Frederick's Coat

by Duff, Alan

  Gerardo explained to Shane how it all worked. ‘We keep a barrier between us and the cops, with different recruits. Who? Anyone can sell our products. From lone-wolf ex-cons fresh out of jail and needing dough, to street gangs. Anyone screws us, we torture him before we kill him and dump the body in their playground so his pals know the consequences. Not like the crazy Mexicans. Ours isn’t about power, it’s about control and making sure you do what you say you’ll do — no fucking deviations, no skimming, no unauthorised borrowings. And definitely, one thousand per cent, no stealing from us.

  ‘It’s like your mother smacks your hand when you try stick something metal in the electric power point. Next time she smacks your bum and you do it again, your face is red for a week. Now, if you’re stupid enough to repeat this, what will your mother do? She’s gonna be in a rage, right? Well, this is men’s rage, the rage of a —’ broke off to gesture the capital — ‘Family. Our Family.’

  ‘Like a gang,’ Shane said. ‘I mean, same sense of family holding them together.’

  ‘No, not a gang. Fucking gangs, tattooed brutes with their stupid signs and dumb pledges of allegiance. You ever get asked to make a pledge? No. We don’t have no fucking pledges, no fucking ape rituals. We’re from a civilisation going back to the Roman emperors. We love our mothers, dote on our kids so much they’re allowed to be smart to the worst killer and get away with it. A gang, Shane?’ Whenever he called Shane by his proper name it put a distance between them.

  ‘I was just trying to find something similar, not compare.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Gerardo. ‘That’s about the most intelligent sentence I ever heard leave your mouth, Shano McNeilo.’ Least he’d closed the distance. ‘So, yeah. Guess we are a bit alike. But for one difference.’ Looking challengingly at Shane. ‘Can you tell me what that is?’

  After thinking for barely a moment, Shane said, ‘They’re in a gang for emotional reasons. Us, we’re strictly business, as well as keeping tight.’

  ‘And now you just went one better than the last, Shano, my boy. Got it in a nutshell. Them people can’t help themselves — being a gang member suits their fucked-up emotions. How many in here you see ever get a visit from their mothers? One? Two at most? How many you think would get letters, a nice Verdi CD, from their mothers? None, that’s how many. No-ne.

  ‘All right, your mum stopped writing probably ’cause she’s got that Alzheimer disease, terrible thing that it is — so random and heartless Mother Nature can be. But before she always wrote, didn’t she? That’s why you’re in with us — because you had what I’d call an emotional base. A mother who loved you. Sure, you’re a bit fucked-up and stir-crazy being too long in here, but you ain’t a head case like those tattooed, bearded baboons. You want to hear our choir again?’

  Chapter nineteen

  In the couples bar he saw Melanie, the vocalist from the Wednesday and Thursday night beer-garden band. A brunette in her early thirties, she was one of Danny’s fans, and the patrons loved her singing, as did Johno.

  ‘You giving me back the money you earn here?’

  ‘You saying that’s dumb, a mere vocalist spending her money where she likes?’ Johno considered her ‘flawed beautiful’, and that was probably what he liked about her. Only a fool seeks perfection in anything. Though he could be accused of just that in demanding the highest standard of barbecueing quality as well the best possible service.

  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Long as I can buy you one back — with your own money, in a sense.’ Cheeky — maybe. But something about her that he couldn’t put a finger on, nothing about her quite clear.

  When she sang some aching, soulful ballad, you could hear the proverbial pin drop; her voice could pull you in and hold you with its poignancy. Yet catch her in party mode and she seemed to be trying just a little too hard, as if it wasn’t really her true nature. But then again, he might have her wrong.

  ‘I get drinks at wholesale,’ he said. Nice figure. Nice. He wasn’t keen on large breasts, too obvious.

  ‘Okay. Sell me my round at wholesale. That’d leave my pride and my feminist views intact.’

  He looked at her. ‘You don’t come across as one of those.’

  ‘What’s’ — long fingers of one hand up — ‘“one of those”?’

  ‘An angry bitch,’ he said. ‘When life could be much more fun if we all just lightened up. We get a few like that here, prickly types always spoiling for an argument that they’re never going to let you win.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Have to think about that one.’

  He liked that she didn’t do too much to her hair; at least it seemed pretty natural, cut short as if with practicality in mind. ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘The angry bitch reckons your barman makes a mean pineapple, rum and Bacardi cocktail,’ she said without venom. ‘I’ll have another.’ Smiled. ‘Well, I get to drink with the man himself.’

  ‘If that’s such a big deal.’

  ‘You should hear what your women customers say. They regard you as quite a catch and, before you say it, no, I don’t think it’s just the money you apparently make.’

  ‘I do notice,’ Johno said, but he wasn’t that much interested in what people thought of him, women or men. ‘You come alone?’

  ‘I started out with Simon. He plays drums, remember him?’ No, Johno did not. ‘Split with his girlfriend, as musicians tend to do because they’re hopeless romantics. Disappeared on me.’

  ‘Chasing skirt,’ said Johno casually. ‘As men, not just musicians, do.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve noticed you playing the field,’ she said. ‘I see a lot from up there on the stage. But never the boss being a womaniser, not even a social butterfly. Nor, it must be added, one of the boys.’

  ‘Your drink will be here shortly.’ Johno had caught the eye of a barman. He looked around at his customers.

  ‘Can point out more than a few who are gropers, young and old enough to know better,’ Mel said. ‘But, hey, I’m not judging. As they say, depends how hot the guy is whether a woman calls him a sexual harasser or hopes for his mobile number.’

  Impressed with her frankness and honesty, Johno asked about her favourite music and went into listening mode. She talked about the singers she loved most, Freda Payne — when Johno said, ‘I never heard of her’, Melanie sang a few lines from Payne’s hit song, ‘Band of Gold’ — Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Shirley Bassey. ‘They’re the real giants, and they never go out of style.’

  He told her he liked all the singers she mentioned.

  ‘I love doing “It Must Be Him”, even though it’s somewhat cheesy. Technically and emotionally it’s beautiful. Vikki Carr sang the original back in ’67, about when I’m figuring you were born— um …?’

  ‘I was. Thought I looked a lot younger.’ Not vain about his age.

  ‘A lucky guess,’ she said. ‘Hard to say what age you are, I guess because you’re so serious yet professionally charming. Your customers like you.’

  ‘Only because someone told me the secret: be a good listener.’

  ‘Sound advice. I listen, too. And while we’re on age, I was minus seven,’ she said. ‘But back to Vikki Carr. I just try to be faithful to her rendition, perfectly phrased and executed as it is. Like when she sings how it has to be him, pleading with God “it must be him, it must be him”’ — Melanie sang the lines, full of feeling. ‘Or she will die. That’s just how real love is, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’ve never gone that deep into a song,’ said Johno. ‘But when you sing I feel I get close.’ Thought he’d add, ‘And that’s what everyone says about your singing.’

  ‘Wow, thank you. Always a better compliment coming from the person who pays you. You want to know another secret about listening to music? Pledge your emotions to it.’

  He could sense something coming off her, but perhaps it was just that he hadn’t had female company in a little while. ‘Guess it
’s frustrating when you’re giving it your all and the audience isn’t hearing, too busy talking and fooling around?’

  ‘You get hardened to it,’ Melanie said. ‘Bars are tough. It’s the booze, and drunk women are incapable of shutting up. They’re also our nastiest critics, even when they know nothing about music.’

  ‘The more you know the less you should say. Right?’ An offhand remark that still got an intense look from her.

  ‘Is that the same as: the more you’ve suffered the stronger it makes you?’ Her look was even more intense.

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  She changed the subject — or the tone. ‘Make my day and tell us we can play on Friday and/or Saturday nights, too.’

  ‘Can’t. They’re two different crowds. The Friday-nighters you never see here on a Saturday. They have barbies and dinner parties at each other’s homes. The Saturday lot love their sport and some will start mid-afternoon, hence those.’ He gestured at several ceiling-hung flat-screen televisions. ‘Neither group wants music drowning out their conversations or sports telecasts. Much as I love your voice.’

  ‘Mind if I ask again in two months?’

  ‘The answer will be the same.’

  Less than two months later, on one of her off-nights, Melanie approached Johno. ‘Can I ask a personal question? What do you do with your spare time?’

  ‘I sleep with women who don’t ask me outright,’ said Johno, deadpan and hovering.

  ‘You got that one wrong, mister. And as I’m here in my own time, I can react to you like any other man who reads me wrong.’

  ‘So tell me my poor humour at least had wit.’

  ‘This much.’ She put up two touching fingers.

  ‘What I used to do was spend Sundays with my son. Not now with the barbecue so popular. He has a, uh, friend, shall we say, who keeps him occupied. Or his art does. Monday and Tuesday is father-and-son time, with some planning for the week here. Danny is home-schooled.’

  ‘You’re busy,’ Melanie said. ‘Have you ever thought of some kind of sport? Let’s say I had an agenda and just came out and said scuba diving?’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘And my regular dive buddy, Ross, who plays bass in the band. It’s bloody good fun.’

  ‘I might try it one day,’ Johno said.

  ‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘They all say that. I have a writer friend who tells me everyone says to him, “I’m going to write a book on my life.” He says of course they never do, and anyway the life is invariably bland — just an ugly divorce, or some adventure in the world that went mildly wrong. You have to commit, Mr Ryan.’

  ‘Why me? You must have dozens you could invite.’

  ‘I don’t know. You seem to enjoy it when I’m singing the songs that mean the most to me …?’ Her mouth moved a little awkwardly.

  If she was fishing she’d caught one. He said, ‘I do love music. And, lady, you can sing.’

  ‘Thank you. It comes from my heart.’ And for just a moment he thought she was going to talk of recently breaking up with a lover. But she rallied, grabbed her fresh drink from the tray brought over by a waitress and touched glasses with Johno’s.

  ‘You know, for someone who runs such a fun place I’ve never seen you cut loose.’

  ‘You said that last time. I’m the proprietor. Has its perks, but a downside is the customers expect me to behave. Least that’s how I see it.’ When, really, he’d never been a dance-on-the-table type or a big talker. So maybe that made Danny more his father’s son than Johno thought.

  ‘Well, you can lose your inhibitions underwater and feel real perky afterwards. You get this little glow. Go on, say yes.’

  Seizing on a possibility, Johno said, ‘If my son agrees to join me, then I’m on. Danny, who you’ll have seen around. Tall and handsome but kind of …’

  ‘Delicate,’ she said, as if wanting to preclude a harsher word. ‘As he would be to produce these extraordinary paintings. He has amazingly beautiful eyes — just make you melt. The whole place talks about him, the non-Philistines compare him to a Michelangelo sculpture. Hmmm. I guess if the idea of flying appeals to him he’ll love diving. Tell him you can go anywhere you like — up, down, sideways, just float in one position, weightless. It’s a hell of an experience. I’m sure your son would love the light, let alone the sights.’

  Sell the idea to Danny he did. ‘You know how a helicopter can go in any direction? This is the same. There’s the sea life, seahorses, countless fish species, and giant kelp forests, caves, rock formations.’

  ‘How about sharks? Big conga eels?’

  ‘She says they’re the least of your worries. If it was dangerous, would I be asking you to do it?’

  ‘No,’ Danny said. ‘You wouldn’t. But I’d still be scared.’

  ‘Not with me right there with you,’ said Johno, and got an idea. ‘I’m picking diving is like your dreams, Dan.’ Got him.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mel says the light does amazing things …’

  ‘I love light, its different forms. Would we go deep?’

  ‘No way. She says the best diving is in the shallower water because the sunlight penetrates. Shall we give it a try?’

  Turned out to be one of the better things they’d done together, father and son training over five Sundays two hours a time, first in a waist-deep swimming pool learning the fundamentals, experiencing breathing underwater with an aqualung, then the last two days diving in the sea in full diving kit.

  Their dive instructor did have problems communicating with Danny, who had a question about everything and occasionally went off into a reverie while he was supposed to be taking instructions. He told Danny in no uncertain fashion that concentration was essential even when one had considerable experience.

  As newly certified divers they were taken to a spot south of Sydney Heads with Melanie and her friend Ross in his high-powered inflatable, and it was, as Melanie had promised, an amazing experience. Afterwards, Danny the most talkative he’d been in his entire life, burbling on about the sights and, yes, the light plays, the weightless sensation and all the visual surprises.

  They came home and Johno offered Danny his first beer, at least he assumed it was; watching to see if his son was a natural-born drinker.

  Laurie Ryan died the following Sunday morning, when Johno and Danny had planned to go diving. Danny, so distressed three months before after speaking on the telephone to his dying grandfather, now seemed oddly detached, as if his unconventional mind couldn’t grasp the concept of death.

  Johno had loved his father. The three generations of Ryan males living together as far back as he could remember had been a pretty tight unit, even if the two adults didn’t always act responsibly, going off on their boozing binges. Not that he felt traumatised by it — not at all. But he did remember, and now and again it hurt.

  At Laurie Ryan’s funeral Johno recognised some of the faces from both his childhood and his brief stint as a petty criminal; knew the ex-con look, too, that flashy image of Pringle cashmere pullovers, the vicuna coats, and always lots of expensive jewellery. Could pick the heavy gamblers with their nervous disposition and cocky talk, as if worried they’d miss an opportunity to bet on something. A few rugged pugilist faces among them, men who looked more in mourning for what they once were physically. One icy-eyed man Johno picked as a well-known psychopath — he’d seen his share of psychos in Long Bay. Indeed, a good part of the mourners were a parade of prison old boys and low-rung underworld characters come to pay their respects to one of their own. And there among them was Danny Ryan, fascinated, ever-curious, eyes never staying still as he took in both the living and the stone monuments and statues, greedily drinking it all in to be reinvented later on his canvases.

  At Johno’s request Melanie sang a poignant Irish folk song that everyone said the musical Laurie would have liked, and one of Laurie’s silver-haired mates gave a moving rendition of ‘Danny Boy’, as his funeral instructions had request
ed.

  Johno said a few words at the grave, thanking his father for bringing him up alone, ‘for your influences, good and not many bad. For your special existence and belief in your own moral code, a more gentle fish swimming with the sharks.’

  Dave Wright was bolder in not glossing over his good friend’s past. ‘Who says we all have to be conventional? Laurie Ryan wasn’t. His dad wasn’t. His artist grandson isn’t. But I can say that Laurie Ryan, unlawful man that he could be, had more principles than most upstanding citizens I know.’

  Johno teased Wrighty afterwards about leaving him out of the family mentions. ‘Still waters, Johno. You’re too deep for me to read.’ Was it a compliment or the observation of someone seeing dark times ahead?

  Danny didn’t attend the post-funeral booze-up held at Dave Wright’s house, and Johno was rather relieved, even if Laurie had left his entire estate to his grandson.

  After another day of successful scuba diving with Mel and Ross, Johno watching his son drinking one beer after another, not guzzling, just enjoying them as he tried to translate the dive experience onto canvas.

  But he wasn’t getting drunk, not like a normal sixteen-year-old might. No show of ego, no sign of being anti-authority. And a slur didn’t come into his voice till the fifth can, which turned out his last; he was tired from diving and the alcohol his system wasn’t used to.

  When he fell asleep on the sofa, his father saw what Danny had painted, and it took him by surprise. He couldn’t decide if this was genius or just the work of a weird person who happened to be his son. It was his usual crowded and busy canvas full of incident, people, animals — this time fish — and in the centre, a rather large cave.

  And who should be standing in it, underwater, but Frederick, in his big grey coat.

  A hose ran from the surface to his mouth. His arms were outstretched and written in the form of tiny individual fish were the words: Behold the man within the coat. Like the pages of a book, you must read him first before passing judgement. Were these his own words or Frederick’s?