It’s a breezy morning but the sun warms Robert’s back as he sits on a bench behind the spaza with his friend Talifhani.

“I came straightaway after you called,” says Talifhani. He is tall and lean and his trousers sit just above his ankles. He is still growing quickly. It started when he was fourteen: he shot up and he hasn’t stopped.

“Why have you grown away from Talifhani?” his mother had asked Robert at breakfast. “It’s holidays; why don’t you meet up? You can’t just shut yourself away in your room all day. You have been friends since you were little boys.”

She was right. Talifhani and Robert had been like brothers. He had been a true buddy. But Robert had avoided Talifhani since his dad died, feeling that Talifhani didn’t understand what he was going through. Nobody did. Talifhani didn’t understand or accept why Robert needed to smoke and drink to dull the pain.

Robert reaches for a cigarette inside his jacket pocket. Talifhani looks at the cigarette.

“You’ll kill yourself with those,” he says.

“I have got to smoke, man,” he says. “I have been craving one all day.”

“What did I say to you last week?” Talifhani starts, preaching like his mother and sister. “I am going home if you don’t stop.” Talifhani starts to walk away. “They are right about you Robert. You have changed. I can’t be seen here with you smoking … they are saying…”

Robert knew Talifhani had heard the rumours; they were everywhere. That he and Mashudu broke into people’s houses and stole electrical appliances to sell to maintain their drinking and smoking habits.

“What Talifhani? Say it. Or are you too much of a coward to say it to my face? You just think it? You are just like the rest of them. You aren’t a real friend. You don’t understand.”

Robert got up and kicked an empty can over the fence into the field.

Talifhani shook his head and walked away – and suddenly Robert wanted him back. He was remembering how they used to go to hunt rabbits together in the nearby bushes. While there, they would play hide-and-seek games. He remembered the day he trod on a long, sharp thorn in the bush and how Talifhani had removed it with care. He remembered the flute lessons Talifhani had given him, and how talented his friend was. He had made the provincial championships and wanted to take Robert with him.

They had been really good friends.

“Talifhani, please come back!” Robert calls, and strides towards his friend.

Talifhani doesn’t look back.

Robert sits back on the bench. He throws his fresh cigarette on the grass in front of him and crushes it out with his heel. He pulls the box of matches from his pocket and throws it down as well. He is crying suddenly. He folds his arms around his head to shelter himself.

He doesn’t hear the footsteps of someone approaching.

He looks up to see the shadow of a broad-shouldered boy who is standing right behind him.

“Hey, buddy. What’s up?”

“Mashudu, is that you? How did you know I was here?” says Robert, turning.

Mashudu bends and picks up what is left of the cigarette.

“Whose cigarette is this – I am lucky, ne?”

“I don’t know.”

“And matches!” Mashudu picks up the box up as well. “Ya, some people are rich; they throw cigarettes all over the village when some of us do not have even a fifty cent to get an RG (cheap cigarette).”

He lights the stompie and starts smoking, then he sits down next to Robert on the bench. “Why are you here alone?” he asks. He pulls at his cigarette and blows out a dark cloud of smoke. “You look unhappy.”

Robert looks at Mashudu and finally speaks. “Look. Talifhani was here. He left when he saw me smoking.”

“He is no longer friends with you because you smoke?” Mashudu shakes his head and laughs. “And what if you smoke? You use your own hand and mouth to smoke, not his,” he says. He shakes another cigarette out of the box, lights it, and hands it to Robert. “Here, take the skyf – you need it to cool off.”

Robert accepts it.

“Eish. It’s hard for me,” he says.

“You are thinking too much.”

“It’s easy for you to say. Your father isn’t dead,” Robert says.

“It’s been three months Robert. You need to go on with life.”

“Who are you to tell me?” Robert says angrily.

Mashudu takes a long drag on his cigarette then looks Robert in the eye and starts to talk.

“Who am I? Well, for a start, I never saw my mother,” he says. “I live with my mother’s mother as you are well aware. The old lady doesn’t have any idea who my father is. My mother died when I was only two weeks old, before she could tell her mother about my father. I have no mother; I have no father. It’s better for you – your mom is around to look after you. Am I wrong?”

Robert is silent for a moment.

“You are right, Mashudu.”

“Do you know how old my granny is?” Mashudu asks.

“No.”

“She will be sixty-three in August,” he says. “But she is strong, that one. Now as we speak, she is out collecting firewood in the mountains.”

“She loves you. She gives you pocket money each morning when you go to school,” Robert says. “She really loves you.”

Mashudu nods. “And she washes and irons my clothes, to make sure that I am neat and clean each day when I go to school,” he smiles. “I love her. I remember the day I fell into a bucket of boiling water. It burnt my arm and leg. I sustained severe burns. I was thirteen at the time. And she carried me on her back for nine kilometres to the central clinic. Barely stopping to rest on the way.”

“Now we have a clinic of our own in the village,” Robert adds.

“Yes – which is good,” Mashudu says. He gives his cigarette a final pull and flicks the butt away with his fingers. Then he sighs. “But this place is boring, buddy.”

“I wish school would start again today. I have to work harder for my mom. I want to make her proud,” Robert says, thinking of Mashudu’s granny, of how much elders work for their kids.

“You think too much buddy. Why don’t we go to my home to relax and pass the time? Take your mind off things.”

Robert gets up. The day is beginning to get better. He is beginning not to care quite so much about Talifhani, or his mother or sister. Mashudu is right. He needs to take his mind off things.

***

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