In Sickness, in Health ... and in Jail

by Mel Jacob

  ‘That’s very thoughtful,’ I said.

  ‘And I thought, What about my dad? but then I started thinking about Ethan. He’ll never get to see his dad’s face or hear his voice or play PlayStation . . . ever again.’

  Tears welled in my eyes, both for Ethan who had lost his father, and because Nick had grown so much that he could empathise with someone else’s suffering in a way I hadn’t been able to even as a grieving adult. Kids see the world in a way that is so clean and uncomplicated, and it filled me with awe, and with heartbreak, to bear witness to Nick’s discovery that our lives are nothing like that.

  ‘Suicide’s worse than prison,’ Nick stated, in the way he might repeat a fact from The Guinness Book of Records.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Suicide’s forever . . . and it is very sad for Ethan . . . for everyone in his family . . . but it’s still okay for you to be sad,’ I said making eye contact with him again. ‘I’m proud of you . . . that you can step outside your own pain and see what someone else is going through.’ I looked at him again, in the rear-view mirror. He’d resumed a morely lively rhythm.

  ‘But divorce is still better than prison,’ he said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  After settling on martyrdom, it came as a surprise both to myself and to James that I finally agreed to join the extended Jacob clan on a holiday to Bali. Initially, I balked at the cost. We had decided to go ahead with the appeal, and an overseas holiday was an unwarranted expense. But a number of things happened that convinced me to to reconsider.

  ‘Your eyes are yellow,’ Lexie said as she lay next to me in bed one night.

  ‘No, they’re not.’

  ‘They are. They’re really yellow, like your teeth!’

  ‘Thanks, Lex. Anything else you’d like to mention?’ I asked. It was a rhetorical question.

  ‘Well, you are getting a bit wobbly,’ she said, and I cursed myself for not living in a period when children were seen and not heard. Lexie was right about my weight, and our conversation was the catalyst for a visit to the doctor, who told me that I needed to find some strategies to relax. ‘Go on a holiday,’ he suggested.

  ‘Don’t worry about the cost,’ James said when we met at his favourite cafe.

  ‘I don’t want you to pay for it,’ I said.

  ‘Neither do I, so I’ve talked to Fiona and she’s going to rent out your house. It’ll almost cover it,’ James said, picking a large slice of avocado from the salmon and avocado stack I’d ordered.

  ‘Why don’t I order you something?’ I suggested.

  ‘Nah, I’m not hungry,’ he insisted. ‘So you’ll come?’

  ‘I don’t know, I feel guilty,’ I protested. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of frolicking on a tropical beach while Patrick languished away in prison.

  ‘Mel, I’ve got one piece of advice,’ he said—which was unusual, because James normally had a lot of advice. ‘Order the lobster.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Order the lobster,’ he repeated.

  ‘I don’t really like lobster,’ I said.

  James looked at me in the exasperated way I sometimes looked at my children. ‘It’s an expression,’ he said, ‘my expression. You can’t just put your life on hold until Patrick gets out. You’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars on legal fees. Live a little, enjoy yourself. If you’re going to go under, it won’t be because of an eighty-dollar lobster. So Mel, order the lobster!’

  While James’s argument was certainly persuasive, bumping into a friend I hadn’t seen for some time was the deciding factor.

  ‘How are the kids? How’s Patrick?’ she asked, and when I told her what had happened, she winced and let out a small moan. And it was at that precise moment I realised I wanted to go to Bali. I wanted to go somewhere where I could disappear. Somewhere I wouldn’t constantly be asked about my husband.

  I’d never been to Indonesia before, so it came as something of a surprise that the very first question I was asked when we exited the gates at Denpasar airport was: ‘Miss, Miss, where your husband?’ Family is the heart of Balinese culture and they find it incomprehensible that people would choose to holiday without their whole family. So every single day, everywhere I went, to the market, to a restaurant, to the beach, I was asked the same question: ‘Where your husband?’

  On the second day on Seminyak beach, I accepted an offer of a massage from an elderly but remarkably acrobatic woman named Made. I explained that my neck and shoulders blades were sore, and she welcomed me onto the large woven mat she had set up under the shade of a palm tree.

  Made began by pushing the upper part of my back, then she poured oil down my spine and rubbed it in with strong circular motions.

  ‘You hit car?’ she asked, banging her hand and fist together.

  ‘Sore neck and shoulder,’ I repeated, slowly.

  Made continued to knead the oil into my back and, after a short while, said, ‘No, you have sore heart. Very sore heart,’ placing her hand on her chest. Then she proceeded to give me the most robust massage I’d ever had. And as her bare hands touched my skin, I realised it had been months since anyone else had.

  Made’s oiled hands moved up and down my back, focusing on the problem areas with the full force of her weight. After months of pain, I finally felt some relief.

  I left the beach feeling rejuvenated and then, as night fell, I had the most acute spasm of neck and back pain. I spent the night whacked out on painkillers, and in the morning, when Made finally arrived at the beach, I explained that the pain was infinitely worse than it had been before the massage.

  I expected Made to give me an age-old remedy but she just sat there, cross-legged, eating a banana. ‘Is pain. First worse, then better, yes?’ which was not what I wanted to hear. I don’t like pain, I do everything I can to avoid pain, and I was on holidays. I wanted to relax, and run along the beach with the carefree abandon of someone in a tampon commercial.

  The pain increased. My temples pounded and my neck felt as though someone were hammering nails into the base of my skull. At one point it was so intense, I began to cry. I didn’t know it then, but it was part one of what I now refer to as the ‘Trilogy of Crying.’

  Part one was merely the introduction, characterised by stifled sobs. The pain continued for roughly three days until, on the fourth, some of the pain I had been carrying around for months finally began to ease. And when it did, I pulled myself together and began to enjoy some world-famous Balinese hospitality.

  The kids and I had pedicures, and a spa that involves tiny fish eating the dead skin off the bottom of your feet, devoured platters of seafood and fruit, fed monkeys and rode on elephants, learned to surf, and offered ourselves up wholeheartedly to the buffet—I ate the lobster!

  As our time in Bali came to a close, I could see that the small amount of comfort I received from being a martyr did not come close to the pleasures the world had to offer.

  ‘Where your husband?’ the woman at the airport check-in asked and I explained that he would not be joining us.

  ‘So, one adult, two children and one coming?’ she asked. And I turned to see if there were any other children that she may have mistaken for mine.

  ‘Sorry?’

  She smiled. ‘The baby . . . inside,’ she said, pointing her floral-patterned nail at my abdomen. I shook my head—that was my Bali belly.

  Our holiday to Bali was something of a turning point in our lives. Although I couldn’t see it at the time, it brought me closer to acceptance. But its real significance was that it was the first overseas trip for the kids. Memories were made that did not include Patrick. This was highlighted on our first visit to Mannus afterwards.

  ‘So, you learned to surf?’ Paddy asked the kids enthusiastically. ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Yeah, good,’ Nick replied flatly. ‘Where’s Cody and Crystal?’ he asked, looking straight past Patrick and around the room to try to see the kids they had grown so fond of.

  ‘I don’t
think they’re coming this weekend.’

  ‘Oh,’ Nick said, disappointed.

  ‘And you rode on an elephant,’ Paddy said to Lexie. She nodded but did not elaborate. He tried so hard to engage and connect with the kids, but their responses were short and laboured, the way they are when they walk in the door after a long day at school.

  It dawned on me that for many children telling is closely associated with showing or doing. I made this. I drew this. At that time, Lexie was really interested in growing seedlings and sewing but, for obvious reasons, wasn’t allowed to bring her samples to a visit. Added to that, a lot of what children share with you is spontaneous. Little gems that occur to them when you’re doing something mundane, and when they feel secure and relaxed, which is a very difficult atmosphere to create in a prison visitation room.

  Sometimes the conversations flowed and funny little observations popped out. During one visit we were sitting at the table near Kids’ Corn and Lexie was busy drawing pictures of corn, as she liked to do, when Nick asked, ‘Dad, how come all the people in jail have big muscles, like Simon?’

  ‘Not everyone,’ Paddy said, pointing to a scrawny old inmate.

  ‘Most of them.’ And we looked around at all the buffed and toned physiques in green tracksuits. ‘How do they get like that?’ Nick asked.

  ‘The gym,’ Patrick said, eating a slice of the pizza he’d requested for lunch.

  ‘There’s a gym here?’ Nick asked, surprised, and Paddy nodded.

  ‘You should go . . . so you get muscles like that,’ he offered helpfully.

  These conversations were rare. Mostly, it was like pulling teeth: forced and painful.

  The starkness of the visitation room did nothing to promote our connection as a family. I’d like to think our home is comfortable: we have couches and scatter cushions and throw rugs, and a deck with outdoor sofas. We have 1000-thread-count cotton sheets and lambs’ wool rugs. By contrast, the visitation room is austere. The chairs and tables are moulded plastic, the floors are cold and bare and the fluorescent lights are bright.

  Attempts to make the visits more entertaining or comfortable were not allowed. Balls were considered dangerous because of the possibility of injury or because drugs could be concealed inside them. Picnic rugs and tablecloths were not allowed because, as one guard explained to me, couples had been caught fondling underneath them.

  I understand that for security reasons a prison visitation room has no couch to curl up on or music to listen to or movies to veg out in front of. And I’m not trying to suggest there should be, I’m merely explaining that it was difficult for the kids, especially Nick, to connect with Paddy in such an environment. Lexie was usually happy to draw, make up stories and play with leaves, but without wrestling, balls to throw, and computer games, Nick was lost.

  Paddy tried so hard to engage them, but after our trip to Bali, the reality of driving six hours to sit across from their father and twiddle their thumbs in a prison visitation room began to sink in. On that first weekend back it rained, and the usual reprieve of running around on the grass, or throwing acorns or hats, didn’t come. And there’s only so many times you can play Uno before you lose the will to live.

  ‘Can we go now?’ Nick groaned after lunch, tapping furiously on the table.

  ‘Stop it,’ I snapped at him. He was upset because I was trying to take away the only fun thing he had left.

  ‘Yeah, I’m bored,’ Lexie added. Patrick looked wounded.

  We were all tired. Even though we hadn’t been doing anything, we weren’t able to relax in such an artificial environment, knowing we were being watched. In our regular life, part of our weekend was spent napping or reading, or cooking or listening to music. Visits didn’t allow for this.

  ‘It’s fine. They look tired. We’ll see each other tomorrow,’ Paddy said.

  As I carried the heavy plastic tub from the visitation room to the car park, I could see that we had begun to move in different orbits.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mannus Correctional Centre

  17 June 2013

  Beauty,

  I’m moving up in the world. Out of the Bronx pod and into Manhattan (white collar—lawyers, actuaries, accountants. Range Rovers, pastel golf pants! All university educated. V. intimidating. But like James said, ‘How smart can they be? They’re in prison!’ Goes for me too, I know.

  Whitey’s always correcting my slang. Horrified I was teaching English in the Bronx. Reckon I need to do an ESL course and pay compo to my former students.

  Not mowing lawns anymore. Got promotion to admin job in the main office. Grateful to be working for CO named Mr Metcalfe. Have so much respect for him. Not a pushover or naive about people (keeps his distance) but treats everyone with humanity and respect rarely witnessed even on the outside. Sometimes his kindness drowned out by pettiness of other COs.

  Understand that it’s prison, procedures to follow etc. Popovic is heavy handed. In routine search of room, threw things for pleasure. Even family photos etc. Edwards is also mean spirited. Paid for two pairs of winter pants with special buy up and only one arrived. Reported it to Edwards on duty.

  Edwards: (leaning in close) Can you hear that? It’s the sound of the world’s smallest violin.

  Same response to my mouldy/out of date buy up food.

  V. hard to work out mentality of most in here (not all). Some great people, Andrew, Tom, Glen, Steve, but for the rest I’ve never seen such selfishness. Gave tea and coffee away until inmates started standing over me for it and demanding other things from my satchel. Had to refuse and then throw out because it was getting to be a huge problem. When I was still in the Bronx I made a going away meal for an inmate who was getting out. All of the guys ate it while I was at a visit. On the outside, generosity was always repaid with generosity. Not in here.

  Getting v. cold here now. Frost on ground outside. Winter will be freezing. Thanks for sending money. Bought 2 quilts and more clothes. Issue blankets are thin and no heating yet. Another inmate asked to borrow my spare quilt. He took oath on dead mother and he promised to give back when I want/need. Has no family to send money and I really feel for him.

  Mainly work with Zhao Lin—actuary done for insider trading. Owns a string of houses in North Shore. We’re both rolling in it now—$46 a week in our office jobs. Need it. Phone calls to your mobile are $2.20 a pop. Buy up food costs way more than supermarket. Someone is making money from us being in here.

  Full scales of economy in here.

  Inmate: You’re on the phone a lot. Reckon you must have some dough. Got a cracker deal; I’ve got a mate who works at the wharves in Sydney. This could be huge. Been racking my brain and can’t think of anyone who can come up with that sort of money. All I need is eighty and in two days I can turn it into 160.

  Me: I don’t have eighty thousand dollars.

  Inmate: No, mate, eighty dollars.

  On the other hand, there’s Tom. English, Eastern suburbs, ex-cocaine dealer. Real high-flyer, yachts, house on the beach, Pablo Escobar-style parties.

  Tom: When I get out of here I’m going on the straight and narrow.

  Me: Good for you.

  Tom: I’m prepared to do anything, start at the bottom. All I need is $200k a year.

  Me: Tom, no one’s going to give you a starting salary like that. You don’t have any qualifications, any education, apart from teaching those disabled kids to kayak that weekend and you couldn’t even hack that.

  Tom: How can anyone live on less than that? I made 4 million last year.

  A lot of the blokes in here give me a hard time for being naive. Can hardly blame me when I have my mum as a mum. Mum visited on Saturday. At lunch Mum pulled out a small foil packet with white powder in plastic wrap. Looked like large packet of cocaine.

  Me: Mum, what is that?

  Mum: It’s salt, for my lunch.

  Me: You can’t bring that in here.

  Mum: Bit of salt isn’t going to hurt anybody.

&nb
sp; I just shook my head.

  Fiona and Brigette came on Sunday. Olivia was very cute.

  Olivia: Where are the bars?

  Me: We don’t have bars in this prison.

  Olivia: (sad) I wanted to see you behind bars. What’s that (isolation cubicle with glass divider)?

  Me: That’s for the men who’ve been naughty.

  Olivia: Can we go in there then?

  Nothing like getting to know your sisters over five-hour face-to-face visits!

  Glad kids had a great time at the lantern walk at school. Did the candles stay lit this time?

  I love you.

  Paddy

  P.S. Zhao Lin teaching me how to cook. Made five-spice chicken. I’ll make it for you when I get out. His wife is heavily pregnant with second child. Do you think you could drive her down? Zhao’s due for work release. Was wondering if you might be able to help him write cover letter for job applications? So many inmates are daunted about getting work when they get out.

  P.P.S. Can you please get an update on progress of appeal?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Days crept into weeks, and then months, until it was the final week of June. Five months since Patrick had gone away, and a week away from my fortieth birthday and our fifteenth wedding anniversary. There was something about these milestones that brought the derailment of my life into a glaring new aperture of disappointment.

  Every trip I made to Tumbarumba was draining. Physically, financially, emotionally. None more so than the trip before my birthday. I had left it to the last minute to book accommodation and could not get a room anywhere. I decided I wasn’t going to let this stop me and got a crazy idea that camping would be a blast. The kids were ecstatic.

  I borrowed a tent from my nephew Dylan, and we arrived at the lake near Tumbarumba around eight o’clock at night. Using the car headlights, I chose a flattish spot and unpacked the tent. I’d grown up camping and had helped my parents to put up our tent, but it was only when I was down on my haunches on the cold, damp ground that I realised it had been a good twenty years since I’d erected a tent. And the tent of my youth had been old-style, with straight vertical poles, not the curved-dome variety I’d been given.