Free Kitchen Boy by Jenny Hobbs

whistle blew and his green flag dropped. There was a jerk and the clamour of couplings as pistons began to move again and the wheels turned and the train chuffed away through the thorn trees back to the main line.
    Men loaded bundles of sugar cane all day during the season, their shoulders padded with sacks as they ran stooping up wooden gangplanks to heave in the bundles. On the far side of the trucks, Bobby and J J and their cohort of Zulu boys swarmed up the iron ladders to steal sticks of cane, then slid down to find a shady place to sit and shave off the thick maroon skin with a shared knife, and bite off chunks to chew and suck. The gravel round the station was littered with chewed sugar-cane fibre.
    They had to watch out for Reg, who knew what boys got up to on trains. He patrolled the trucks, his signal flags rolled round their sticks, and if he caught any of the boys, he’d whack their legs and shout at them to bugger off. Though not if Mrs Kitching was looking. You didn’t swear in front of ladies – a rule that Bobby still obeys.
    But Mr Kitching swore, all right. He was a mean bastard who flicked his riding crop at the men unloading goods from the trucks, shouting, ‘Shesha, man! Get a fucking move on. I haven’t got all bloody day.’ He’d already have had a few beers by then.
    Into the trading store went sacks of mealie meal, stampmielies, peanuts, rice, and government sugar carried on bent backs; cartons of cigarettes, sweets, groceries, and bales of cotton goods piled on wheelbarrows; barrels of diesoline, oil, paraffin and petrol rolled along, hand-overhand, in the hot dust.
    The petrol was for the tall red Pegasus pump that stood in front of the store, its metal jacket padlocked. Sometimes, as a special treat, Bobby and J J were allowed to unlock it and work the handle back and forth, pumping petrol that bubbled up into one of the glass cylinders until it was level with the gallon mark, then letting it run down the thick hose into a car’s petrol tank or a jerry can. There weren’t many cars in those Depression years, just the odd Ford, dusty farm lorries and, once a year, Mr Herald’s Hudson.
    Dot Kitching had been Dorothy Herald, granddaughter of a sugar baron, before she married Victor and he pissed her money away. Her father said that she’d made her bed and now she must lie on it, but he and Mrs Herald would come on Christmas Day bringing pointless presents. Perfume and silk scarves for Dot. Roller skates and party clothes for Johnny and Barbara. And nothing but contempt for Victor, which meant brawling binges into the new year.
    Landela mostly worked the petrol pump: a man whose sweating muscles gleamed like the malt and cod-liver oil your mother gave you in a big spoon. Bobby remembers the fishy cloying sweetness to this very day.
    Reverend George is not used to microphones. His township-hall voice is a thumped tin guitar to the bishop’s clarinet, and his first words are croaked.
    ‘Psalm 39. I said,’ he gives a strangled cough to clear his throat, ‘I said , I will take heed to my ways that I offend not in my tongue.’
    One of the girls sitting behind Sam giggles and whispers just loud enough for him to hear, ‘I didn’t tell you. Marco offended me with his tongue last night.’
    ‘Sis, man, Sharon. You shouldn’t talk like that at a funeral.’
    ‘So? I can still think what I like. Marco reckons he doesn’t go around French-kissing just any chick.’
    ‘Shoosh. Mom’ll get mad.’
    Sam daren’t look around, but he turns his head sideways to hear better. He wonders what’s different about French kissing.
    The whispering starts again. ‘Why did she make us come, anyway?’
    ‘He was her boss , remember.’
    ‘That was a zillion years ago. Before she got married and had us.’
    ‘Plus, he’s famous. Didn’t you see the cameras? Maybe we’ll be on TV news tonight.’
    ‘So that’s why you wore your new mini. You could’ve told me.’
    ‘How was I supposed to