A lot of things happened to Samson Ndholvu in those three months. He was in a cell upstairs in Bomb Alley. The ordinary murderers were kept in the cells downstairs. There were three men to a cell in Death Row and there was what the prison warders called a ‘fluctuating population’ of roughly thirty men in the Row. Some of the Bomb Alley boys had been there for a year, their lawyers staving off execution with appeals to the Privy Council on rare legal points. The Privy Council dismissed one appeal and the lawyers found another and everything in Bomb Alley on Death Row waited for another while whilst it was argued.
The grid on Samson Ndholvu’s cell door was directly opposite the gallows chamber. He had a view of the top of the steel staircase, of the gallows chamber door, of the holding cell door, and of the door of the padded cell next to it where the boys who went off their heads were put. Samson Ndhlovu had watched through the grid and he had seen many men make the second last shift to the holding cell, then the last shift the next morning to the gallows chamber. Most of them had gone quietly, some of them had gone down fighting and kicking and screaming. He had heard the trapdoor bang across the alley many times. Every time it happened he was waiting for it, waiting for the bang a week before, and every time he heard it he closed his eyes and when he opened them he was covered in sweat. That was the worst part, the waiting for the bang. It was very bad during a man’s last three weeks, after the superintendent came to say that an appeal had been dismissed, during the time the man waited and counted the days being eaten up slowly, one by one. It was very bad during the last Thursday, waiting for them to come and take him to the holding cell. It was very bad but it was not yet the end, for anything might yet happen, there might suddenly be the noise of an explosion, as the political ones said, the sound of the outer wall being blasted open and the Freedom Fighters breaking in to rescue them. Or there might suddenly be heard the sound of the airplanes and the faraway boom of the cannon as the English or the Americans or the Zambians came to fight the white men, as the political ones said. Or the white men might find they have no more money left, as the political ones said, and they would have to surrender and then the English would come and liberate them without a shot being fired. It could happen. The political ones said that the longer they managed to delay the execution by the appeals, the better chance they had. But at the end of the last Thursday when they came to fetch you and they took you across the alley to the holding cell with all the others shouting good-bye to you and you listened for the footsteps in the early morning and then waited to hear the bang, then it seemed that you were right in that holding cell also. And you realised that soon it would be you in that holding cell. Waiting for the bang was the worst part.
Samson Ndhlovu heard many things in his three months. He heard many screams in the night, a lot of things cried out in sleep, a lot of confessions. And he had heard a lot of politics. And the only real thing to talk about, because it was the only thing in which hope lay, was politics. And he found that if he hoped to live he had to hope for the English to come and for the white men to fall, for the Freedom Fighters to come and for the Night of the Long Knives.
Samson Ndhlovu studied the business movements in Death Row. He studied the procedure engaged when shifts were changed, when food was brought, when exercise was given. He studied the structure of Death Row and he examined the bars and wall and the door of his cell but he found no weakness in them, nothing even that a man could work loose and use as a weapon or a tool. Every day Samson Ndhlovu took exercise in the yard with the high walls with his two cell-mates. Every day he looked at the high walls. Every day he looked again while he was waiting for his turn to wash under the shower in the corner of the exercise yard, lest he had missed something last time he looked, but every day he saw only smooth sheer concrete up which not even a monkey could climb.
Then one day Samson Ndhlovu was standing under the shower. As he turned the tap with soap in his eyes his fingernails scraped against something on the wall. It was one of three iron brackets which held the shower pipe to the wall. Samson Ndhlovu stood with his back to the yard under the falling water and fingered the bracket. It was not very firm in the wall for the constant water had loosened its fitting. He worked on it with his fingers. Every day for two months Samson Ndhlovu worked on the bracket for five minutes as he stood under the shower. After two months it came away from the wall and Samson shoved it quickly into the cleft of his buttocks.
That night Samson Ndhlovu started work on the bracket. It took many nights to straighten it and to file it sharp on the floor of the cell in the middle of the night.
He did not yet know how he was going to use the dagger, but it was a good thing for a man to have.
Chapter Fifty-Five
A lot of things happened in those three months. Joseph Mahoney was ordered by his doctor to relax completely for a week and to go back on the wagon for six months. Mahoney went on the wagon, but he only relaxed when he heard Jackie’s car coming up his drive. He sat at his table and worked on his book. A gang of six youths set fire to the church and pigsty of the Holy Cross Catholic Mission. The African Commonwealth countries again threatened to expel Britain from the British Commonwealth unless Britain used force to conquer Rhodesia. The British Commonwealth Secretary decided to reprieve two petrol-bombers awaiting execution on Salisbury’s Death Row. Matthew Mapunga strangled the second-bom of his wife’s twins. Tickey stabbed Ninepence in the heart at the Ma-Petticoat Beerhall because Ninepence alleged that Tickey ate owls, a most offensive thing to say. Evi was raped and so were Mary, Olive, Violet-i, Janice, Joan-i, Farewell and Mafuta, to name only a very few. The four terrorists who called themselves the Leopard Gang put up a roadblock on the Umtali Road, held up the car driven by the Turnbull family, stabbed and stoned Mr. Tumbull to death and poured petrol over Mrs. Tumbull and Miss Tumbull and burnt them alive. Mahoney wrote to the Jamaican Government saying he would accept their offer if they paid him more. Shadreck Matumbeni fell off a bus. The British Prime Minister stopped shipment of maize bound for Rhodesia for famine relief of Africans. Samson Ndhlovu lost his appeal. Jacqueline Josephine Riley still refused to go to bed with Joseph Mahoney. There was a military coup d’etat in Ghana, and four days later Britain recognised the new regime. Jacqueline Josephine Riley still stoutly resisted going to bed with Joseph Mahoney. Shadreck raped his six-year-old daughter because the witch-doctor told him it would cure his syphilis. The Jamaican Government offered Joseph Mahoney more money. Joseph Mahoney became very restless about Jacqueline Josephine Riley. Joseph Mahoney wrote to the Jamaican Government accepting their offer. Joseph Mahoney took to brooding much about Jacqueline Josephine Riley. Joseph Mahoney resigned from his post as Crown Counsel in the Rhodesian Government, placed his farm lock stock and barrel on the books of an estate agent and booked a passage for one adult to Jamaica. Joseph Mahoney spent three sleepless nights and then changed the single passage to Jamaica to a double passage to Jamaica and spent two more sleepless nights thinking about it. Joseph Mahoney spent another week thinking about it. Joseph Mahoney became engaged to be married to Jacqueline Josephine Hotpants Paddy Riley.
Chapter Fifty-Six
It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Beautiful, Mahoney thought, as only Africa can be beautiful in the early morning. Why think that? he asked himself – don’t think that. There are many places that are beautiful in the morning; Hong Kong, the States, a million places. You think only Africa can be this beautiful in the morning, or beautiful like this, because it is your home, because you feel it belongs to you and now you’re leaving it. Well it’s not your home, chummy, get that straight, it’s not your Africa, get that straighter: it belongs to the blacks. And they are going to get it by hook or by crook. And if they don’t get it given to them, they are going to cut your throat to get it, chummy. Get used to the idea for God’s sake, like the Kenya boys had to get used to the idea, like the Zambia boys are having to get used to it, like even the South Africans will have to get used to it one day. Only you’re being a bit
smarter than the Kenya boys: you’re getting out before the balloon really goes up.
There was a knock on his bedroom door, then Arthur, his new cookboy, came in with the tea. He put it down without looking at Mahoney and walked out.
Mahoney didn’t like him, he was sorry he had taken him on. He did not trust him. He looked exactly the type to panga you at the dinner table. Come to that, Mahoney thought, not for the first time, that probably is precisely what he’s here for: he’s probably been sent by the Party to panga you. Why not? If they were interested enough to get Samson Ndhlovu to petrol bomb you, why should they stop now?
Mahoney swung his legs off the bed. He poured tea into a cup and he took it to the window and stood there naked as he drank it. God, but it was a beautiful morning. A brisk summer-winter morning. The two frangipani trees were still blooming and the wild roses were blooming pink and the grass was green and thick and the sun was a ball of gold in a sparkling blue sky. There were birds singing. Space, beautiful space. And so far as he could see, shrubs and trees and bushes. Not a soul in sight. He could walk out into the garden now stark bollock naked and not a soul would see him.
Mahoney put the cup down and stared out the window at the frangipani tree. Then he turned and walked to his bedside and lit a cigarette. He blew the smoke out in a physical effort to disperse the thought, but it didn’t work: he still saw Suzie sitting in her deckchair under the frangipani tree. He saw her sitting in her bikini with her leggy busty body golden from the sun, glistening a little under the tanning oil. Her long gold hair was hanging straight down below her shoulders under her wide sunstopping straw hat and her wide red mouth was smiling as she lifted the frosted wine glass to her lips. Sunday in the sun with Suzie.
He pulled hard on his cigarette and strode naked through the house to the bathroom. He ran the tap in the basin and started humming loudly.
Sundays in the sun with Suzie—
He did not look at his face in the bathroom mirror until he had the lather ready. Then he looked at himself and he stopped humming.
He liked what he saw. His eyes were clear and his face had a healthy colour to it. The hand that held the razor was not trembling like it did a couple of months ago. ‘Gad, but you’re a healthy good-looking bastard, Mahoney,’ he said aloud. ‘You’re such a healthy good-looking bastard you should never get married. You should stick around single and shag yourself to death. It’s all this no-drinking that does it.’
But it was no good. He started shaving but his eyes moved from the mirror to the window, back to the mirror, back out the window as he scraped his face.
Sundays—
Well forget it, chum! There just aren’t going to be any more Sundays in the sun either with Suzie or anybody else, not in Rhodesia. You can’t go through life mooning around in the past. Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself. This time Sunday after next you’ll be safely married and there can’t be any looking back.
This time Sunday after next you’ll be waking up in your train compartment for two rollicking down the coast to catch a slow sugar-boat honeymoon at the expense of the Jamaican Government, count your blessings for a change. You’re getting out of this desert before it’s too late. You’re being smart. Like that bod you spoke to in Tanganyika said: Get going north, right north till you’re off this godforsaken continent. In two months’ time you’ll be sailing your boat on Sundays, out in the sparkling blue sea, making for an anchorage off one of those palm-slung Caribbean islands, and you’ll have a beer in your hand and you’ll have Jacqueline. You’ll laugh with Jackie and argue with Jackie and have intelligent discussions with Jackie. You’ll have a goddam wine in the sun with Jackie – Mahoney closed his eyes.
But it won’t be quite the same with Jackie, will it!
He opened his eyes and looked at himself. Then he put the razor down slowly.
No, he said slowly into his eyes, it won’t be the same, Joseph. It never will be the same. Your second love, your third, fourth and subsequent loves, none of them are ever quite the same as your first real love, Joseph. Better maybe, more suitable maybe, but never the same, Joseph. Not when that first love was Suzanna de Villiers anyway, Joseph. So get used to the idea, Joseph.
He lifted a towel slowly and dragged it down one cheek. He wiped the other side of his face and then he dropped the towel.
Jackie will make you a good wife, Joseph. You need a good wife, Joseph, if anybody does. You love Jacqueline, Joseph, but you’re in love with Suzie. Whatever the hell that means.
Well, there aren’t going to be any more Sundays, not like there used to be. Doubtless a good thing too – look how fit you are since you laid off the demon drink. Don’t moon out the window at that frangipani tree.
There aren’t going to be any more Sundays, Joseph, so get used to the idea. This time Sunday after next you’ll be married.
This time Sunday after next you’ll be gone.
He turned and shouted as loud as he could.
‘Samson! – enza lo breakfast kamina—’
Samson? Samson! Oh Jesus. This time next Sunday Samson Ndhlovu’ll be dead.
He pulled on a pair of short trousers roughly and stumped down the passage to the kitchen.
‘Arthur – enza lo breakfast kamina quickly please—’
He went to the lounge and switched on the radio. He wanted to fill the house with noise.
Wish Jackie were here.
He walked back to his bedroom and started getting dressed. He felt like just wearing shorts and sandals and a tee-shirt but he decided he had better not if he was going to have lunch with Jacqueline’s old folks. More than somewhat pukkah souls, Colonel and Mrs. Riley.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
It was supposed to be a nice quiet little Saturday morning wedding, Mahoney thought as he turned in the Riley’s drive, but it wasn’t going to be by the looks of things. If he had had his way they would have sneaked off down to Enkeldoorn or Umvuma or Rusape or somewhere and had the District Commissioner solemnise the union. But oh no. You can’t pull that one on a girl. Oh, they’ll sleep on bare boards for you, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth etcetera etcetera, but they draw the line at District Commissioners. The old folks had nearly choked when he had hopefully put the suggestion up. It had to be a white church wedding. Jackie had shot him a little smug look and a wisp of a smile when the Old Girl said that. Well, fair enough. It would be only a small wedding, that was agreed. After all, there wouldn’t be time enough for a big wedding, as they were getting married only three weeks after their engagement. Just close friends of the family and some of Mahoney’s buddies, say fifty or sixty people or so. What a pity, but what could you do, as they were getting married in such a rush? Quite, Mahoney said sympathetically. And the planning had started off small. But soon there was this business friend of the Old Man’s and the old boys he played bowls with and the people from the Club and there were the Old Girl’s bridge cronies and the old dears from the Women’s Guild. And more rare relatives than you could shake a stick at. And then there were the blokes from Mahoney’s office and then most of the lawyers and then even judges, for Chrissake. Mahoney had enough of judges in his professional life to want to avoid them as lepers in private life, but what could you do? And all the jokes. And the wedding presents, for Gawd’s sake! The wedding presents first made Mahoney alarmed, then embarrassed. It really makes you feel that you’re a goner when the wedding presents start rolling in. Tea-trays and ice-buckets and cutlery sets and dinner services. And those mumsie tea showers and tablecloths really give a sensitive young man the heebie jeebies. Mind you, the cheques were rather a different story, but how the hell were they supposed to get all this junk to Jamaica, anyway? And now, this Sunday morning as he turned in the Riley’s drive, there were tables and chairs scattered over the huge lawns, and there was a lorry off-loading more chairs. The Riley’s were having a dummy run to see how the seating accommodation for the garden reception was going to work out. Must be three or four hundred chairs,
Mahoney reckoned moodily.
He pulled up behind the lorry at the side of the big house and stepped out. The Old Man was at the other end of the garden supervising two gardeners spreading the chairs. He waved and Mahoney walked across the lawn to him.
‘Good morning, Joseph, my boy, you’re around early.’
‘Good morning, sir. Yes it’s all this clean living.’
He was a decent Old Stick. He and the Old Girl had been a bit alarmed when their one and only had taken up with him – ‘Hasn’t he got rather a reputation, my dear? I mean he has got rather a reputation as a—a rough diamond. Do be careful—’ But they had been very decent when he said he was marrying her and taking her to the other end of the earth. And the Old Boy had given them one hell of a cheque as a wedding present.
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