cards for the poker games before their Survivors B matches, was never patient – drumming his fingers on the bench while he waited for players to make up their minds. ‘Come on, man, call,’ he’d urge. ‘Get a move on. How many cards do you want, one or two?’
‘Shut up and deal,’ they’d say, knowing it would rile him. He played his best games when he was fired up and not off in a dwaal, back in the desert.
When he’d gone down in the Douala air crash they made weak jokes to cover their loss of yet another comrade, even though he’d grown sour and disparaging. Udwayi’s shuffled right off, they said.
‘Be patient and shuffle the cards’ gave J J the idea for his last words. Life had dealt him unpredictable hands and the older he got, the more random they seemed.
You never know who’s shuffling the cards, he thought. If there’s a God, it’s a pitiless one. He wondered in his last months if he’d meet his dead mother and friends again, but thought, Probably not. Would I want to? Probably not.
· 28 ·
THE LEADING LIMO HAS PULLED UP NEAR THE GRAVE SITE. Lin waits until the driver has got out and walked towards the hearse before telling Hugh the news. He’s in shock. There is a long silence while he sits with his head turned away, looking out the window.
She says, ‘Say something.’
‘Was Dad the father?’ he demands.
‘Two.’ Hugh looks stricken.
Lin says, ‘I thought girls didn’t, back then.’
‘You’d be surprised. We may not have had the Pill, but men used FLs. That’s what condoms were called then. French letters.’ Shirley blushes a hot pink.
‘Men? There were more?’
‘No, only two. I thought I was in love with one, then I fell for a medical student. We were having such a good time. The war was over. We were all working, earning, going to the flicks and dances. Being young and free.’
Hugh turns to confront his mother, ‘Shirley the good-time girl. Who’d have thought it?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protests. ‘I was in love. And we tried to be careful. Didn’t know those things weren’t reliable.’
‘You were a nurse. You must have known.’
‘Nurses have faith in modern science.’
‘You can hardly call a condom modern science.’
‘And war freed us from the old rules.’ Now the secret’s out, she wants to explain everything. ‘When I found I was pregnant, it was a disaster. I couldn’t tell my parents. They’d have been so ashamed. Dad could have lost his practice if it got around.’
‘You’re exaggerating.’
She shakes her head. ‘Believe it. Even now people are judgmental in small towns. Vets are like doctors: you need to trust them. So I applied for a job in Cape Town and had my baby there.’
‘On your own. Then had to give him away.’ Lin puts her arm around Shirley’s shoulders again, not sure if it’ll be shrugged off.
She lets it stay. ‘Nurses stick together, that’s another thing. I had friends who got me into a home for unmarried mothers and organised the private adoption. He went to a British couple who wanted to take him back to London and I thought it would be for the best.’
Hugh sticks his jaw out, aggressive now. ‘How do you know so much about him if he went to England?’
‘He tracked me down through the adoption papers and he’s been out several times to see me, always when John was away. I’d never have hurt your father, because I loved him very much. Couldn’t go overseas and meet my son’s family in case he found out.’
‘You don’t seem to mind hurting me.’
Lin says, ‘Shut up, bro. Can’t you see how hard this is for her?’
‘What about hard on us? Dad’s not even in his grave when we hear he was cuckolded and we have a bastard brother.’
‘Your father wasn’t cuckolded!’ Shirley flares. ‘You’re making it sound like a soap opera. The whole thing happened long before I met him. And Langley isn’t a bastard. He’s lovely.’
‘My brother dangly Langley.’
‘Stop it, Hugh. I only had him for an hour before they took him away. It was the worst moment of my life. I wanted to die.’
‘And you kept all this agony from Dad when you married him.’
How can she explain to this son who is lashing out because he’s been hurt – as she’d feared? In defending the father he has only just learnt to value, she doesn’t want him to lose sight of her own realities.
She says, ‘Listen to me. Like most of his generation, your father didn’t know the first thing about women. He was the man of the house struggling to hold down a job, act the war hero, be a Springbok, be a husband and father and deal with his demons. There was no sense of sharing then. Wives didn’t work, we kept house and raised the children. He didn’t notice that I wasn’t a virgin or when I was sad or felt lonely. I would have gone round the bend if I hadn’t had two more babies.’
There is a stunned silence. This is a mother they have never seen, speaking truths they don’t want to hear.
‘And you wait till now to tell me I’m son number two? Am I just another uncaring male?’
Lin jabs him with her elbow. ‘Stop being such a shit.’
‘It’s been a shock.’
‘I’ve had a shock too.’
‘Your shocks are nothing compared with the ones I’ve had to deal with. Believe me, you get through them.’ Shirley’s voice is gin dry. She could do with a stiff one right now, she thinks, ice cubes tinkling in the tonic and the thinnest slice of lemon.
Lin pulls her closer, looking daggers at Hugh.
Theodora taps at the window. ‘Linnie? Something I can do?’
‘Not right now, thanks.’ She leans over Hugh to open the window on that side. ‘Mum still needs a few minutes. Purkey wants us all to walk in procession, but I think I should bring her afterwards, when everything’s in place.’ She doesn’t want Shirley to see people lifting the coffin onto the mechanism that lets it down into the grave. Best it’s already waiting in a mound of flowers.
Hugh says, ‘We’re dealing with a problem here.’ He looks drained.
‘Of course you are.’ Theodora gives him a warm smile.
‘And I need Neli.’ He gets out of the car, looking round.
‘Over there, with Bridget and Sam. They get on well, your wives, nè?’
‘Only two,’ he defends himself, echoing his mother. Only two. Me too. He hurries off to Neli, needing the reassurance of her confident smile. He has enough on his plate today without worrying about this new mother and an upstart brother. Though he does wonder what he’s like. Langley. Maybe they’ll meet one day.
Lin says, ‘Thanks, Theodora, we’re fine.’ About to leave, she asks, ‘Are you okay to sit here for a while, Mum? I need to check on things.’
‘I’d like someone to be with me.’
‘I’ll ask Barbara.’
When she arrives, Barbara thumps into the back seat saying, ‘You look done in, Shirl.’ Her jungle necklaces are tangled, her bright red lipstick running into the crevices round her mouth, and she smells of the cigarette she’s just put out.
‘You don’t look too hot yourself.’
‘It’s been a long afternoon. Poor Johnny.’
‘Poor us, you mean. He’s past pity now.’ Irritation with her sister-in-law always perks Shirley up.
‘I know. But he’ll leave a terrible hole in my life.’ She gives Shirley a meaningful look, hoping she’ll get the message.
Shirley has been wondering how long it would take for Barbara to work up the courage to ask. She says, ‘You needn’t worry, your whisky supply is safe. He’s left you a decent annuity.’
Barbara gasps, ‘That’s wonderful. Thanks.’
‘Don’t thank me. And there’s another thing. John made me promise to go away to take my mind off things.’ The easy lie slips off Shirley’s tongue after all the difficult truths. ‘I’ll be selling the house when I get back from my overseas trip and moving into a lock-up-and-go townhouse. Would you like to have his car? And if you need anything for your flat –’
She’s astonished to see tears welling in Barbara’s ravaged eyes. Shirley has never seen her sister-in-law cry. Her own tears are well under control now. She will put on a good face for John’s last rites. Knuckling down as she always has.
Lin walks towards the semicircle of chairs at her father’s grave and sees Lofty and Kenneth waiting, two old men with the setting sun gleaming on their medals. They’ve had their recognition. Maybe she can do a photo essay on forgotten ex-servicemen: a series of stark black-and-white photographs to highlight men who went to war for their country and didn’t receive their due. How do they all cope with their disabilities on inadequate pensions? With their grievances over the lack of respect for their sacrifices? Their rage? Their sorrow?
The first portrait will be of Stanley, her father’s friend, sitting on a milk crate at the entrance to his culvert.
Purkey and his assistant have moved the coffin out of the hearse and onto the trolley, draping the flag over it again and laying wreaths on top. He beckons Sam to come and carry his grandfather’s medals, now back in their velvet-lined box. ‘You can walk behind the bishop – the other pallbearers will see to the
coffin.’
‘Okay.’ Sam has the Order of Service with the precious signatures in his blazer pocket, to keep it safe. He’ll miss Grampa and the war stories like hell. Maybe he can nag Dad and Neli and Mum to buy him his own laptop and an iPod to fill up his weekends?
In the row where the Moths are sitting, Lofty says to Kenneth, ‘How’s this for a suggestion? You’ve got time and money and expertise. Mayor Thembi says she wants to go after tsotsis. Why don’t you offer to help her on the legal side?’
‘There’s an idea.’ Kenneth’s eyes narrow. ‘And it needn’t stop at legal advice. We could rally for justice like we did for the Torch Commando. Lock the bad buggers up. Whip the rest into line. Burn off the dross.’
‘You could call it the Blowtorch Commando.’ Lofty starts to laugh. J J would have loved that, been into it boots and all.
Next to the hearse, Purkey has organised the remaining five pallbearers into place: Hugh, Mtshali and Bobby on one side and Herbie and Stanley on the other, and him stepping in behind them to make the sixth. It wouldn’t do to have an uneven number at a superior interment service.
The bishop emerges from the episcopal car, smoothes down his robes, adjusts the pectoral cross, and walks behind them to the grave. This is his favourite part of the funeral service and he makes the most of it, raising his eyes to the sky darkening over the harbour and sending words up like doves.
‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower … Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
Stanley is looking the other way at the orange glow in the west thinking, My sun will go down soon too. He wonders whether the Valhalla he and J J had talked about would be more comfortable than a culvert.
Shirley receives the folded flag with Lin and Hugh close by on either side of her and Sam in front clutching the box with his grandfather’s medals.