A song in the morning

** *

"You're not usually here on a Sunday morning, Sergeant."

"Overtime, Carew. I get time and a half on a Sunday morning. I need the money, what with retirement coming.

You can always get overtime on a Sunday. The young fellows don't want it. They want to be with their families, get outside the city, get away from here."

Jeez had eaten his breakfast. His breakfast on a Sunday morning was the same as on any other morning. Jeez had eaten porridge made from maize, with milk. And two slices of brown bread, with thinly smeared margarine and jam.

The same as on every morning that he had been in Beverly Hills. He had three more breakfasts to eat. He would be gone before breakfast was served on Thursday. He had drunk his mug of coffee. He knew that he would get one meal that was different to all the other meals inside Beverly Hills. On Wednesday afternoon he would have a whole chicken for his dinner, cooked by the chef in the staff canteen. For the last meals there was always a whole chicken for the condemns who were White. He couldn't remember where he had heard that, whether it had been from way back when he was on remand, or whether he had read it in the newspapers before his arrest. It was a part of the lore of the condemns that they were given a whole chicken the dinner before they were hanged, just as it was part of the lore that the Blacks only had half a chicken. Jeez couldn't believe that, that the pigmentation of the skin made the difference between two legs and two wings and two breasts, and one leg and one wing and one chicken breast. And he wouldn't get to know, because he was buggered if he was going to beg an answer from Sergeant Oosthuizen.

Jeez wasn't sharp that Sunday morning.

So dull that he didn't even question Oosthuizen's claim that he was only at work to get time and a half for his nest egg. There was a weakness in Jeez's legs and in his belly. It was with him more frequently, as if he had a cold coming on, and the microbe was fear. Couldn't rid himself of the fear, not when he was locked in his cell, not when he was alone, particularly not when the high ceiling light about the wire grille was dimmed, when he was alone with his thoughts of Thursday morning and the rambling night sounds of the gaol.

The sounds carried into the upper areas of the cells and through the open windows to the catwalks, and from the catwalks they eddied to the next window and floated down from there to the next cell, and the cell beyond that.

The young White, the one who hadn't been there for more than a few weeks, always cried on a Sunday morning, in the small hours. Oosthuizen had told Jeez that he had been an altar boy, was a Roman Catholic, and cried because when he had been a teenager he was out of bed early on a Sunday morning and away to his local church for first Mass. Oosthuizen had confided that the young White was getting to be a pain with his crying. The old White, charged with killing his wife for the insurance, he coughed and spat each morning to clear the nicotine mucus from his throat. Oosthuizen said that the old White smoked sixty cigarettes a day. Oosthuizen had once said, in his innocence, that the old White would kill himself by so much smoking.

There was the crying and the coughing and the slither tread of the guard on the catwalk, and there was the sound of a lavatory flushing. There was laughter from out in the corridor, where the prison officers played cards to pass away the day.

Faintly he heard the singing.

Just a murmur at first.

The edges and clarity were knocked off the singing by the many windows and the yards of the catwalk that it passed through. The singing was from right across the far side of Beverly Hills, from A section or B section. Jeez saw Oosthuizen fidget.

"Who's it for?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you that."

"Sergeant…" Jeez held Oosthuizen with his eyes.

Oosthuizen pulled at his moustache, then shrugged, and dropped his voice. "For the boy who's going on Tuesday."

"Who is he, Sergeant?"

"Just a Coloured."

The whole place was mad. There was a worry that a man smoked too much and might harm his health before it was time for him to have his neck stretched, which might just do his health a bit more harm. There was worry that a prison officer who was retiring on Thursday might get into trouble for a quiet conversation on his last Sunday morning.

"What's he like, the fellow who does it?"

"You trying to get me on a charge sheet, Carew?"

"What's he like?"

The voice was a whisper. "He's damned good… Doesn't help you to think about it, forget what I told you… He's as good as anywhere in the whole world. He's fast and he's kind, a real professional."

He won't hurt you, Jeez. So get a grip on it, Jeez, because old Sergeant Oosthuizen says the executioner's a hell of a good operator. Great news, Jeez…

"I'll walk with you on Thursday morning, Carew. I'll hold your arm."

Jeez nodded. He couldn't speak. He didn't think Oosthuizen had attended a hanging in years. He thought that Oosthuizen had made him a bloody great gesture of love.

"I'm going to do the rosters so's I get Monday in here for the day shift, and then I'll have Tuesday off, and then I'll come on again for Tuesday night, and then I'll have Wednesday off and I'll be back on again for Wednesday night, and I'll stay on through… "

"Why, Sergeant?"

The words came in a flood flow. "Because you aren't the same as the others. Because you're here by some sort of accident, I don't know what the accident is. Because you're covering for something, I don't know what it is. Because you shouldn't be here. Because you're not a terrorist, whatever you've done. Because you had the way to save yourself, I don't know why you didn't take it… It's not my place to say that, but it's what I think."

Jeez smiled. "Not your place, Sergeant."

He watched the cell door close on Oosthuizen.

A hell of a week to look forward to. Clean clothes on Monday, and fresh sheets. Library on Wednesday. Early call on Thursday…