Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Short S. > Steamtrain good-bye's
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 1578 guests online and 2 members online |
Shorts
| print friendly version | |
| Steamtrain good-bye's | |
| By Katsinella | ||||||||
| 29 March 2007 | ||||||||
|
Today was going to end with her heart being broken. She had known that and yet had still planned each part with her usual attention to detail. On opening her eyes that morning, she was filled with apprehension. Although not yet dawn, the day was already heavy with the unforgiving tight heat of the tropics. She lay quietly on the bed processing the check list in her head. She had opened the curtains and put on a light cotton robe over her night dress when Mtembe, the houseboy had brought tea to the bedroom, with a light tap on the door. George hadn’t stirred. She pictured the three-page typed letter from the school, with its embossed red, black and gold logo. The crisp pages left no doubt as to who was in charge. She had bought two pairs of the complete school uniform in Harriman’s General Store on Limpopo Drive. It had been more expensive than if she had brought it in Johannesburg but she couldn’t let him go down for the first term without all the right things. The sports kit had been a little more difficult as Harriman’s didn’t have cricket whites in a small enough size. She had packed the trunk with care, laying tissue paper between each layer of clothes. She was almost overcome with pain thinking of Freddy putting each piece on in the mornings without her laying it out for him. He’d hate having to wear shoes everyday. He was like a little pale native always barefoot, seemingly unaware of the change in the soil beneath him from hot red earth to shale or concrete. She poured the tea into the bone china cups. The set had been a wedding gift from her mother. Their delicateness has delighted her at the time, arriving in a wooden crate packaged with paper and Hessian cloth. But now they seemed silly, a sort of pretentiousness which she despised in the other expat wives. They had their little English rituals to so lovingly played out against the heat, sun and poverty of Broken Hill. It all seemed so ludicrous to hold on to such a way of life. Sitting the cup on his bedside table, she gently prodded George and whispered, ‘Your tea, darling.’ He only grunted in response. On any other day with events weighing on her mind, she would have woken him and they’d have talked through her troubled thoughts. George was immensely pragmatic but always allowed her space for her worries and feelings. They would end difficult discussions with his arms wrapped around her slightness. She’d smell the spicy aftershave on his neck, the brylcreem in his hair and feel completely calm as he’d whisper, ‘We’ll make this work, darling, trust me, we will.’. And trust him she did. He brought her to this place, so foreign and shockingly different. He’d been sent here to report on the troubles in the mines. And so they arrived in a twin-prop airplane at two o’clock in the morning in Ndola. The runway was nothing more than a strip of sand amongst the African bush. She had stepped into the breath-sucking heat of Africa and fell in love with the place. The adjustment to the local way of life had been difficult but when she had fallen pregnant with Freddy, she’d felt a calmness descend. Her sister wrote hysterical letters from back home about the desperate state of third-world hospital care and how she just had to come home for the birth. But she’d wanted Freddy to be born in this wonderful place, for his first breath to be of the warm, fragrant air. The calls to return home only made her more resolute in her decision. Her child would be born in Africa. He was now eight years old and of a sweet disposition. He was small for a child of his age; caramel brown skin with soft hair only a shade lighter, slim and barefoot. Every morning, after breakfast of a milky tea, doorstep slices of toast and butter, he’d disappear with Baxter, the family Great Dane. Baxter stood to Freddy’s shoulders with his black spotted, gun-metal gray coat and was always was a loyal side kick to Freddy’s adventures. Boy and dog would return at dusk, dirty, tired and thirsty, but always happy. Over supper, he’d chatter about where they’d been and what they had seen. It was a favourite time of day for her. She would lean on the kitchen table encouraging him to eat, occasionally brushing his fringe off his face. The days varied. Some days, he would meet up with Ramsey, Mtembe’s youngest son. Although the two didn’t seem to speak much, Freddy could talk Bemba. Their relationship was an innocent one; two young boys, with no cares in the world, no burden of racial and cultural divides. Armed with sticks to frighten the snakes, they’d follow the local witch doctor on her search for medicinal roots. But today, there would be no playing down at the river, or at Ramsey’s khaya. With no formal education system in Ndola, Freddy was going to boarding school in Johannesburg. It was a four day train ride starting in Ndola, passing through Lusaka, through Southern Rhodesia and finally on to Johannesburg. She’d known this day was coming since he was born but she had never felt so unprepared for anything in her life. The thought of life without him left her breathless. She worried how he would cope with the restrictions of boarding school. He was such an independent child, so used to being the master of his own day. When they arrived at the train station in Broken Hill, the place was heaving with parents and children of all ages, all in their different school uniforms. The train’s compartment doors were all open with people spilling out of them. The platform was piled with an assortment of trunks, many showing the ragged markings of several such journeys. The air was filled with delighted shrieks as friends met up after the two months Christmas holiday. A scruffy little dog wound its way through the trunks, and after sniffing one, lifted his leg on the dark brown leather corner. She stood at the edge of this bursting madness gripping Freddy’s hand. They hadn’t said much since leaving the house and as she glanced down at him, he looked pale. His brown eyes were wide and his mouth hung slightly open. He looked so smart in his khaki shorts, knee high socks, and black lace-up shoes. His dark blue blazer was a little big for him and sloped off his shoulders. He held his peak cap in his other hand. The station guard walked briskly along the platform, carefully sidestepping the smaller children and blew his whistle sharply, which stirred up the melee of people, increasing the buzz and noise. The train issued forth a hiccup of steam. The driver, sucking on a pipe, leaned out his compartment, and lazily watched the crowd. ‘Madam, where to put this?’ Mtembe, the houseboy, interrupted her daze. ‘Over there, I think.’ She pointed to the last carriage at the end of the platform where a pile of trunks were hoisted on to the train by three older school boys. As Mtembe shuffled off with the heavy trunk, she felt the desire to flee. She wanted to gather up Freddy in her arms, and to run. She took a deep breath trying to steady her self. She couldn’t let him see her fear. It must be harder for him to be the one leaving. It was he who would have to face the unknown. She needed to brave. ‘All aboard,’ shouted the station guard, striding back along the platform. ‘We’re leaving in a few minutes’ and he blew his whistle again. ‘Go on, Freddy dear. You need to get on board.’ She kneeled down to bring her face close to his. His pale face was accentuated by his darker than usual hair as he had insisted on using his father’s brylcreem that morning. She could feel his sweet breath on her cheek as she wrapped her arms around her and squeezed him to her chest. ‘I love you, darling, just you remember that. And if you need anything, you just write.’ He nodded mutely, standing woodenly with his arms at this side. She led him to one of the carriage doors. The platform was becoming more filled with adults as the children piled on the train. A hand reached out and pulled him into the carriage. ‘We’ll make sure he’s alright, don’t you worry, Mrs Apter.’ It was the neighbour’s boy, Dicky, several years older than Freddy. She smiled as if this was an afternoon tea party not the scheduled ripping out of her heart. She watched his little form disappear into a tangle of young boys. The train horn sounded, the station guard blew his whistle with finality. The compartment windows were pulled down and each window had children almost falling out, shouting final goodbyes to family left on the station platform. She searched the fresh, young faces but couldn’t see Freddy. With a roar, the train began to move slowly out of the station accompanied by the cacophony of human partings. The white smoke billowed out of the train lazily drifting back to those left behind on the platform. Her eyes still searched urgently for sight of his little face. She twisted her hands on front of her, unaware of anyone around her. She felt the thump of her broken heart, and the shortness of her breath. As the last compartment went by with no sign of her son, tears welled in her eyes and she realised she wouldn’t hug him again for five months. She’d be unable to comfort him with a scratched knee, or explain to him why the hyenas cried out at night, to watch the joy in his face as he recounted his stake out of the anthill with Ramsey, or the successful forage with the local sangoma. Her life would be a paler shade without him. The train with its smoky trail had long since disappeared into the horizon, when she felt the gentle tug on her elbow. ‘Madam,’ said Mtembe tentatively, ’we be going now?’ She glanced down the empty platform. ‘Yes, Mtembe, you’re right. Let’s get home.’ Mtembe nodded and they walked slowly back to the car.
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|