by Mel Jacob
‘Mum, we believe in you. You can do it!’ Nick and Lexie shouted in encouragement. It was nice to hear the words that I so often said to them echoed back to me. I had no mobile or internet access, and not a clue about what I was doing. But I kept at it. I joined the connector poles, threaded them through the loops on the top two diagonals so that it was dome-shaped. The kids shouted and waved the torch up and down from the warmth of the car.
Despite their unwavering faith in me, I could not do it. I tried so many different ways but did not realise that the small pins needed to be inserted back up into the poles, not into the ground, as I had done. So, the tent, while dome-shaped, would not stay up. The kids were still desperate to camp and with no other place to go, I laid out some ground sheets, then, using McDonald’s straws I tied a tarp from the car’s roof racks to the wire fence next to us. We hopped into sleeping bags underneath a layer of quilts.
I looked up at the blue plastic tarp.
This was my life. This was what it had come to. A paddock and a tarp.
‘Look at the stars,’ Lexie said.
I couldn’t see any stars. All I could see was an ugly blue tarp. I turned my face towards Lexie, but she was facing away from me; all I could see was her penguin beanie.
‘They’re so sparkly,’ Lexie said, enchanted, as I noticed she wasn’t looking up, she was looking out. It was a clarion moment. If I wanted to see the beauty, I had to move. I had to change my perspective. And I did. I lifted up onto my elbows, so I could see the black sky and the incandescent stars. It was idyllic. It was magic.
And then.
Mooooo. Mooooo. Mooooo.
‘We’re going to get trampled,’ Nick said, panicked.
‘Are they going to stomp on us?’ asked Lexie.
‘No. You’re forgetting that I grew up in the country,’ I said. ‘Trust me, the cows are miles away. The sound carries.’ My explanation satisfied them. And I told them a bedtime story as they drifted off to sleep, and soon afterwards so did I.
‘Buuulll!’ I woke up to Lexie shouting.
‘Muuum, there’s a bull!’ yelled Nick.
‘It’s not a bull, it’s a cow,’ I said nonchalantly, rising to my feet, seeing my hot breath in the cool air.
‘Then what are they?’ Nick said, pointing at the large testicles at the back end of the bull.
‘Right,’ I acknowledged. Not only were we looking at a very large bull, but during the night the paddock had filled with cows. The kids clambered into the car, while I untied the tarp and shoved the camping gear in the back. Then I edged out of the clearing as slowly as possible, careful not to hit any animals.
The COs on duty that morning were polite and the visit went smoothly. It was winter and the oak tree had shed its leaves. The once round-shaped tree bursting with leaves had been replaced with a curved and skeletal frame. Although it was cold we moved outside for privacy. Looking out from the yard to the grey, frost-filled morning, the tree looked haunted.
The ghostly appearance of the tree didn’t deter Nick and Lexie. While Paddy and I were engaged in conversation they climbed up into it. Soon afterwards a CO advised them to get down. We played Mr Squiggle and some board games and as soon as Paddy finished his lunch, we left. The kids were bored and I was tired.
It had warmed up that afternoon so I laid out a blanket next to a willow tree in the grounds near the caravan park.
‘Those kids were at the jail today!’ Nick and Lexie shouted, having no interest in resting when there were other kids to play with.
The kids all played under the large willow trees, whose leaves hung down low, like straggly beards. I rested on the blanket and closed my eyes, listening to the kids talking, marvelling at the way they could befriend each other so quickly. They moved further along the tree line and when I could no longer hear them I went for a walk, finding the group outside a cabin near the amenities block.
‘Mum, it’s the lady from the jail,’ a chubby boy about Lexie’s age called to his mother. She looked to be in her mid to late twenties, sitting on the balcony of a cabin smoking a cigarette. Even in her puffy winter clothes she had the kind of looks that turn heads on the street,
‘I’m Mel, Nick and Lexie’s mum,’ I said.
‘Trish. Crystal, Bailey and Jayden’s mum. If no one knew where we were today, they do now,’ she said and we laughed.
‘Far to travel?’ I asked, unsure about the etiquette for prison-spouse chitchat.
‘Four hours. Near Wollongong. You?’
‘Bit over five. Blue Mountains. The things we do,’ I said, with thoughts of the wilderness and the cows at the forefront of my mind.
‘Fancy a drink?’ Trish asked, and the truth was, I was dying for one. But while Trish seemed nice, there was a part of me that wondered if I could trust her.
‘Why not?’ I finally said, and she went inside, returning quickly with two glasses and a red Chateaux le Cask.
‘To the things we do,’ Trish said and we clinked glasses.
‘Visiting your husband?’ she asked and I nodded.
‘Yours?’
‘Fiancé. We’re getting married as soon as he gets out . . .’ Trish said, taking a long drag of her cigarette. ‘Never thought I’d end up with someone in the big house.’
‘Me neither,’ I added.
‘I met Sione after he’d been charged. Driving an unregistered vehicle. Didn’t think he’d go in but it was too late, I’d already fallen for him.’ I was tempted to judge Trish. On a certain level, I could empathise with her. We both had children to look after, both had partners inside, but, as I sat talking with her, I found myself wondering if I would have stuck with Patrick if he had been sent to prison after we’d just met. I didn’t think so. I suppose it’s hard to say if you’re not in the situation. I didn’t judge Trish and I’m glad because she went on to tell me her story.
Trish had met Sione, a Samoan construction worker, after escaping the clutches of domestic abuse. Her relationship with Sione was the only non-violent one she’d ever had. He had a regular job, treated her kids like his own and even supported her financially.
Trish took another long drag on her cigarette and I recalled how I had smoked at university. I had been cast as a smoker in a play and I’d coughed and spluttered through my first cigarette, so I’d smoked a couple of packets for practice. I liked the rush it gave me and the sense of control. I craved her cigarette, wanting to suck that nicotine deep into my lungs.
‘You know what’s weird,’ she continued, ‘my family loved Michael, my ex, bloody idiot, and they can’t stand Si because he’s in prison. A record only tells part of someone’s story, it’s not the whole story.’ I was touched that Trish had shared her life with me. And it made me think about my life. I was so afraid of people finding out about Paddy’s sentence, and yet, as I sat there listening to Trish, it struck me that knowing her story was what was drawing me in to her. Drawing me close.
Trish’s words stirred something deep within me. What if being sent to prison is just a mistake, no worse than any other? What if it’s just a flaw, a blemish, like anyone else’s? I shared some of my story with Trish and we finished our drinks.
My phone beeped indicating that I had a voicemail. It was the motel letting me know that, due to a cancellation, they now had a room. I was desperate to get there and have a long, hot shower, but Nick and Lexie still wanted to play with the other kids.
‘We’ll see them tomorrow,’ I said, accompanying them back to the car, ‘when they see their dad.’
‘He’s not their real dad,’ Lexie corrected, ‘he’s their mum’s boyfriend.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but she said he’s like a father to them.’
‘Where’s their real dad?’ Nick asked.
‘You mean their biological father? The one who made them?’ I qualified, folding the blanket.
‘Yeah.’
‘Because anyone can make a baby, but being a father is a whole other thing,’ I said, opening the car door.
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br /> ‘So where is he?’ Nick asked again.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Happy birthday,’ Patrick said, sliding a handmade card across the table at the beginning of the Sunday visit. ‘You might not want it though . . . when you see the back.’ The front was a beautiful, detailed Aboriginal artwork; and the back featured a drawing of a penis, similar to the one on the courthouse desk.
‘I only put it down for a minute,’ Paddy said. ‘When I showed the CO, he said, “Charming.” I didn’t know what he meant until I sat down.’
‘It’s . . . original,’ I said.
‘And I got you this,’ he said, producing the most exquisite origami vase and flowers. The vase was made from pink and white paper, the flowers were multi-coloured, and if you looked closely, camouflaged on the yellow flower was a small golden butterfly. It even had tiny black paper antennas.
‘This must have taken ages. How did you—?’
‘Jason Bird made it and I’m not going to tell you how much it cost me, in trade,’ he smiled, proud of his industriousness.
‘The guy who murdered the policeman? He made that?’
‘You said Dad wasn’t with any murderers!’ Nick said, suddenly interested in the conversation.
‘It was a very long time ago,’ Paddy explained. ‘I know him, and there were mitigating circumstances.’
‘What are miti—, whatever you call it?’
‘It means it’s complicated. He wouldn’t be in here if they thought he was still dangerous,’ I reassured him.
‘Is he here?’ Nick asked, looking around.
Patrick nodded.
‘Where?’
‘Don’t all look over at once,’ Patrick said, and then whispered that Jason Bird was the tall, extremely muscly man sitting across from us, near the back window.
We all looked over at once.
From where we sat, I could see that Jason had greying hair, the beginnings of a bald patch and thick jail-issue glasses.
‘I’m going outside,’ Nick announced, and walked to the other side of the room past Jason Bird’s table and straight back over to us. ‘He doesn’t look like a murderer, he just looks like a normal person,’ he said and then ran outside to play.
All the kids usually played together but the yard dynamics had changed when a new inmate—some hotshot lawyer—arrived at Mannus. At visits his family dressed and acted as though they had just stepped out of a sailing boat or a Ralph Lauren photo shoot. The boys wore chinos and polo shirts and jackets with the collars turned up.
Both Nick and Lexie, despite being corrected several hundred times, still called the COs police, as did many of the other kids. On this day, Lexie made a comment to one of the Ralph Lauren boys, Tarquin or Hamilton or something. He rolled his eyes and said, ‘They’re called correctional officers. And besides,’ he said to Lexie, ‘we’re not meant to talk to you!’
‘Which one is he?’ I asked Patrick, fuming. It was difficult to tell the men apart, they all had green tracksuits and bad haircuts. Patrick pointed out a slight man in his mid to late forties—the hotshot lawyer. He didn’t look different from the other men. A tracksuit is a great leveller. But he and his family were right to keep their distance. His only error was misappropriating half a million dollars in clients’ funds for his own purposes. He wasn’t a real criminal low-life like the rest of the inmates and their families.
The car park was a testament to the diversity of the prison population. You had the Range Rovers and the Audis and the BMWs, and then there were the old, beat-up cars that would be lucky to pass a rego inspection. Inside the centre, it was the same. You would see visitors wearing the finest clothes and people who were obviously struggling. During one visit, I saw a family sit around with a single loaf of sliced white bread from the Tumbarumba bakery. At $3.50, it was the cheapest thing you could buy. And at the end of the visit they asked around for a lift into town so they could get the bus back to the city.
After lunch, Nick and Lexie were allowed to choose something from the small shop the COs operated. Interestingly, there had been a hefty price increase. Most of the items had gone up by fifty per cent.
‘Pretty steep price hike,’ I said to an enormous CO named Popovic. ‘Any reason?’
‘Inflation,’ he said. I laughed aloud, thinking he was being ironic. He glared back, uncertain as to why I was laughing.
Usually, the kids chose a chocolate bar. Lexie bought and ate hers at lightning speed, and asked for another one. I said no, at which point she proceeded to take some change out of the plastic tub.
‘You say something to her,’ I told Paddy. I felt for him. The visitation rules precluded him from handling money or approaching the entrance, and it must have been emasculating. But he was still their father and I felt resentful that the responsibility of disciplining them always fell on my shoulders.
‘No, Lexie,’ Paddy said.
Lexie clenched her hands into fists and stamped her feet. ‘I want another chocolate!’
‘You can stamp all you like,’ said Paddy, who has always been worlds more patient than I, ‘but you’re not getting another one.’
She increased her volume and repeated, ‘I want another chocolate!’
Patrick looked her straight in the eyes. ‘No!’
It was a battle of wills. And Lexie’s is as unbending as iron. She put her hands on her hips and looked at Paddy as if to say, I raise you with this. ‘You’re not even my real dad,’ she shouted. ‘You’re just the stupid man my mum married!’
Patrick blushed and laughed, and then tried to explain to the people around us that he was, in fact, her biological father. People offered sympathetic nods and words, and a CO who had walked over to the table said, ‘Either way, I wish you luck, mate. You’re gunna need it.’
At my mother’s insistence, I had a low-key birthday party in my hometown in the Hunter Valley. I didn’t want to have a party. The thought of it only highlighted the gap between the life I wanted and the life I had. The party was nice, though, and it was good to catch up with old friends and family I hadn’t seen for a long time. Amy, my sister, had made a PowerPoint presentation with photos from my life. I knew it had taken her a lot of time and effort to put together, and it disappointed her when I asked her not to play it that night. Seeing the photos of myself growing from a child to an adult, and a parent, only emphasised the way my life had imploded. The photos in the presentation captured the very best parts of my life but my mind replayed the worst.
As part of my birthday present, my mum and sister organised for me to stay in a hotel at Bondi Beach while they babysat Nick and Lexie. I’d still been working as a freelance writer and I had some looming deadlines and research to complete. And I also hoped to use the time for personal writing.
I checked into what used to be a grand hotel but was in a state of disrepair, due to the fact that the building was being sold off as luxury apartments. The room looked out onto Bondi Beach. It was too cold to sit outside on the balcony, and the water that was normally blue and soothing raged before me, grey and unforgiving.
After unpacking, I went down to the main street to buy some supplies. The wind was icy and whipped my bare ankles as I walked back to my room. I poured myself a glass of wine and began to write in my journal. I wrote unconsciously, just letting all the words flow out onto the paper, regardless of order or purpose or punctuation. As the words flowed out, so did my tears. Part two of the Trilogy of Crying. And, unlike the words I allowed to pour out in scrawled and scribbled jumbles across the pages, I put up an emotional wall to try to stop the tears. I didn’t want to be celebrating my birthday, and soon-to-be wedding anniversary, as a blubbering mess on a hotel floor.
I remembered the smell of Trish’s cigarettes, and craved the taste and that exhilarating rush of sucking back smoke. I walked back out to the hall, past the peeling paint, caught the elevator down to street level and headed straight to the little tobacconist I had seen earlier.
‘Do you have any clove cig
arettes?’ I asked.
It had been years since I’d bought cigarettes, and when the cashier reached underneath the counter and showed me a packet of Djarum Kreteks, I was shocked to see a horrifying picture of an emphysema-affected lung. ‘Or these?’ he said, holding up a different packet featuring an eyeball pulled back with a pin-like apparatus. Even more alarming was the price tag of seventeen dollars and twenty cents. I paid, and walked back to the hotel balcony to cough and splutter my way through one cigarette.
It had the desired effect, though: the cloves and nicotine coursed through my veins, giving me the rush I had been craving and making me feel that, even just for a moment, I was in control. I poured myself another glass of shiraz, and then another, until I had the warm, giddy feeling of the alcohol taking effect. Life felt better; easier, smoother. Drinking is what I should have been doing from the very beginning, I thought, and proceeded to get horribly, disgustingly drunk.
The following day, our fifteen-year wedding anniversary began with me on my knees, heaving into the toilet. My temples throbbed so hard I felt like they were going to burst, and my head ached as though it had been bludgeoned. I drank glass after glass of water, and threw up each one, until finally all I had left to retch was the acrid taste of my own bile. I spent the remainder of the day in bed, nursing my hangover and waiting for Paddy to call me. I was too sick to write or read, or barely even move, and all I could do was wait. I stayed in bed until 5.30pm, when the prison phones are switched off.
I could usually see the funny side of situations. It was like a game I played, to stop myself becoming too dark. I could see the irony when at a recent kids’ birthday party, the girl’s father whispered that he was an undercover cop; something, he said, he didn’t tell most people, adding that I seemed like a good person. Shortly afterwards his wife asked if my husband and I would like to join them for dinner. I could see the absurdity in all the hours I’d spent on the phone with our service provider trying to explain that my husband was incarcerated. On one occasion, the Filipino customer service operator said, ‘That’s very nice, ma’am. Can you please ask him to get out of the car?’ And I’d laughed so hard when a friend sent me a link to a Sesame Street Tool Kit that had a scene with a Muppet’s parent in custody. Nick and Lexie and I giggled and sang along with the sad blue-haired little Muppet.