by Mel Jacob
The thought of doing something for myself when I had such big responsibilities seemed selfish. Every time I thought of something I wanted to do, I felt guilty about the kids, as though I was their personal court jester.
Eventually, Steph said, ‘I understand your concern for the kids, but you are doing everything you can to make them feel secure and loved. You’ve told them the truth and you’re helping them to work through it, and you’ve told their teachers and their friends’ parents, who can also support them. Doing something for yourself every now and then, or even on a regular basis, is not only good for you, it’s good for them. You’re frowning . . .’
‘Sorry, it’s what I do . . . apparently . . . when I’m thinking.’ I sipped my water.
‘Consider it this way—you’re putting your oxygen mask on first. You can’t give anything to them if you have nothing to give.’
At the end of the session I felt a tiny surge of hope. That I didn’t have to wait another two years to start living again. I could start today. I saw that since Patrick’s arrest, I had been a piece of driftwood being swept down the river, hitting and whirling around everything in my path. I knew that I needed to make my way over to the riverbank, hoist myself out and stand up.
Then I arrived home to relieve the babysitter, who had met the kids at the bus stop. ‘Why didn’t you meet us? Where have you been?’ they cried. And my resolutions about journal writing, and fancy restaurants and quirky little bookshops quietly crumbled.
I chose instead to do what I’d done so well for so long—be a martyr.
TWENTY
‘We’ve been through this,’ I said wearily. ‘I can’t have another baby because Dad’s in jail.’
All Lexie wanted for her birthday was a baby. Her preference was for a sister but she would be willing to settle, she said, for a boy.
‘You do remember how babies are made?’ I prompted. After endless questions and my vague, wishy-washy answers, I had finally relented and bought the book Where Did I Come From?
‘You do the sex,’ she enthused.
‘Yes, so even if I wanted another baby’—and I needed a newborn baby like I needed a hole in the head)—‘I couldn’t make one on my own, could I?’ In New South Wales inmates are not entitled to conjugal visits and, on top of that, Patrick had had a vasectomy.
Lexie paused, tilted her head to the side and rubbed her fingers along her chin, like a wizened old professor. It was so adorable, and so incongruous, on a five-year-old girl wearing rainbow leggings and a crowned-kitten T-shirt. ‘Do you think Dad would mind if you made a baby without him?’
‘I don’t think he’d be all that thrilled, Lex.’
‘Because I was thinking that you could just find another man, do the sex, and then, when you’ve got the baby, you can get rid of him. You don’t have to be married, you know. Aunty Fiona isn’t married and she had a baby.’
‘I’m quite aware of how babies are made, Lex, but I have too much on my plate to have another baby.’
‘What plate?’
‘Never mind.’
I couldn’t give Lexie what she wanted for her birthday but I could give her the next best thing—a visit with her dad. In the first year of Patrick’s sentence, Lexie’s birthday fell on Good Friday, and Mannus Correctional Centre advertised that it was open for visitors on public holidays. Lexie knew that she couldn’t take her birthday presents into the prison to show Patrick, but a visit was all she wanted, apart from a baby or a cat.
All plans were in place. I secretly bought, assembled and hid Lexie’s bike, made and froze the birthday cake, and booked a house in Tumbarumba for the long weekend visit. Then a week prior to the visit, when I called to make a booking for a friend, the receptionist informed me that the centre would not be open on Good Friday.
‘The visiting hours on the website say you’re open on public holidays,’ I said.
‘We haven’t opened on public holidays for years,’ she said.
I was disappointed, Lexie was disappointed, and I was determined that, whatever happened, I was not about to be manipulated into getting a cat or having a baby. So, having limited experience with the prison system and being a little slow on the uptake, I did something very, very foolish and asked to speak to the manager. I’d found this strategy to be very effective in the outside world. I’d introduce myself, tell a joke, explain the broken-hearted daughter/ birthday situation and appeal to the person’s good nature.
I anticipated a friendly chat with the manager, during which time he would share a tale about his grandchildren, then he would apologise for the mix-up and organise complimentary Twix bars from the vending machine.
The first thing the acting manager of the centre did after I explained the situation to him was chuckle. ‘We haven’t opened on public holidays for years!’ he guffawed. I made another appeal to his good nature, and explained that the visiting hours published on the website and on the sign outside the visits building advertise that they are open on public holidays.
At which point, he laughed even harder. ‘I’ve got better things to do with my time than spend it with people like that,’ he said.
‘People like what?’ I asked. I had expected that sort of attitude from people on the outside but he worked in the system. He had men in his care.
‘The sort of people who end up in here.’ He went on to explain that the centre would be open on Saturday and Sunday as per usual, and that a weekend was ample time to visit someone.
I was furious when I got off the phone, and even more furious that I couldn’t ring Patrick to explain what had happened. I had to wait for him to call me. When he did finally call, I told him the story using all the colourful words I could think of, forgetting that inmates’ phone calls are recorded.
At that stage, Patrick was eager for me to report the issue to the Corrective Services Ombudsman. The representative I spoke to on the phone verified that the visiting hours were published on the website—it was a clear breach. He suggested I email Corrective Services directly to ensure it would be open.
Several days later, I received an email from Corrective Services acknowledging that I had spoken to the acting manager regarding visiting hours and that it ‘appears that I may have misunderstood the information’. Mannus was open on public holidays after all.
I was astounded. Appears that I may have misunderstood? It appeared that the acting manager was lying through his teeth, I thought to myself. The email went on to say that the centre would be reviewing its policy regarding public holiday visits.
After that, whenever I tried to talk to Patrick about it on the phone he shut the conversation down and started talking about our non-existent pet dog. This, I knew, was his way of telling me that something was wrong.
‘You don’t want to check inside?’ I asked the guard at reception on Good Friday, steeling myself for a dressing-down. My twenty-kilo plastic tub was in front of him at the security checkpoint.
‘Looks to be all in order,’ he said, after giving Nick and Lexie the colouring books supplied by Shine, a charity that supports children with parents in custody.
We sat at a table near Kids’ Corn, as Lexie called it. Paddy fussed over Lexie and explained that he couldn’t give her a birthday present, but that he had used part of his buy up to purchase a basket of Easter eggs we could share on Sunday morning.
The kids went out to the play equipment and we stayed at the table. ‘He threatened me,’ Paddy said.
‘Who?’
‘The manager, the acting manager.’
‘No way!’
‘He called me up to his office . . . twice . . . and said, “If you don’t get your wife to shut up, we’ll tip you.”’
‘“Tip”?’
‘Move me to another prison. I tried to allude to it on the phone . . . about our dog, Rover.’
‘Why’d you call him Rover?’ I asked.
‘Does it matter?’ Patrick said, as he started on the second punnet of strawberries.
‘They are meant to be o
pen. The inmates are entitled to see their families on public holidays, that’s what the ombudsman told me,’ I said, drawing in one of the colouring books.
‘The acting manager doesn’t think so. He said if anything else happens, he will charge me with inciting.’
‘Inciting? Inciting what? Inmates to see their families on public holidays?’
‘It doesn’t matter. The COs do what they like.’
‘They can’t do that.’
‘They can and they do.’
His voice sounded different. There was no passion, no fight. It was a voice of defeat.
We walked out to the yard. It was autumn, and the leaves had begun to change from green to earthy hues. Deep red, russet, rust and orange-coloured leaves decorated the ground. Lexie ran through the yard in her gumboots, crunching them underfoot.
‘It’s hard for you to understand,’ Paddy said. ‘It’s not like out there. One guy in here had a toothache and the COs said it was too much paperwork to take him to the dentist. Wouldn’t even give him painkillers. So he asked a CO for an ombudsman’s form and they put him in the Breezeway.’
‘What’s the Breezeway?’
‘Solitary.’
I couldn’t believe that the COs could be so mean-spirited. Of course, I didn’t want to place Patrick in harm’s way, but it sickened me to know what he was dealing with.
We watched the kids run around on the grass. There were just a handful of visitors that day. Paddy said he’d only told one inmate, Jason Bird, about his meeting with the acting manager. Most inmates and their families probably didn’t realise the centre was open for visits that day.
But some did. ‘Thank you,’ said one of Jason Bird’s visitors as she walked past me in the yard. ‘You’re very brave. It’s been a long time since we’ve had visits on public holidays.’
Paddy and I didn’t talk much after that. I didn’t know what to say. My usual numbness had been replaced by burning indignation. I looked at the oak tree. Trees had only ever been a blur in the background. Since my visit to MRRC I had become enamoured with them. I noticed how some were tall and spindly, others short and plump, and how leaves had such a vast spectrum of colours and shapes and textures. Sharp, spikey, waxy and shiny. The oak leaves were strikingly beautiful. And as I stood next to Paddy I marvelled at the way the visit, like life, could be filled with such pain and such beauty.
Lexie had always been drawn to nature and I joined her on the ground making garlands of leaves. Up close, they looked different. The green leaves were thick and strong, with large veins in the underside, and strands as fine as human hair growing out from the curved ends. The older ones that had already fallen to the ground were thinner, and felt like paper.
‘These leaves are friendly,’ Lexie said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘See,’ she said, holding out an orange-tinged leaf, ‘these are the arms and the legs and the head.’ She was right; most leaves had four parts stretching out to the side and another on top.
‘This one’s saying hi,’ Lexie said, laughing at the way one section curved out and up like a hand. The leaves were our precious little gifts. Soon, two other girls joined us and together we linked the leaves. When we finished we unravelled the chain to see how long it had become. I was amazed to see what we had created—a chain that stretched from one side of the yard to the other.
‘Where are the eggs?’ Lexie asked, running to Patrick on Sunday morning.
‘Have you hidden them for a hunt?’ Nick asked.
‘I’m really sorry, guys, but they didn’t arrive. Mum will get you something from the vending machine, okay?’ he said, trying to mitigate their disappointment.
Patrick’s Easter eggs arrived a week later, speckled white with age. Not only were they late, the use-by date indicated that they had expired. Around the same time as he got the eggs, I received a letter I’d sent to Paddy. ‘Not at this address’ was clearly marked on the front of the envelope. I rang Tumbarumba post office and they informed me that someone at the correctional centre would have done the redirection.
TWENTY-ONE
No. No. No.
No matter how many times I said it to myself, the word ‘no’ sounded harsh. As much as I found Nicola irritating, and as much as I dreaded her plunging into the centre of my circle, part of me still wanted her to like me. But I had no choice. I had to work and I needed to redefine the boundaries of our relationship.
From the moment I decided it was time for action, I didn’t see her. Every time the doorbell rang my endorphins were pumping and I was ready to say the speech I had prepared. For two whole weeks she didn’t show. And then early one morning she caught me bu surprise.
‘Sorry I haven’t been round, I’ve been so busy,’ she said and I smiled sympathetically. ‘Coffee?’
‘Look, Nicola, I appreciate you coming over,’ I began my hand firmly planted on the doorframe. ‘But no’—and, just as I feared, ‘no’ sounded abrasive—‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’
‘Just a coffee,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to take a break.’ Nicola’s response was just the impetus I needed to keep my resolve. I had said no and still she persisted. I knew from countless other times that if I invited her in, it wouldn’t be for a quick coffee, it would be a long visit. Then, when she left, I would be riled up and snowed under.
‘No,’ I repeated, emphatically, ‘I can’t take a break, I’m working.’ Nicola didn’t look disappointed; she looked furious and I was ever so tempted to invite her in just to please her. But I knew that later I would curse myself, because I would be behind with my work, eating into the time I had with Nick and Lexie. I didn’t back down, and as I watched Nicola walk towards her car I didn’t feel triumphant, I felt awful. It took me a few days to let go of those feelings.
As it turned out, saying no to Nicola proved to be an excellent training ground for another situation that required me to be assertive: Nick’s first foray into the competitive world of children’s sport.
As we drove to the field for his first soccer-training session, my mind was awash with fantasies. Nick scissor-kicking the ball into the net; his masterful footwork and fortress-like defence culminating in him being hoisted onto his teammates’ shoulders.
‘Do I have to go to training?’ Nick said when the car stopped. ‘I already know how to play.’ It was the first inkling he might not have the heart of a champion.
Nick was one of three new players in a team who had played together for several years. As the weeks went by, I noticed that Nick, along with the other new players, always started on the bench, and their spells off the field were longer and more frequent than anybody else’s. Nick didn’t seem too bothered about this, although he did ask me about it a couple of times.
Saturdays mornings were also a minefield of awkward conversations. ‘So, you’re married to James’s brother?’ one of the other mums asked as we sipped our takeaway coffees.
‘Yeah, but don’t hold that against me.’
‘Does your husband work Saturdays?’ she asked and I knew she was just being friendly. She’d explained that her husband worked every second weekend, but still the conversation unnerved me. I didn’t want to lie but I couldn’t bear seeing another horrified expression.
‘He’s away,’ I said.
‘For long?’ she asked.
‘A while,’ I responded and moved further along the field to watch the game.
Unlike most of the other boys who loved soccer, Nick’s chief motivation was the promise of a slushie.
‘What’s deadwood?’ Nick asked, as we stood in the line for the post-game slushie.
The question struck me as odd. Nick had built a lot of fires with Patrick. And we didn’t pay a small fortune for him to attend the hippy school not to know about deadwood.
‘You know,’ I said and he looked confused. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Something Trent said.’ Then he shrugged. There were two coaches, Trent and Trevor.
‘What did he say?’
‘Really? He said that to his son?’
‘Yeah, when he was putting the balls in the net.’ I don’t think he knew I was there. My first thought was to contact Shane Malarkey, the inmate who ‘taught people lessons’ by burning things to the ground. My second was to talk to the coaches. I chose the latter.
I’m only five foot three and it was intimidating looking up at Trent and Trevor. The men denied everything, insisting that it was all fun and fair and then the conversation was over. I couldn’t help feeling it had been a complete waste of time. But when I arrived at the field for the next game, they had a list of players and a stop watch, and Nick was over the moon to start on the field for the very first time.
Nick’s involvement in soccer turned out to be worthwhile for other reasons.
‘Got a drummer in the family,’ one of the fathers said during a match one morning.
‘Sorry?’
‘Look at him. There’s a rhythm inside, trying to get out,’ he said, and we watched as his fingertips fluttered up and down his torso.
‘You think so?’
‘I know so, used to play. You need to get that boy some sticks.’
For the first time I considered Nick’s action. It was a response to something from within. Something that could be nurtured and channelled.
More poignantly, through soccer Nick met a boy whose suffering eclipsed his own. ‘Mum, you know Ethan in my soccer team?’ Nick said when we were driving into the city one afternoon.
‘Yes, I know Ethan in your soccer team.’
‘His dad committed suicide.’
‘Oh, Nick, that’s awful,’ I said, looking back at him in the rear-view mirror. His tapping slowed as if keeping with the mood.
‘How did he . . . do it?’
‘I don’t know, darling. How did you find out?’ I asked.
‘At Will’s house. Someone said not to talk about our dads because it might make him feel sad.’