Брайс Кортни - The Power of One

He rose from his stool to refill his coffee mug and groaned. I looked up in alarm to see him trying to conceal his pain with a smile. ‘Ja, I am a domkopf, Peekay. This morning I climb the hill to our rock but such a small climb has made me very stiff. It is four years since, and my muscles are soft and my lungs soon grow tired. It will take maybe a month, maybe more before we can go into the hills again.’ He walked stiffly towards the kitchen where I had left the coffee pot, and for the first time I saw that Doc had become an old man.

He spent most of Thursday and all of Friday in the cactus garden, content to be on his own. He planned an excursion to visit Mrs Boxall at the library on Saturday morning – the day after school broke up for the June holidays and the day of the Kommandant’s concert. He had instructed me to ask her if this would be convenient. Mrs Boxall was in quite a tizz when I told her that Doc would be coming to see her. I also told my granpa of Doc’s visit to the library and early on Saturday morning he cut two dozen long-stemmed pink and red roses for Doc to give to Mrs Boxall. ‘He can’t go giving her a bunch of cactus flowers now, can he?’ he declared a little smugly. My granpa was a rose man and saw no virtue whatsoever in a cactus garden.

We arrived at the library just as the clock on the magistrate’s court tower struck nine. The library was closed and the library boy was sitting on the step outside. ‘The missus, she be come soon,’ he said. Doc started to stride up and down the footpath, stopping to hook his finger into the front of his celluloid collar and to clear his throat. Then I saw Charlie, Mrs Boxall’s little navy blue Austin Seven, coming down the road towards us. It was making a dreadful racket and was obviously quite sick but Doc seemed not to hear it approaching. ‘Here she comes!’ I yelled, and thrust the bunch of roses at him. He jumped visibly and grabbed the flowers with both hands. Charlie lurched to a halt outside the library and the engine died with a clunking sound. Mrs Boxall stuck her head out of the window and spoke to me.

‘Come along, Peekay, give a gel a hand, there’s a good chap,’ she said cheerily. In my anxiety for Doc I didn’t move immediately. ‘Come along, Peekay, open the door, you’re not a Boer you know.’ I hurried to open the door of the Austin. ‘Now that the war is over we can all go back to having nice manners,’ Mrs Boxall said, stepping out of Charlie. I realised she was grateful for the opportunity to chide me so as to cover the first few moments of her reunion with Doc. She looked up at Doc and gave him her best smile. Doc thrust the roses at her. ‘And here’s the man with the nicest manners of all,’ she said, burying her nose into the pink and red blossoms and breathing deeply. ‘There’s nothing quite as charming as roses, don’t you think?’ She cradled them in her arm like the Queen and stretched her hand out towards Doc. ‘Roses say so much without having to say anything at all.’ Doc immediately clicked his heels together, almost knocking himself over in the process, then he bowed stiffly and, taking her hand, lifted it high above her head and kissed it lightly.

‘Madam Boxall,’ he said.

‘Oh dear, I have missed you, Professor. It is so very nice to have you back.’ I thought for a moment that she might cry, but instead she buried her head in the roses again and then looked up brightly. ‘A cup of tea for Peekay and me and for you, Professor, I have some fresh ground Kenya coffee. Peekay, bring my basket from Charlie.’ She handed the roses back to Doc and reached into her handbag for the keys to the library. ‘I’ve baked a lovely Madeira cake, it’s in the tin beside the basket, do be sure to bring it along, Peekay.’

Once we were inside it was like old times. The four and a bit years slipped away and it was the same old Doc and Mrs Boxall. Doc spoke with some consternation of the prospect of returning to the prison that evening to fulfil his obligation to play for the brigadier and Mrs Boxall volunteered to drive us over. Doc, to my enormous surprise, then suggested that she might like to attend the concert and she seemed thrilled at the idea. We phoned Captain Smit who said that Mrs Boxall was most welcome, that any friend of Doc’s was a friend of his.

We then talked for the first time about Geel Piet. Mrs Boxall had never met him but he was almost as real to her as he had been to Doc and me. Doc lamented the fact that the Sandwich Fund was effectively finished and to our surprise Mrs Boxall would hear of no such thing. ‘Just a temporary hiccup, we can’t have Geel Piet thinking we’re a bunch of milk sops. I have a plan.’ She gazed at us steadily. ‘I’m not prepared to reveal it yet, not even to the two of you. But I can tell you this much. I had proposed taking the train to Pretoria but now, by golly, Pretoria seems to have come to us.’ She wore one of her tough expressions and so we didn’t question her any further. ‘It’s my plan, and if it doesn’t work, then only I shall look a proper idiot,’ she declared.

On the night of Geel Piet’s death, Captain Smit had led me sobbing and hiccupping to the blue prison Plymouth where Gert was waiting to drive me home. He had told me that I needed a break from training and was not to return to the prison until the boxing exhibition for the brigadier on Saturday night. It was a nice holiday but as prospective welterweight champion of the world, it worried me that I wasn’t in training. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that I would return to a boxing squad that was now without Geel Piet, and that from now on I would simply be the most junior boxer under Captain Smit’s concerned but preoccupied care.

On Saturday night Mrs Boxall picked us up at the bottom of Doc’s road. Even though the road was now in splendid repair Charlie, in his present state of health, was not considered capable of climbing it. We arrived at the prison just before seven o’clock and made our way to the hall. Doc’s piano recital was to be the first item of the evening: it was the cultural part, it was thought best to get it over with while everyone was still well behaved. After that, the audience would go through into the gym for the boxing exhibition and then back to the hall for the tiekiedraai dancing and braaivlies. The air smelt smoky from the braaivleis fires which had been lit on the parade ground immediately outside the hall. Someone was already playing a piano accordion in the dark, his swaying torso silhouetted by the light from one of the fires.

Mrs Boxall, Doc and I found three seats in the front row so that Doc could get to the Steinway easily. I hadn’t seen Gert since he had driven me home four days before and he now made a special point of coming over to me. I excused myself and we moved off into the corner for a chat. Gert told me again how sorry he was about Geel Piet and how it wasn’t the same without him on the boxing squad.

‘Man, I don’t understand, he was only a Kaffir but I miss him a lot,’ he confided. He also told me that the brigadier’s inspection was an all-time success and that Lieutenant Borman was up to his eyeballs in the Kommandant’s good books right up until late that afternoon.

‘What happened this afternoon?’ I asked, delighted at the suggestion that Lieutenant Borman might have fallen from grace.

‘The brigadier stood up and said to us all that he had never seen a prison in better shape. But that also Pretoria had heard of the Kaffir concert.’ He paused and his eyes grew wide, ‘I’m telling you, man, we knew who had told them about it and we thought we were in a lot of trouble.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘But it wasn’t like that at all. The brigadier said that it was a piece of proper prison reform and that Barberton led the way and the Kommandant was to be congratulated. Not only were the prison buildings and grounds immaculate and the discipline first class, but also prison reform was taking place that was an example to the rest of the country. You should have seen Pinkie Borman’s face, man, he was furious. I nearly wet my pants. Everyone was looking at him with this big smile on their faces, even the Kommandant.’