“MASTER HAROLD” . . . AND THE BOYS
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Hally, barely into his teens, shares with his mother the proprietorship of the Saint George’s Park Tea Room. They also share terrible memories of his drunken invalid father, a man who fell as short in his role of father as the shabby cafe falls short of its name. Hally’s only friends are Sam and Willie, in whose company Hally sought refuge as a child. They now work as waiters in the cafe, but their relationship with Hally is substantially unchanged–Hally patronizes these adult males with the arrogance of youth, while they regard him with the indulgence of older siblings for the baby of the family. This idyllic existence cannot last, however, for this is Port Elizabeth on the cape of South Africa in 1950, Sam and Willie are black, and Hally is white.
What precipitates the inevitable loss of innocence is the news that Hally’s father, no healthier in mind or body but stubbornly insistent on coming home, is leaving the hospital. Hally, torn between affection and disgust for his father, turns on his surrogate parents, spitting in Sam’s face and insisting on being addressed henceforth as “Master Harold.”
