‘Ja. Sure.’ Like marbles, the assistant’s eyes roll around the room’s medical clutter. He sometimes scores morphine and sealed needles at deathbeds if the family are too upset to notice. They’re perks of the trade.
Purkey forges on. ‘The Digby & Smith team undertakes to handle all the finer details right through to your memorial service. We could do Springbok emblems on the casket, for e.g.’
‘Please, not now.’ Hugh tries to shield his weeping mother. ‘We want a simple burial at Stellawood, okay? No frills.’
‘Righty-oh.’ With a jovial nod to indicate that he understands, no problem, Purkey says, ‘What would the lady like him to wear?’
‘Best suit, is the usual.’ A stud piercing Clyde’s tongue creates spit, so he struggles with the sibilants.
‘That’s a fact. We need to take it with, so if you’ll just fetch it so long? Also a shirt, favourite tie, ornamental hanky, shoes and socks, the works. They want to look good on their last journey. Shame.’ Purkey’s smile is as reassuring as a life-policy salesman’s.
‘I can’t do this.’ Hugh calls out, ‘Lin! We need you.’
His sister has been listening from the passage in the hope that Hugh will handle things, but of course he never does. She comes in and confronts Purkey. ‘What do you mean, they want to look good? Dad’s gone.’
‘Last impressions, madam. We make sure that the hair and face are shipshape. That’s why we need a recent photo. Colour, if you’ve got.’
‘You’re not going to do anything gross like touch him up?’
‘Tidy, rather. If there’s a final viewing, foundation and blusher do wonders for the morbidity. We normally suggest –’
‘No viewing.’ Hugh urges his mother out of the room saying, ‘Come and lie down, Mum. Lin will handle the rest.’
‘Moving on.’ Purkey’s expression does not hide what he thinks of family members who shirk a final viewing. He darts a glance at Lin’s left hand. ‘Miz Kitching, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Someone will have to visit our showroom to choose the casket. We use only prime forest hardwoods: sapele mahogany is popular, or there’s wenge for a more modern styling. Both come with imported brushed aluminium fittings and padded oyster satin lining. Outstanding quality.’
‘I’ll go tomorrow. Just do what needs to be done now.’
But there’s no stopping the laid-down procedure. Purkey selects a pencil from his top pocket and holds it over the form on the clipboard, ready to tick off boxes. ‘Then there’s the extras. A flight of doves released at the grave is a nice touch. Plus we offer a full range of memorial gravestones, from marble to granite, crafted by Durban’s top stonemasons.’
‘No doves. And we won’t need a gravestone.’
‘You’re talking a really simple burial, then. For a famous man like this?’
‘There’s a family gravestone.’
‘Oh.’ He plods on, ‘We do eco-friendly cremations too. With our Eternal Reef option, the remains are mixed with environmentally safe porous cement to make an artificial reef. This gets transported out to sea from Sodwana and lowered to the ocean floor to encourage new coral formations in the Mozambique Current. Makes a fantastic memorial.’
‘No!’ Lin needs to get rid of him before she smacks his face. ‘He’s to be buried. I’ll come and make the arrangements tomorrow, okay? Please take him away now. He’s been lying there for hours. It’s not right.’
‘Pressure of work, madam. There were two cadavers before your dad. People mostly die in the night, you know? There must be a medical reason. Maybe if we kept statistics we could –’
Cadavers. She snaps, ‘Just do your job and go.’
The flow stops, his chins quivering with affront. ‘I am doing it. Giving you the options before we take him away.’
‘We don’t want any of them. So get on with it.’ She heads for the door.
‘And his clothes, madam?’ he calls after her.
‘I’ll fetch his Moth blazer and flannels.’
‘Don’t forget the photo and the documentation: ID book and death certificate. Meantime, we’ll do the honours. Nice and easy there, Clyde.’
She doesn’t look back as she leaves, trying to ignore the metal stretcher being snapped open. She is afraid to think about what will happen to the frail body: whether her father will be washed and laid out and dressed with due reverence, or whether a mortuary worker will bundle him into the shirt and blazer and then decide to rescue his good pants and shoes from rotting or burning.
But she doesn’t tussle with this issue now. She wants to mourn her father before the news gets out and strangers start chipping away at her memory of her dad: not the war hero or the Springbok or the Durban Sales Manager for SA Breweries who’d been a rugby selector for thirty years. She wants to remember him way back, leaving home for work on his metallic blue Triumph, standing astride and stamping all his weight down on his right foot to kick-start it. He’d loved that oily farting beast and kept it for years in the garage, taking it out once a week and tooling along streets where there was little traffic, wearing an old man’s helmet and goggles, with boys pedalling after him on bicycles, mocking his pleased old man’s smile.
All gone now. All gone.
During a halt as they trudged from Moosburg deeper into the Bavarian forest, Major Irving jotted their names and the date on the back of a letter that he tucked into his greatcoat pocket as evidence. Then he tried to brace them to face a firing squad. ‘Chin up, men. Stare the bastards down. This is for king and country. You have done your best.’ ‘Etcetera,’ Kenneth muttered. ‘It’s bullshit. I’m too young to die.’
I
N THE EVENING OF THE LONG DAY AFTER
J J
DIED
, they sit stunned in the lounge when the last sympathisers have left, taking with them the kids who hav mooching about the garden doing their best to look sorrowful. Wild bananas jostle at the picture window. Out at sea, a rising wind ruffles the moonpath that narrows towards the horizon.
‘Good news.’ His sister Barbara sweeps in from answering the phone in the hall. ‘Bishop Chauncey will hold the funeral service in St Ethelbert’s.’
‘St Eth’s is huge,’ Hugh objects. ‘And you know how Dad felt about churches. We should just hold a wake.’
‘He deserves a proper ceremony. Madiba said he was an outstanding man of his generation after those rugby matches he organised for the Children’s Fund.’ Barbara has basked in her brother’s fame most of her life.
‘Who was that on the phone, anyway?’
‘A journalist.’ Barbara hasn’t let on that she has been feeding daily bulletins to the papers about J J’s weakening condition.
Shirley raises her blotched face. ‘I couldn’t
bear
a big funeral. I just want a small family service.’
After a considerate pause Hugh says, ‘I suppose we should talk to SARU about the bishop’s offer.’
Her head snaps up. ‘He hasn’t been to a rugby union meeting for years.’
‘Maybe not. But they owe him for the fund-raisers. They were fantastic publicity.’
‘
And
he was a war hero.’
‘That was long ago, Mum. War isn’t kosher any more.’
‘How can you say that?’ she flares. ‘He fought and suffered and almost died for his country. You chickened out of army service.’
It’s an old refrain.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You’re so like Barbara. Always disparaging.’
‘Thanks very much.’ Barbara glowers at Hugh, whose rebellion against his father has included a skirmish with Marxism, avoidance of army duty and scorn for rugger buggers.
Lin sits looking out the window trying to ignore them. The big milkwood at the edge of the lawn is a restless silhouette against the moonlit sea, heaving with each gust of wind. She learnt to climb and balance in that tree, running along its sprawling branches with her arms extended and Mum calling out, ‘Careful, dear,’ and Dad yelling, ‘Go for it, Lin! Faster! Right to the end, then jump. I’ll catch you.’
She says, ‘Dad didn’t deserve to end that way. Petering out.’
‘Most of his friends have gone too. No one would come to a big funeral. We’ll hold a small private service with tea here afterwards,’ Shirley says, hopeful that now John’s gone she can have her way for a change.
No such luck. Lin says, ‘I don’t agree, Mum. It’s not just you involved. We all need to make the decision. I vote for St Eth’s. Dad loved pomp and ceremony.’
‘He never missed the Moth service on Remembrance Day,’ Barbara chimes in.
‘Played the gallant ex-serviceman to the hilt.’
‘Stop it, Hugh.’ Anger has perked Shirley up. ‘You’re all bullying me.’
Lin insists, ‘We just need to make a decision.’
‘I’ll go with the majority vote.’ Hugh escapes down the passage and up the stairs to knock on the bathroom door. ‘Sam-Sam? Have you showered?’
‘No, I’m on the bog. And don’t call me that. It’s childish.’
‘Sam, then. Hurry up. Charlie will be serving dinner soon and Gran doesn’t like anyone to be late.’
‘Old bag.’
‘It’s been an awful day, son. Don’t make it any harder.’
‘I’ll be out in five, promise. Greased lightning.’ It’s a family phrase from old press reports describing J J Kitching’s legendary dashes for the try line.
‘Don’t forget to use soap in your mad haste.’
‘I’m not stupid. You’re as bad as Ma,’ he grumbles.
Hugh goes back to the lounge, wondering if his first wife Bridget will come, and whether Nelisiwe will be in time for dinner. Nelisiwe is a chic town planner from Gingindlovu whom his father treated with the exaggerated courtesy of a plantation owner. His mother still struggles to talk to her, even in strained platitudes.
Lin has gone to sit near a light, where she pages through her father’s desk diary. None of them would have dared enter his study before he became too weak to go downstairs, and when they did, it was only to dust. So it feels like sacrilege to be looking at his jotted notes of doctors’ and clinic appointments and phone calls. Finding a full page of writing, she scans it and calls out, ‘Hey, listen to this.’
‘What?’ Hugh comes to read over her shoulder.
‘Dad’s last entry. It’s so unlike him. Last words for us, with a warning.’
‘That’s not unlike him. Always wanting control.’
She turns, keeping her place in the diary with her finger. ‘Thought you’d cleared things with him, bro?’
‘I did. Including the fact that you and I knew his deadly secret.’
‘Never mattered. He’s always been a hero to me.’
‘It wasn’t easy living up to his expectations.’
‘I didn’t feel that.’
‘Oh, but you did. Be honest. We had to study harder, jump higher, go further, reach for the stars he decided were best for us.’ Every confrontation had been a challenge until the day J J’s demanding glare began to fade.
‘Aren’t all parents like that?’
‘Not me,’ Hugh says with a determined scowl that makes him look just like his father. ‘But Dad and I made our peace. Okay, read what he’s written.’
‘Here it is: “As I prepare to leave the final changing room, these are my last words to my family. A wise man living in a culvert has explained ubuntu: it’s shorthand for humanity. War taught me something else: that life is a game of chance with many losers. So keep your eyes open, look after each other, and guard your birthright. You can never be sure who’s shuffling the cards.”’
For once, Hugh is speechless.
Shirley moans from the sofa, ‘John didn’t tell me anything about a man in a culvert.’
‘That’s Stanley Magwaza, Grampa’s friend.’ Sam comes into the room towelling his hair. ‘He took me to see him once. Looks like an old tramp, but he’s famous too. Played for Orlando Pirates in the fifties. The Bucs.’
‘Bucks?’
‘B-u-c-s, short for buccaneers. Another word for pirates. Neli told me. She’s cool. She’s got a 60-gig iPod and drives a Volvo
as
well.’
‘As
well
,’ Hugh corrects, an automatic reflex.
‘Don’t be pedantic.’ Barbara is trying to hide her own surprise. Her larger-than-life brother scorned pessimism. Or said he did.
Lin looks up from the bold handwriting on the diary page. J J still used a fountain pen and blue-black ink; they’ll find a crusted Parker Quink bottle in his desk drawer. ‘What does he mean by “guard your birthright”?’
Barbara says, ‘It’s Johnny being pompous. He liked laying down the law.’
‘Is he saying that we may need to defend our entitlement to belong in Africa? Was it an issue for him? I don’t remember him talking about it.’
Nobody answers.
Hugh sits puzzling over the coda: ‘You can never be sure who’s shuffling the cards’. His father had been an action man, not given to mystical thinking. What else had been hidden behind his austere face?
Shirley fumes, John didn’t tell me about this. Now they’re all forcing me into a church funeral. Everything’s changed and I’m left to deal with it. Typical.
Barbara is tapping the ash off her third cigarette of the evening, when Charlie appears in a white cotton uniform to announce, ‘Dinner is ready.’
I miss the camaraderie, the action, the flying, the purposeness of missions and the sudden ability to get things done … We were all friends with everybody in the squadron and we had a feeling almost of brotherhood because we were involved in exactly the same business. The only thing that separated one from the other was the length of time – how long were you able to stay alive?
– P
ILOT
A
RTHUR
D
AVIS
in
Thunderbolts: the conquest of the Reich
, on the History Channel
For the rest of his life, J J had to endure the contradiction of being hailed as a hero for saving an air gunner he hardly knew, though he had failed a friend in prison camp.
After liberation, the South African Defence Force doctors’ diagnosis of shell-shock and malnutrition kept him for several months in the Brighton repatriation camp, running a gauntlet of bossy army nurses and psychologists when all he longed for was to be sent home to forget. Sudden rages against them alternated with days of being down in the dumps. Often he stammered and couldn’t make himself understood. Sometimes he couldn’t speak at all, recalling how he had kept quiet instead of owning up. The memory of his cowardice festered on after he was released. He kept a coin hidden in his deepest pockets to remind him.