Frederick's Coat (4 page)

‘One of the contradictions in here,’ said Kanohi. ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’

‘Not the fight I’m worried about.’

‘See? You just damned yourself. And you’re pissing me off. Just go bash him. Ask what the fuck he picked on you for. Then come tell me, and if it’s for a real stupid reason I’ll hurt him worse.’

‘Won’t that make it — well, worse?’

‘No, brother,’ Kanohi said. ‘Who’s gonna up the ante on me? Even if I wanted to stop it I wouldn’t. You came out with this brown brothers stuff, so go be the Maori and we’ll see if the genes skipped you or not.’

Shrugging, Johno thanked Kanohi, then put a hand on his shoulder, gave him a smile.

Dixon smiled back. ‘You really do want to see your missus and kids, don’t you?’

Back with Shane, Johno said, ‘If I knew what Jones thinks I did to upset him I could maybe smooth it over.’

‘Well, when he eyeballed me I asked him what the fuck he was looking at,’ said Shane.

‘You swore at him?’

‘J, this is a jail. What was I s’posed to say? And he doesn’t need a reason. There’s Jones pumped to the max,’ said Shane. ‘Let’s just go do it.’

‘You leave it to me,’ said Johno. ‘If I see he’s not listening then I’ll
make the first move. Keep your eye on his backers.’

‘Telling you, J: I see one suss blink, even you won’t be able to stop me.’

Johno reckoned his best friend was just scared and whipping himself up.

That evening Kanohi turned up at Johno’s cell.

‘You been telling lies about my protecting you?’

‘Not lies when there’s so much at stake,’ said Johno.

‘Liberty not being one of them, as I told you. My close advisers say I should punish you,’ Kanohi said.

‘Then fire them and get some with sense,’ said Johno. If the large, menacing figure got any closer it wouldn’t matter if Johno died: he’d not tolerate the intimidation, not from anyone. A certain three cops had got away with it, but there wouldn’t be a second time.

‘You want to tell them that yourself?’

‘Sure. Send ’em to me.’

‘Thought you wanted to get out?’

‘I’ll delay it for idiots like your advisers — with all due respect,’ Johno said. ‘Don’t look at me like that.
I’m
on your side. But why the fuck are they
advising
you to punish me when all I did was confuse the enemy by throwing your name in the mix?’

‘I don’t remember giving you permission. I watched for the stink to start, see how you went.’

‘So I used my brains instead.’

‘Told you I wanted to see you fighting.’

‘I didn’t know our conversation was me taking instructions,’ said Johno. ‘I came to ask you a favour, you said no.’

‘I let you put a hand on me. Not many can claim that.’

‘That’s what got me over the line, him seeing you and me mated-up.’

‘Saved your freedom, I guess.’ The sigh seemed to say Kanohi accepted Johno’s reasoning. ‘When you due out?’

‘In seven months,’ said Johno. ‘I can smell it like your fancy soaps and underarm. Freedom, I mean.’

‘I gotta have my indulgences. I don’t do dope or any other drugs. Funny I got sentenced for supplying. Imagine what freedom must’ve smelt like to Nelson Mandela? Twenty-seven years and he was innocent. We’re not. He refused to come out the day of his official release because it didn’t work in with his political objectives. What do you or I stand for?’ asked Kanohi.

Good question. ‘We should have been all sorts of things on the outside,’ Johno said. ‘But we never manage that next step.’ He wouldn’t have said this even a week ago. Felt kind of good, too, like he had something real to hang onto instead of listening to Shane making big plans for their next crime.

‘That where you’re hovering, bro?’ Surprising tenderness, or at least understanding, in Kanohi’s tone. ‘Taking that vital step in the other direction? Well, what usually happens is the dude either goes all religious, a born-again, or he makes up his mind he’s never coming back to prison and tells no one. Guess that’s you, eh?’

‘If Jones doesn’t wake up to me pulling the wool.’

‘Why I’m here, fellow Maori brother.’ Kanohi’s smile broadened. ‘So word gets to Mr Cannibal I do have your back. But you owe me one.’

‘Anytime.’

‘So what was his reason for wanting to spill your blood?’

‘That horse I backed with your bookie? Because I was the only one on it while everyone else bet on a hot tip sourced from I could never guess who,’ Johno said with a look. ‘He put two and two together and came up with the five hundred I won making a conspiracy.’

‘Is that all? I won’t punish him for that or it’ll hurt my bookmaking business. What keeps my family alive, send them cash every week. Know I’m paying for my wife’s lover’s booze bill. Only one of my kids, Tahu, is okay, and even he’s in danger of falling off. Soon father and sons will be doing time together. Don’t like that thought. I did put the whisper out to get on that horse. Mugs fall for it every time, ’cause they’re lazy of mind as well as spirit. Only you backed the winner and I was happy for you,’ said Kanohi. ‘Tell me about your old lady.’

‘Came home from school one day with Shane and this
brown-skinned
hippy’s waiting. She said, “Gidday. I’m your mother.”’

‘A Maori and she talked like that?’

‘I swear. Unless I’m the wrong person to be recalling.’

‘Man, she must’ve lived here a long time. No Maori speaks like that. And I’d never have picked you and Shane as that close. You’re too different.’

‘Opposites attract.’

‘Only when they’re fucking each other. And I hope you and him aren’t chutney sandwichers. I hate that homo shit.’

‘So I’d better not say I thought every kingpin has his jail bitch.’

‘Say it and you’ll find a broom handle up your arse and coming out your mouth. Get my sex highs from Mrs Palmer, and when she’s boring I get it from violence. A real man doesn’t do that shit,’ Kanohi said with feeling. ‘So you were shocked.’

‘Thought she was long in her grave. She oozed junkie.’

‘You’re not blaming being inside on her, are you?’

‘Nope, not her or my criminal old man.’

‘Makes a change from the usual whining mantra round here,’ said Kanohi. ‘That’s a crim’s other problem, he’s never satisfied and never at fault. Irredeemable cunts all of ’em.’

Johno nodded. ‘Hate it when some con gets onto his olds. I put myself in here. I want out soon as I can.’ He spoke with feeling.

‘Bad parents do make for bad kids,’ said Kanohi. ‘But it’s something else makes us bad. Or every person with shit parents would end up in jail. Plenty in here had good parents, so it’s not all about upbringing.’

‘Kind of obvious now you point it out. What about the ones swear they’re never coming back?’

‘I’ve seen just about all of ’em come back, some within a few months and that’s remanded in custody most of it. Like your mate will.’

‘Unless I get him alongside me.’

‘He’s not ready to change. Reforming’s like giving up smoking. One puff and you’ve lost. That Shane is a smoker of crime through and
through.’ Kanohi was back to being the prison wise man. ‘I have the same fatal flaw.’

‘Guess we all do,’ said Johno. ‘But I intend leaving my flaws behind.’

‘I’ve heard that said a thousand times before.’

‘I mean it,’ said Johno. ‘I wish we’d got to know each other better.’

‘Yeah, so I could point out the furrows in your brow and tell you, Johno boy, you got some hard times coming of plain growing up. Come here.’ Kanohi reached out both big paws for Johno’s hands.

‘The favour you owe me is my son Tahu. If you can keep him on the right path you’ve weighed in with Dixon Kanohi. But I won’t blame you if it doesn’t work out. He’s got his old man’s hard side.’

‘I’ll do what I can. But not right away. Got my own family to sort out,’ said Johno. ‘Got any advice?’

‘Yep. Let the truth assail you, knock you to the ground and stomp all that garbage from your head. Lucky you’re not emotionally scarred like most of us. It’ll be a woman, your wife, who drags you screaming and kicking into maturity.’ Kanohi kind of smiled. ‘If you’re man enough to listen. I wasn’t.’

O
utside the prison just after eight on a bright November morning, 1993. Evelyn had called the prison to say she was running late — traffic. He had at least an hour to kill. No matter. They say it’s worth doing the time to experience the freedom, and it did feel better than terrific.

The sun felt warmer and full of promise of a great summer to come. The air was fresher. No more constant din of metal doors and grilles and men yelling in ordinary conversation, no more explosions of laughter that had a violent undercurrent, men arguing and boasting, mouths running off. He was free.

Funny how an hour takes so long to pass for someone who’s spent many months marking time, waiting. But at last Johno saw his wife standing beside a heap of junk he didn’t recognise. He’d been expecting his beloved ’87 V12 Jag, not a Mitsubishi that must be at least twelve years old.

She’d changed, too. Dyed her lovely jet-black hair a streaky blonde — why? Thinner. Older. Didn’t look much like the photos that had been on his cell walls and were now in his sports bag. A woman who was his wife but almost a stranger, with hurt written into her features. Jesus.

‘Long time, huh?’ he said and she just nodded. Words didn’t mean a thing on a day like this. They embraced. He felt her tension, her lack of excitement; saw it when he held her at arm’s length, her face full of strain. ‘A bit of a day, eh?’ Meaning it could be memorable, something
to look back on and laugh and even cry about.

‘I hardly slept,’ she said. Still had her smoker’s husky tone. ‘I was worried your old man might turn up and spoil the, uh, party.’

‘He wouldn’t.’ Why did she say ‘uh’? ‘He did jail time himself,’ Johno said. ‘Before I was born.’ She just grimaced and he realised he hadn’t told her.

Without offering him the chance to drive, she reached the driver’s door first and he had to step around to the passenger side. A little resentful, he said, ‘You think I forgot how to drive?’

‘No,’ Evelyn said. ‘The last thing I thought about. Just habit.’ But didn’t say sorry.

‘Hope this old banger gets us there,’ he said, and even to his own ears it sounded a bit sulky. And moments ago he was revelling in his newly minted freedom.

After a while he asked, ‘My old man do the right thing by you?’

‘Yes,’ Evelyn said. ‘Money-wise.’ Shot him a glance. ‘None of my business — if he wasn’t your old man and my father-in-law. But since you mentioned he’s done time, I don’t think he’s gone exactly straight.’

‘Is it written that he had to?’

‘Just saying.’ Evelyn gave a sigh Johno didn’t like. ‘So I never felt comfortable taking his money, not that we could have managed without it.’ She didn’t glance at him or say any more.

‘Come on,’ he said after a while. ‘This is a big day.’

‘No,’ she said. And that was all.

He gave her a look to convey what nature makes a man’s foremost priority after thirty-nine months of forced abstinence. But when he caught her glance, her eyes looked flat — no, dead.

‘You miss me?’ he asked.

‘Did you miss
us?
’

‘Sure I did,’ he said. ‘What happened to my Jag?’ The question just had to be asked.

‘
Our
Jag got sold a while ago.’ That plural thing again. Jesus, a bit strong in the opening minutes. ‘Too expensive to service and used way
too much gas. Had to trade down to this, free up some cash.’

‘I left you with dough.’

‘Ten grand doesn’t last long with two little ones,’ she said.

He shouldn’t have, but he acted surprised as he said, ‘Oh? Like, how long?’

‘I can give you cost details till you die of boredom,’ she said. ‘It’s tough out here.’

Not sure he liked how she put that, but he said, ‘Guess it must’ve been.’ Trying to hold back the thoughts from rushing in and overwhelming him. This wasn’t how he’d imagined this day.

She said, ‘Maybe it’s me. I never was a good budgeter. But I spent on the kids, not myself. And at least your father did as he promised.’

‘As he would.’ Johno a little offended. ‘He always keeps his word.’

‘In a world of broken promises, eh, Johno?’

‘Not by family.’

‘You’re family.’ She looked at him and he turned away, if briefly. Damned if a woman was going to bludgeon him with guilt.

‘I wasn’t having a go at you,’ she said. ‘But, you know …’

He didn’t know, actually. Not about a now confusing world of a wife, kids, money, living costs. Not supposed to be like this. Shouldn’t they be feeling each other up, desperate for each other and beyond just the physical? A prison inmate and he felt like crying.

She brushed away the hair that had fallen over her forehead. The new colour had definitely taken away some of her good looks.

‘You get yourself done up for the big day?’ he said.

‘Been like this a while now,’ she said. ‘I go to the hairdresser once every two months — my one indulgence. Don’t you like it?’

‘Takes a bit of adjusting,’ he said, ‘like to everything. But yeah, it looks good.’ He didn’t mean it for one second and she knew it.

They were coming into Sydney’s south, La Perouse, named, he’d learnt from Dixon Kanohi, after a French explorer who arrived just five days after the first transportation fleet brought convicts from Britain in 1788. Johno told Dixon his Ryan ancestor was among those
sentenced prisoners. The big Maori said his ancestors at the time were cannibals who lived to fight; only the cannibalism had ceased.

Planes in the sky said Sydney’s main airport was nearby. People — law-abiding citizens — flying everywhere. Prison back there behind him, the vow he’d never go back. Wasn’t this his first day back in “Freeland” after thirty-nine months? Forcing himself to feel good again.

‘Same our end,’ Evelyn said. ‘Me and the kids adjusting to a man in the house.’ Threw him a full face. ‘But guess you thought about that.’

‘Yeah,’ he was pleased to say. ‘I did.’ Told her of the incident with Jones he’d cleverly defused, and his reasons.

She was only kind of impressed.

He said, ‘I don’t blame you.’

‘For what?’

‘Not believing I might’ve changed.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘with your track record and a family of crooks?’

‘You’ll see. Gonna look for a job, starting tomorrow. No, make that next Monday, get settled in.’

‘A job doing what?’ she said. ‘I mean great. It’s a good start. But what are you qualified to do? They put you through some kind of training course in there?’

He didn’t like the casual way she referred to it. Prison was as much an event as a place. An act of survival physically, emotionally and mentally — and, latterly, the start of a man growing up. Or so it felt.

‘The first year and a half I sat at a machine that stamped out fibre gaskets. Then one of the kingpins, a Maori guy, got me a job in the kitchen.’

‘So you ate well.’ She looked at his midriff area. ‘Yet you’ve lost weight. Got rid of that beer paunch.’

‘Was it that bad before?’

‘Must’ve been if I saw the difference right away.’ But there was no sexual hunger in her tone. ‘So, you’ll apply for, what, a chef’s position? Or start off as, I don’t know, a pot washer?’

‘That’s not sarcasm, is it? After fifteen minutes together?’ Could hear his anger threatening to take over, everything spinning out of control.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But don’t kid yourself there’s none coming, Johno Ryan. At least some harsh home truths.’

‘Sure.’ So why did he swallow? ‘But you wanna start right now?’

‘I will if you take that attitude. Why don’t we wind the clock back and you ask how the kids and I have got on?’

‘I was getting to that. Come on, hon.’ He reached for her hand on the steering wheel. Saw how veiny it was, felt cool to the touch. ‘I know from the old lags the first day is stressful for everyone. Promise I’ll try to make it as easy as I can. For the kids, too.’

‘Leah’s at school — that’s why I was late. Danny starts school soon. They’ll stay a few days with my parents while you and I get sorted.’

He made the mistake of reading that as a sexual signal. But when he ran a hand along her leg he felt her stiffen.

She said, ‘I’ll need my own time to adjust to that. Sorry.’

Taken aback, he managed to say, ‘That’s okay. I understand. I’d worry more if you were already adjusted.’

‘If some of your so-called friends had their way, I would be,’ she said.

Felt like he’d been punched.

‘Like who?’

‘You taught me never to name names.’

‘So now I’m unteaching you,’ Johno said. ‘Who?’

‘People you’d expect better of,’ she said. ‘Call around and give me the questions on how we’re doing and can they help. I read it wrong the first couple of times and said, “You’re a godsend. Johno’s car needs repairs. Jags are expensive to fix. The washing machine has broken down — all those nappies’cause I can’t afford disposables.” Till I saw that look a man gets when he wants you know what.’

‘You talking mates of mine?’ Really, apart from Shane they’d all been acquaintances who shouldn’t even know where his wife lived.

‘Johno?’ She turned to face him. ‘Please know that some are far from
your mates and that I stayed faithful to you. I threatened to call your old man if they didn’t piss off. Okay?’

‘You know what? That was the last thing on my mind. If you’ve slept with someone, that’s all right. You’re human. If there were women in prison I wouldn’t have been faithful.’

‘You weren’t when you were free,’ she said. ‘The second-to-last night before you went away, you didn’t come home.’

‘Come on. Don’t be bringing that up after all this time. Ask me if I’ve changed, why don’t you?’ He said it with what he thought was a genuine smile. But inside he was churning.

‘Believe it when I see it.’

‘Believe it now and give me the benefit of your considerable doubt.’ Sounded like Kanohi, a bit flowery, because he was all wound up now.

The traffic was mind-blowing to a man used only to human traffic, chaotic and shrill and violent though it had been. Johno kept pushing his feet to the floor, feeling Evelyn should have braked sooner. Wanted to take over the driving.

‘So tell me how it’s been for you,’ he said to the windscreen.

‘Not a joy ride,’ she said. ‘But plenty of time to unload all that. Glad you asked. You want a smoke?’ She handed him one sticking out of the packet, lit her own and he lit off hers. The gesture felt familiar, intimate, like it should be.

‘You on roll-ups in there?’ she said. ‘What I heard.’

‘You heard right. But working in the kitchen gave me food to swap for tailor-mades. Plus, I play a mean game of poker.’ To which Evelyn just sighed. Beyond the windscreen, free life looked slightly less beautiful, and every tiled roof felt like an unlikely promise that he and his family would have a home of their own, too.

‘That’ll be useful.’ Evelyn’s sarcasm twisted his knotted gut more. ‘From the professional criminal to the pro poker player. How long do you think that will last?’

‘They don’t throw you in jail for playing poker for money,’ he said defensively. Yet aware his desire to go straight was vague, that he had
no actual plan, other than to get his first legitimate job and get into some sort of business, even if he had no idea what. How to go about the first part, someone who’d never held down a job in his life, not even a paper run as a boy?

The five hundred dollars he had won on the horse he’d tripled by playing poker. Add the thousand dollars cash he ‘checked in’ with, a few bucks of meagre prison earnings and his net cash worth was $2576.

‘What’s it like living out in Penrith?’ he said. ‘Be like the outback, wouldn’t it?’

‘Is that why I got hardly a letter from you? They got sent to the outback?’

‘Just saying Penrith is a long way from the action.’ He blew air.

‘Plenty of jobs going there. It’s a growing place. New houses going up all over. You hardly ever wrote,’ she said.

He looked to see if she was on his case again.

‘I’m no letter writer. What would I say?’

‘I dunno.’ She shrugged but the gesture said volumes.

‘You know I missed you,’ he said. ‘And the kids.’

‘I got over missing you. Too focused on staying alive, raising two kids. And I’m afraid your children have no memory of you.’

‘I didn’t expect they would. Why don’t you stop at the first shop that sells toys and I’ll get them something?’

‘Sure,’ she said, ‘but bribery won’t work. Leah loves to read and Danny’s idea of toys is pencils, paints, paper to draw on. He’s a proper little artist.’

‘I remember you wrote saying he loves drawing. Is he good?’

‘Better than. You’ll see. He turns five in March.’

‘March. That’s right.’ One little white lie was better than admitting he didn’t remember the date. ‘So that makes Leah …’

‘Nearly seven. She says she remembers you, but she’s not sure.’

‘Haven’t they got photos of me?’

‘You weren’t one for being photographed, Johno.’

‘So I’m even more of a stranger?’

‘I did warn you.’

‘What’s Leah good at?’

‘Talking, as in demanding till she gets her own way. Loves reading. Probably envies her brother’s arty bent.’

‘Can’t wait to see them,’ Johno said. Another white lie.

‘Don’t have any expectations. Okay?’ She seemed to have read his mind.

He didn’t know what to say. Right up to seeing her standing outside the car he’d had words, promises to make. Had intended telling her that he loved her and that he wasn’t the same person anymore.

‘I know how it goes,’ he said eventually.

‘Not sure you do,’ she sighed yet again. ‘But the world keeps turning.’

Silence again. He was finding Evelyn’s driving too aggressive in the heavy traffic. And he was horny, sitting beside a woman who plainly wasn’t.

This was a side of town he wasn’t familiar with, though he and Shane had done a van theft at an airport warehouse, stacked full of computers which they sold at one third the retail. He thought of his mate. What about when Shane got out and turned up? Didn’t bear thinking about, telling his closest friend he was going straight.

Hardly registered the suburb where she found a parking place in the main street, and no sooner was he in the toy store with her than he wanted out. So he waited in the car while Evelyn chose presents for their kids, trying not to brood or let the confusion take over. Heard on the car radio that today, of all days, was the Melbourne Cup. Of course, the first Tuesday of November every year. Great — something to take his mind off things.