In Sickness, in Health ... and in Jail

by Mel Jacob

  ‘We have the same sense of humour, and the same taste in films and TV shows . . . except for shoot’em-up movies . . . but we’re different, very different,’ I said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He’s currently on bail,’ I said, joking, but mainly to buy myself some time. It’s hard to sum up someone in a few short sentences. I believe that all of us are creatures of contradiction, and I had spent the past fifteen years getting to know all the nuances, depths and facets of Patrick, and now I felt like I didn’t know the first thing about him. While Steph appreciated my sense of humour, she was astute enough to know when I trying to use it as a defence mechanism.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s decisive and logical, and I come at things on a more emotional and intuitive level. He’s neat. I’m messy. I love words, he’s more a numbers person—’ But it all sounded so general, so Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and didn’t come close to explaining who we really are.

  I couldn’t think of what else to say and Steph let me sit there in silence. I’m not sure if it was a strategy of hers but it was agony. She could see that I was struggling, and just when it got to the point I couldn’t bear it anymore, she said, ‘What was he like when you first met?’

  I took a long sip of tea.

  We met sixteen years ago. Unlike Patrick’s version, I have no recollection of us meeting at that New Year’s party in Balmain, but I distinctly recall the first time I noticed him, because I was mortified. I’d been invited by mutual friends from church to a barbecue in Centennial Park. I arrived to find, right next to the picnic blankets, a writhing mass of flailing limbs. A group of consenting male adults were wrestling. In public. When all the groaning and pleas for mercy finally ended, I noticed one man stand up. His previously arctic-white T-shirt was now covered in grass stains and had a large rip on the front. He walked towards me, having collected his water bottle from the rug and then promptly pouring it over his head. It did not escape my attention that his very-well-defined abdominal muscles were visible through his shirt. Not to mention his dark brown hair and eyes, and his unblemished olive skin. He was damn sexy.

  But I was not the slightest bit interested in grown men who wrestled in parks. Now far from my hometown, I had tried to cultivate an air of sophistication. As such, my main hobbies were being pretentious, talking about pretentious things and reading pretentious books. I knew that I was going to end up with a charming, bookish intellectual. I hadn’t met him yet but I imagined him to have black horn-rimmed glasses, a worn leather satchel and a delightful English accent. Our relationship would have all the hallmarks of other romances: the electric first kiss, the candlelit dinners, the walks on the beach during which he could explain to me the works of James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, and other writers that I only pretended to understand.

  After the barbecue some friends I was with were going to see a movie. ‘The book will be much better,’ I interjected. And this man in a grass-stained, ripped T-shirt—whose name I’d since learned was Patrick—said ‘Bring the book along.’ The large group laughed and I joined in, even though I felt the slightest bit humiliated. His gaze lingered a little too long, and then he softly brushed my wrist, which caused the teensiest stir in me.

  ‘Sorry, but it was worth it,’ he said.

  ‘Worth it?’

  ‘To see you smile.’

  ‘I smile,’ I said defensively. But I’d been told from a number of reliable sources that I rarely ever did. I was far too earnest.

  ‘You are now,’ and he held my gaze.

  There is no question that when I first met Patrick, I thought he was handsome. He had defined cheekbones and full lips, and energy, charisma. But, again, he was definitely not my type.

  I didn’t go to the movies that afternoon but I did see him over the course of the summer at events and parties when our different social groups collided. Patrick rarely ever drinks alcohol, but after hearing me bragging at a swanky party in Woollahra about the characteristics of a particular wine, he swilled some of it in a glass, sniffed ostentatiously and said, ‘I can detect grapes, fermentation, alcohol . . . it’s unoaked but with an oak-barrel flavour, bland but spicy . . .’ On another occasion, he switched some very expensive wine with cheap vino, and I was forced to concede that I didn’t actually know the first thing about wine. When it came to wine—or most other things, for that matter—I liked, bought and did what everybody else told me to.

  Patrick, on the other hand, was refreshingly different. He treated everyone, regardless of wealth or status, in exactly the same way. Mind you, it was with a callous disregard for social etiquette but still . . . he was himself and he made no apologies for that. He was creative. A lateral thinker with a sharp mind for business. And even though he preferred movies to books, and didn’t particularly like going to the theatre, or drinking fancy-pants wine, there was something about him that I found completely irresistible. He made me laugh, more than anyone I had ever met. With him I was lighter, sunnier, more effervescent, than I was on my own.

  And somehow we fell deeply, inexplicably, in love.

  In that warm glow of new love, I remember, every new fact felt like a rare archaeological discovery. He loves Johnny Cash. Hates coriander. This was when mobile phones were a rarity, and I literally sat by the phone waiting for him to call, just so I could hear his voice.

  There in Steph’s office, as I sipped my peppermint tea and thought about the beginnings of my relationship with Patrick, I remembered how romantic he used to be. He bought flowers, penned rhyming poems, and once, knowing that every time I opened a Turkish Delight chocolate bar I wished for a Willy Wonka golden ticket, he colluded with a newsagent and planted one inside said bar. The prize: a dinner date with him.

  But that was a lifetime ago. When we were in the throes of young love. When we could stay up late without being tired, before the problems of real life began to seep in. Before financial struggles, and one heartbreaking miscarriage, and before Patrick decided that he wanted to live hand-to-mouth with a Papuan tribe, and I wanted to buy an enormous house filled with designer couches and decorative cushions.

  It was hard to believe that our relationship had once been so romantic and so spontaneous. And I longed for the spontaneity. No sooner did the thought enter my mind than I realised that our busy-parent lives were, in fact, very spontaneous. But it was the cleaning-up-vomit, looking-for-escaped-guinea-pig form of spontaneity, not the romantic kind.

  I thought of my life with Patrick as being fairly predictable. I thought I knew everything about him. I knew that he woke most mornings at a quarter past seven. And that he had cornflakes with three heaped spoonfuls of sugar for breakfast. And that he preferred baths and liked to drip dry in front of the heater. And that his saddest memories were to do with his father leaving his mother. And that he genuinely loved playing games with the kids, primarily because he was a big kid himself. And then he went and got himself arrested, and it felt as if a giant fissure had formed in our relationship.

  ‘How did Patrick explain himself to you?’ Steph asked, elegantly sipping her water with lemon.

  ‘He tried . . . he said he’d purchased slingshots from a couple of different toy and fishing stores. He’d played with them as a child and assumed they were legal provided they were called bait throwers.’

  ‘And the crossbows . . . ? Because they’re not legal, are they?’ Steph asked, jotting something down in her notebook.

  ‘In New South Wales they’re legal if unassembled,’ I said.

  ‘That doesn’t make a lot of sense,’ she replied, writing this point down in her diary.

  ‘When Patrick told me I didn’t believe him, so I looked it up myself, and he also showed me emails to that effect from Customs.’ It was not surprising that Steph found it confusing, because so did I.

  ‘And he sold one unassembled one and one assembled?’ Steph clarified.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the unregistered rifle?’ she asked.

  ‘It w
as a gift from an old school friend, Clogs. He found it in a container on his uncle’s farm, and left it in the warehouse as a gift because he owed Patrick some money, knew he’d always wanted that model. Patrick said it was old and rusty, didn’t know if it even worked. And then it became his problem. I know that’s not an excuse . . .’

  ‘Did he explain why he did it?’ Steph asked.

  ‘That’s the first thing I asked him, “Why?” He’d told me he said no at first, but the undercover cop, Alex, kept calling. Said he was from Adelaide, where crossbows are legal, and that he was a licensed gun owner. After Patrick was released on bail we sat in the car in the car park across from the court and I said, “How could you do this?” And his head fell onto the dashboard. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”’

  My sessions with Steph didn’t usually follow a Vesuvian format. And as I sat there in her office, I felt patches of emotion: a flash of anger here, a pang of a sadness there and a feeling of heavy disappointment in my chest. Mainly, I just felt numb. It felt as though most of my emotions had been gouged out of me and I watched everything around me with a detached and distant awareness.

  FOUR

  When I think back to the period following Patrick’s arrest to his eventual incarceration, I think of a documentary about nuclear explosions I once saw. There’s the direct impact of the blast, the obvious and immediate damage caused by thermal radiation. And then there’s the fallout—the tiny particles projected into the atmosphere and carried by the elements. On a micro level, on an emotional level, that’s what it felt like to me—a nuclear explosion.

  There was the initial shock of the arrest, followed by the demanding conditions of bail and the exorbitant legal costs. Then there was the emotional fallout of living with the charges. The uncertainty that contaminated our life in ways we could never have imagined. But first we had to deal with the impact of the blast.

  ‘I was told that you were belligerent and refused representation,’ said Amar, a short, stocky man with thick, bushy eyebrows. After several meetings with Mark, it became clear that while his charm alleviated our worst fears, his knowledge of the law was sketchy. Amar was the solicitor Patrick’s sister Cathy had sent to the police station following his one phone call.

  ‘I told the detectives I wanted a solicitor, you can check the transcript,’ Patrick insisted.

  ‘I don’t doubt you,’ Amar said. ‘The police are well versed in these kind of tactics.’ I was shocked. ‘If I represent you, if I agree to represent you, you do not, under any circumstances, talk to the police. If they ask you the time, if they ask what the weather is like outside, you do not say a single word. Am I clear?’

  Patrick nodded, and I looked over at a stack of manila folders leaning precariously against the wall.

  ‘Now, I need to know exactly what happened,’ Amar said.

  Patrick repeated the whole story. That Alex, a customer who purported to be a licensed gun owner from South Australia, purchased a slingshot and ball bearings. After that, he contacted Patrick numerous times and, in January, Patrick sold him an unassembled crossbow and, shortly afterwards, an assembled one.

  ‘Told me he was from Adelaide, where they’re legal . . . and I knew unassembled crossbows were legal because I had emails from Customs. When he wanted an assembled one I told him no, and then . . . then . . . I just . . .’ Patrick trailed off, sounding defeated.

  ‘It’s entrapment,’ Amar said and I felt a sprig of hope that finally there was a logical explanation for everything. ‘But that’s not a legal defense,’ he continued. ‘The police are allowed to do that, for weapons and drugs and prostitution. We don’t have to worry about those, do we?’

  ‘No,’ said Patrick, perched awkwardly on the edge of his chair.

  My husband, not me, had committed the crime but sitting next to him under Amar’s scrutiny, I also felt the shame of his confession. The lawyer’s office was on the second floor of a high rise overlooking a park. Through a window I could see small brown birds on a branch outside and I wished that I could fly out of the room and join them.

  Amar tapped a pencil on the desk, bringing my attention back to the room.

  ‘I knew it was wrong . . . to sell, or even to have, the rifle. A mate had left it there for me. In fact, it had been hidden for weeks there, so he says, and I made an appointment to register it, and I had to cancel . . . So this man, Alex, says he’s licensed and I figured that he could register it but I was in two minds, so I said, “A thousand dollars,” thinking he wouldn’t go for it. But he did, he just had to go to the ATM to get more money.’

  I felt a tightening in my stomach.

  ‘It was only after he left,’ Patrick continued, ‘that I realised it didn’t make sense that a licensed owner would pay way above market value for a rusty piece of junk. So I called him and reneged, and told him not to come back.’

  ‘That is irrelevant, Mr Jacob,’ Amar said sternly. ‘You agreed to the sale, it was recorded on a wire and that’s all they need for a conviction.’

  I felt so conflicted. On the one hand, I was, and am, so glad Australia has tough gun laws. The low gun-crime statistics reflected their efficacy. On the other, Patrick was my husband and the father of my children, and I worried about what the laws would mean for him. For us.

  ‘Now, the metallic items . . . what are they?’ Amar asked.

  ‘Movie props. A friend of a friend was working on an independent film and thought I might like to display them in the archery shop,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Do they work?’

  ‘I dunno, I wouldn’t have thought so. They’re tiny, only about twenty centimetres.’

  Amar moved the pencil up to his lips and twisted it around, thinking.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Patrick said, and my ears pricked up because it rare for him to admit he didn’t know something, ‘is why an undercover cop was investigating me in the first place?’

  Amar used the pencil to push his glasses frames closer to his eyes. ‘That is a very good question, and it wasn’t just one undercover cop, there was an entire task force devoted to you. Is there something you are not telling me, Mr Jacob, or anyone who has a gripe against you?’

  ‘There’s this guy whose archery shop closed down shortly after I launched my online shop. He started leaving me all these abusive emails and voicemails and I heard from other suppliers he was telling everyone I was selling illegal stuff.’

  ‘You do realise that slingshots are illegal?’ Amar asked, leaning back in his chair which let out a small hiss.

  ‘I do now,’ Patrick said.

  Patrick’s explanation provided a sliver of context but I still found it so hard to understand why he had done it. I realise that we are very different, and I have no interest in hunting and guns, and he’d explained to me that there’s a fair amount of bravado surrounding men and weapons. Maybe Patrick had been shooting his mouth off to impress the undercover cop. I had no idea.

  ‘One thing’s for sure,’ Amar said, ‘whether it was from an informant or not, the police have invested a lot of money and resources in this operation, because they were looking for a big fish.’

  It was clear that Patrick was no big fish but he’d been on a slippery slope. And when the opportunity presented itself, in the heat of the moment, he chose to break the law. No matter how you looked at it, he was no Andy Dufresne and this was no Shawshank Redemption.

  Amar agreed to represent Patrick. On face value, he could see no way around the slingshot and firearm charges, and recommended entering a guilty plea. As for the other charges, relating to the crossbows, Amar believed Patrick had an excellent chance of acquittal. But that meant going to trial.

  FIVE

  In the movies, court cases are exciting. The lawyers look like Paul Newman or Matthew McConaughey, and, sure, they have their struggles with alcoholism and womanising, but their main problem seems to be living and breathing their cases. The courtroom comes alive with their impassioned outbursts and witty antics. In real l
ife, being in court is right up there with watching paint dry.

  On the first day of court proceedings Patrick’s family all came along to show their support.

  ‘You must be so proud . . . following in his father’s footsteps,’ one solicitor remarked to Patrick as he stood there surrounded by his extended family. We were in the corridor waiting for the courtroom to open and Patrick’s father, a retired solicitor, had began to chat with some of his former colleagues. They thought that Patrick, in his fancy suit and tie and surrounded by his family, was there for his first big case. Neither Patrick nor his father corrected this mistake, but over the course of the day it became apparent that Patrick was in fact on the other side of the law and they quietly sauntered away.

  I naively thought the matter would be resolved promptly. At worst, I thought, it might drag on for a couple of months but I’d hoped it would all be resolved in one day, as had happened with the bail hearing. If I had known that it was going to drag on for almost two years, I don’t know if I would have had the strength to stay. But, like many difficult things in life, the magnitude of the mess unfolded bit by bit.

  For months, our lives hung in limbo, travel plans were halted, money haemorrhaged from our account like blood from a gunshot wound, and the stress increased like a pressure cooker.

  And all we could do was wait.

  ‘What are you doing?’ my sister-in-law Cathy asked as we waited in the courthouse corridor one day.

  ‘Waiting for Godot,’ I replied.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  The pace of our lives was never more reminiscent of an absurdist play than during the long days in court. But instead of wandering around a barren landscape, or being buried up to our necks in sand, we waited. Shuffling from room to room, watching people in funny wigs use big words, periodically throwing buckets of money out the window, questioning our existence and trying to invent ways to amuse ourselves.