In Sickness, in Health ... and in Jail

by Mel Jacob

  ‘Absolutely. And if for some unlikely reason he didn’t, I would drag him down there and make him spike that rubbish.’

  ‘We need more spouses like you.’

  I smiled, relaxing into the interview.

  ‘In my line of work, it’s rare to meet someone as polite and punctual as Patrick. And he’s taken every piece of my advice on board. He’s so concerned about how his actions will impact you and the children.’

  ‘He’s prepared to do anything to stay out of prison,’ I said.

  At that Karlene put her pen down, dropped the hand that had been covering the large gap between her two front teeth and said, ‘He’s not going to prison, I’d bet money on it.’

  SEVEN

  For two years we had pivoted around the sentencing like horses tethered in a pen. The pace had been fast and slow, rough and rigorous. I had spent so much time thinking about the judgement that when 28 January 2013 finally arrived and we fronted up to the courthouse, everything seemed dull and anticlimactic. It was the same security checkpoint, the same grey–blue carpet with frayed rows that reminded me of ploughed fields. The same welfare ladies. The same lawyers.

  In the weeks leading up to the sentencing, friends and family had told me how absurd it was that I was even entertaining the notion of Patrick going to prison. ‘It’s not like he murdered anyone. He’s not a child molester,’ people said. For two years I’d heard almost nothing else. Everyone seems to rank crimes beginning with the worst: murder, paedophilia, rape, down to what, depending on their own life experience, they considered to be trifling. At first, I didn’t give a lot of credence to these opinions because, at the end of the day, their advice was free and was obviously coloured by their friendship with us. And Patrick might not have been charged with murder, but it’s not like he had been jaywalking either. He had already pleaded guilty to several charges. But what if all these people were right? Even Karlene from community corrections was willing to bet money that he wouldn’t be going to prison.

  And that’s without accounting for the stack of glowing character references and an excellent presentencing report. But my hopes were mainly riding on the fact that we had engaged the services of a Senior Counsel (or SC), having borrowed money from Patrick’s brother James, in addition to the thousands and thousands of dollars we had already paid for legal advice. It was our expectation that the complexity of his argument and his presence would hold some weight in the sentencing. In the weeks leading up to it, I had foolish fantasies of this faceless SC. I imagined him citing such obscure laws and delivering speeches so rich in rhetoric that the case would be dismissed.

  One look was all it took for these dreams to shatter at my feet. I stepped into that same courthouse meeting room to see Charles, the SC, ferreting through the detritus of his briefcase before pulling out some dog-eared paperwork. Susan made the requisite introductions, and he mumbled an indecipherable greeting before saying to no one in particular, ‘Now, this Mr Brown, is this the one you think is the strongest?’

  ‘Ms Brown,’ I corrected. ‘She’s a friend of ours, a lawyer.’

  ‘Right, yes, I see,’ he said, rubbing his bald head and then proceeding to do the most thunderous throat clearing as we all waited awkwardly for him to finish.

  Eventually, Charles continued, ‘And Ms Ogle?’

  ‘Dr Graham Ogle,’ I corrected.

  ‘So it is, so it is.’

  Charles shuffled a bundle of papers before dropping them on the floor and it was amusing to see both Amar and Susan, both outranked by Charles, rush to pick them up. Susan eventually stood allowing Amar to collect the papers, while Charles attempted to untangle the mangy wig he had produced from his briefcase.

  I looked down at the same old school desk and noticed the addition of a stream flowing out of the end of the penis drawing and onto a cowering stick figure. I wondered what had compelled someone to draw it. If the artist also felt that the king’s ransom he had borrowed to pay for an SC could have been put to better use, such as kindling for a fire. If it hadn’t been the last-ditch attempt at Patrick’s freedom I might have found it all vaguely amusing, but it was beginning to feel like we were being tied to the tracks with the deafening sound of an oncoming train drawing near.

  At ten o’clock we were in the courtroom. Patrick sat in the dock, and I sat a short distance away from him, in the front row of the gallery, between my mum and my close friend Frieda.

  ‘All rise,’ the court official said and we stood for the entrance of Judge Pommery. Some procedural matters were heard and then Charles began. His manner in the meeting room was a teaser for his performance in the court. He stumbled and stammered, and it felt like a combination of a drunken uncle’s wedding speech and dreadful stand-up comedy. And, despite the fact that Ms Brown’s reference had been lost and found several times in the meeting room, it was again misplaced in the court.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I heard, ‘I call Melissa Jacob, the wife of the offender, your Honour.’ There was a significant delay between me hearing the words and registering their meaning. The possibility of me being a witness had only ever been mentioned in passing, and I was furious and insulted at not being included in the decision to call me as the first witness. I should have worn the navy dress, I thought as I made my way to the front, as though our future hinged on my wardrobe choice.

  Everything looked different from the elevated position in the witness box. Everything and everyone was in plain sight, even the gallery where I’d sat so many times, feeling far away and invisible.

  Charles asked me a series of questions about the charges, my education and my employment. I spoke slowly and deliberately, worried that I might say the wrong thing, or do what I always did and go off on unrelated tangents.

  Answering the questions wasn’t difficult. The answers came quickly and intuitively. What was difficult was looking out at all our friends and family who had filled up every row of the gallery, and seeing all our worry, pain and fear reflected in their faces. For the first time, I could see how much Patrick’s actions had bled into the lives of so many other people.

  Charles’s questions continued, eventually gaining flow and momentum. ‘And is this your opinion, ma’am, that if you thought he was likely to commit any further offences, you would not have chosen to stay and support him?’

  ‘I would not,’ I said, feeling like I was drawing a line in the sand in front of every significant person in our life. I looked at Patrick, worried that my words would wound him, but he already looked so crushed that I felt nothing I said could have made him feel worse than he already did.

  ‘His actions have caused you, have they not, significant pain, and financial and career setbacks?’

  ‘Yes, they have.’ I’d declined job opportunities, and even though the legal expenses had not cost us our house, there had certainly been many sacrifices. Financial and otherwise.

  When Charles finished, the prosecution’s barrister, a thin, wiry man, began the cross-examination, focusing on my employment and education. I explained that I had studied theatre and literature and then worked as a schoolteacher, resigning from full-time work when our children were young. I’d supported Patrick over the years as he built up his business, and the plan had always been that when our kids began school and preschool respectively, it would be my turn to pursue my career as a writer.

  ‘But it’s a choice that you’ve made not to return to full-time teaching while she’s not yet started full-time schooling, is that right?’ the prosecution asked, referring to my staying home with Lexie.

  ‘It’s a decision that Patrick and I both made with having our children, yes.’

  ‘But that’s the only thing that’s stopping you from returning to full-time teaching, it’s a decision that you made while your children are young?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, feeling exposed and inadequate.

  After I was dismissed from the witness box, I felt hot and nauseated and could not concentrate on the proceedi
ngs until I heard Judge Pommery say, ‘I will formally stand the matter over to Friday, for sentence. A full-time custodial penalty is inevitable. I don’t see any reason his bail is to continue. I revoke his bail.’ Two corrective services guards who had been standing in the courtroom moved towards Patrick and, without thinking, I stepped out of the gallery and opened the gate that divided the public and the dock.

  ‘Step back,’ the guard said. And then, like a magic show, Patrick vanished.

  ‘Where did he go?’ I asked Amar, who had appeared at my side.

  ‘The stairs are concealed behind the railing.’

  ‘What happened? He said, “Revoke bail”.’

  ‘Because he’s been taken into custody.’

  I stared at him blankly, still not comprehending.

  ‘He’s going to prison.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘We’re not sure, the sentence will be handed down on Friday.’

  I have no memory of what happened next, as though I had blacked out and everything had been erased. My mother told me that I staggered out of the courtroom, pulling at my clothes and howling. Then I remember sitting next to Amar as he explained the appeal process to me.

  It was two days before I heard from Patrick. A welfare officer had called and explained that he was in the holding cells at Surry Hills. Her voice was warm and empathetic. I’d called the inmate information line and all they could tell me was that he was in custody. I’d had no way of contacting him or knowing where he was, or if he was okay.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Hey, are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m . . . good. Don’t you worry about me. How are you, how are the kids?’ he asked.

  I had no idea what to say; every part of me ached with loss. ‘The kids are good.’

  ‘Can you put them on?’

  I put the phone on speaker and called the kids over.

  ‘Dad,’ Lexie said.

  ‘Now, I don’t want you to worry about me, okay? I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m not worried. Grandma gave me three dollars. I bought sherbet,’ she said.

  ‘Are there bars, Dad . . . in your room?’ Nick asked.

  ‘No, mate, it’s clear perspex. You know, like a fish tank,’ Patrick said.

  ‘People can see in?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you got a bed?’

  ‘Sure have.’

  ‘A toilet?’

  ‘Yep, it’s just like ours but it’s metal and doesn’t have a lid.’

  ‘Can everyone see you go to the toilet?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s just other blokes, mate,’ Patrick said in a light-hearted tone.

  ‘Have you got a TV?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Yes, it’s on all day and night,’ Patrick said trying to sound deliberately upbeat.

  ‘Why does he get to watch TV during the week?’ Nick asked me.

  ‘I want to watch TV,’ Lexie added.

  I heard the welfare officer telling him to wrap it up.

  ‘I have to go now. I love you all so much.’

  When the dial tone sounded, Nick began to cry. I let him nestle into my side, and when he stopped crying, he said, ‘If he has to stay in jail, who’s . . . who’s going to buy my birthday present?’ I couldn’t remember Patrick ever buying the kids’ birthday presents but I just assured Nick that I would take care of it.

  I didn’t sleep Thursday night, and when I finally got up and went outside to feed the chickens and the rabbit I stumbled on a dead rat. I had never seen a dead rat before and it threw me, both because it was the day of Patrick’s sentencing and because it was the sort of thing that he normally would have taken care of. I rang Karl and he came over and sorted it out.

  Later, in court, I stood among an even bigger crowd of family and friends than the last time I was there. So many, in fact, that they spilled out into the corridor. We stood as Judge Pommery entered, and Patrick appeared in the courtroom via the concealed staircase. In the instant that it took for him to turn to the front before he sat down, I glimpsed a dark brown stain at the back of his pants where he had obviously soiled his clothes. I felt like I was going to vomit.

  ‘The offender comes before me for sentence,’ Pommery began and it was as though everything were moving in slow motion. I remember my mother’s grip tightening on my hand as I heard Pommery outline the nature of the offences, and the evidence that had been presented, some of which was presented in the form of character references and the psychologist’s report.

  And I told myself that there was still time and that, as Karlene had told me, the judge had several options at his disposal, such as home detention or community service. Pommery made a point of highlighting Patrick’s ‘otherwise good character’ and his contribution to society, and then the focus shifted to me. ‘He has now placed a considerable financial burden upon his wife to return to work, to enable mortgage payments to be met while he is custody. Fortunately, she is highly educated and will have reasonable prospects of obtaining employment, unlike the wives and partners of many who come before these courts. The hardships to be occasioned to her and the children does not amount to truly exceptional hardship.’

  I could not believe it. I had grown up in a street where people sat in the gutter drinking and made fires in drums. I was the first one in my family to go to university, and now it felt like all my hard work was being used against me. It felt like my life had fallen off its axis, and was spinning wildly, violently, out of control.

  ‘Mr Jacob, would you please stand,’ said Judge Pommery, and Patrick stood, with only his back visible. He was clearly shaking. ‘You are convicted. For the offence of not keeping a firearm safely, I sentence you to a fixed-term sentence of imprisonment for six months . . .’

  Six months. I can do six months, I told myself. But Pommery hadn’t finished.

  ‘For the offence of possessing an unregistered firearm . . . concurrent terms of imprisonment for eighteen months . . .’ Was it six months or eighteen months? My fists were clenched, my breathing was laboured and adrenalin pulsed through me.

  ‘For the offence of possessing a prohibited weapon—namely, a slingshot—I sentence you to a non-parole period of twelve months . . .’ I let out a small cry and leaned on my mother for support as Pommery continued undeterred.

  Patrick turned around to face the large crowd of people who had come to support him. Tearfully, purposefully, he looked at every one of them. Some of his sisters had made signs with encouraging messages and they held them high.

  He looked into my eyes and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry.’ One of the two corrective services officers took his arm and turned him, puppet-like, so that he faced front for the final part of the sentence.

  ‘A total term of four years and six months. Commencing on 29 January 2013 and expiring on 28 July 2017. You are eligible for release to supervised parole on 28 July 2015.’

  The thousands of times that I had played this scenario over in my mind, I had never imagined an ending so swift and so final. I had wanted to hold him, would have given anything for extra moments to say goodbye, to say something, anything . . . but he was gone.

  EIGHT

  ‘You have to tell them,’ Mum said, breaking the silence that had followed us from the courthouse.

  ‘I know.’ The kids were due home any minute and I’d been going over and over what to say, trying to find the words to make it more palatable, less painful. The responsibility weighed me down like a ship’s anchor. I felt that if I wasn’t honest or tender enough, and if they didn’t feel free to express whatever it was they were feeling, that this moment could fracture the rest of their lives.

  ‘What do you remember about when your dad died?’ I asked Mum, who was wiping down the island bench. She’d always been so open and honest with me, craving, I suppose, the intimacy she was denied because her parents died when she was a child.

  ‘I knew something had happened because of all the whispering . . . a lot of people came to the house. And
I remember the priest sitting us down to talk to us kids but I don’t remember the funeral . . . I don’t think we went to the funeral . . . and no one told me what happened.’

  I’d known since I was young that when she was only six years old, Mum had lost her mother to cancer. And as the two-year anniversary of her mother’s death approached, her father also died. So it came as a surprise one afternoon, when I discovered Mum sobbing into the lilac flowers on her bedspread. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘My father . . . died,’ she said, her voice hoarse with fresh grief. I sat on the bed next to her, confused. Her father had died long before I was born. Why, so many years later, was she so distraught? Eventually, Mum explained she had only just learned her father had committed suicide. He had gone to the common behind the town they lived in, and shot himself in the head. It might have been a generational thing, or perhaps due to the stigma of suicide, that the adults thought the kindest thing to do was to protect the children from the cruellest of truths.

  But it didn’t seem kind, as I watched her try to regain her footing as though the carpet had been pulled out from under her. The secret altered everything she thought she knew about her past and her father and, ultimately, herself.

  Certainly, our situation was different, but it was serious. And I knew that, as difficult and as painful as it would be, I had to tell them the truth.

  ‘Mum,’ Lexie called from the front door, ‘can I have a biscuit?’ And when both kids appeared in the doorway that led to the kitchen, Nick looked up at me hopefully and I shook my head.

  ‘How long?’ he asked, climbing onto the barstool.

  ‘Well,’ I began, self-consciously, ‘the judge said that because what Dad did was very serious . . . he has to go to prison . . . for two and a half years.’ I expected Nick to cry but he didn’t. He didn’t say or do anything. He just looked defeated. And I felt a love for him so primal and so deep, I understood how mothers find the strength to lift cars.