Matthew Flinders' Cat

by Bryce Courtenay

  Billy spent his first evening in his room writing to Ryan. During the course of the day he’d received tremendously heartening news that, while he was not allowed to have visitors for six weeks, he could invite someone to chapel of a Wednesday and Sunday, and after chapel the men could mingle in the foyer with their families or friends for ten or fifteen minutes.

  Billy was tremendously excited by the prospect of seeing Ryan again and he couldn’t wait to send off a letter care of the school inviting him to visit. He visited the shop downstairs to purchase writing materials and stamps and his hands shook as he took them back to his room and placed them in his bedside locker. But, when the time came to write a note to Ryan, he was suddenly filled with trepidation. He’d had no word from Ryan, who hadn’t replied to the letter he’d sent from Queensland. Billy told himself that Ryan, or even the principal at Pring Street Public School, would have only just received the letter and wouldn’t have had time to reply. Ought he not wait? Ryan might not wish to see him. His advances might not be welcome any more. In his present state Billy couldn’t bear the idea of being rejected, yet that’s exactly what he’d done to the boy. Ryan had every right to kick him out of his life.

  Billy was beginning to realise that he’d fondly supposed he was helping the boy in all of this, that his rehabilitation was because Ryan needed him, but now he saw that it was he who needed Ryan. The boy was as much a part of saving him as he was of saving Ryan.

  William Booth Institute

  Albion Street

  Strawberry Hills

  My dear Ryan,

  This has been my first day here and I must say it has been a busy one. It’s a bit like being back at school and I am finding it all rather strange, but the good thing is that I am feeling a lot better and have been off the grog for sixteen days, my all-time record since the age of fourteen.

  In my last letter I told you that I wouldn’t be allowed to see you for six weeks as the rules here are very strict. But, hooray, there’s a loophole in the law! We are allowed to have guests come to chapel at seven o’clock on a Wednesday evening and half-past nine on a Sunday morning.

  I don’t suppose you’re much of a churchgoing person but this is just singing and stuff and then afterwards we can talk for about fifteen minutes. What do you think?

  If you are busy or have something better to do, I understand. But I would very much like to see you if you have the time. I look forward to hearing all your news.

  All the best to you,

  Billy O’Shannessy (without the ‘u’)

  P.S. We may even be able to begin the new Trim story I told you about in my last letter.

  His room-mates turned out to be Davo, the kid the magistrate had sent for rehabilitation, Morgan, the bloke who’d made the crack about Jimmy knowing him so well, and a young male prostitute named Freddo, not, he explained, because he was christened Fred. ‘Lookit me, will ya? Me mouth’s spread across me face and I’ve got these lubra lips, I were born to give good head.’

  ‘Not here, you weren’t,’ Morgan said, hastily backing away, then he added, laughing, ‘You ain’t pretty enough . . . On the other hand, after a while in this dump, you could get prettier,’ he joked.

  ‘I ain’t gay, mate!’ Freddo protested. ‘It’s better than stealing or mugging old ladies, it’s how I paid for me addiction! I got one strict rule, nobody gets it for free, I got “Entry $100” tattooed on me arse. Wanna see?’

  ‘What happens if the cost of living goes up?’ Morgan cracked.

  It was true about Freddo, his face was decidedly peculiar-looking, his mouth stretched almost to the outside edges of each cheek and both his lips protruded. The surface of his face was almost entirely flat with only a vague outline indicating a bridge to his nose, though his nostrils were wide and distended. His eyes seemed too large for the size of his head and they bulged noticeably. His head was shaved, so he had a distinctly amphibian appearance.

  Later he would explain to Billy how, as a three-yearold, his ‘uncle’ had, in a drunken fit, smashed his fist into Freddo’s face to stop him crying, crushing and flattening the still-soft bones of his cheeks and tiny nose, and spreading his mouth across his face. The Freddo-Frog look (his description) he wore for the remainder of his life was the result of inept plastic surgery.

  Davo, the reluctant guest, remained silent and truculent for the first week and made no attempt to co-operate. He didn’t think he belonged and it was obvious he was taking very little from the lectures and not contributing to the group discussions. He seemed to have the single response, ‘It sucks’, to anything he was asked to comment on.

  Billy had frequently tried to be friendly but Davo had rebuffed him on each occasion. On the last attempt he’d called Billy a ‘fuckin’ old poofter’, though out of earshot of anyone in authority. Billy, who was having enough trouble sorting himself out, finally gave up.

  Two days later Billy was seated on his bed trying to work out how to sew a missing button on his shirt and constantly pricking his finger and making a real hash of the task. ‘Gis that!’ Davo called impatiently, his hand extended to take the shirt.

  Billy looked up, surprised. ‘It’s a button,’ he said and shrugged.

  ‘I know it’s a fuckin’ button, mate!’

  ‘It’s a tricky business, I had no idea,’ Billy said, ashamed of his ineptitude.

  Davo accepted the shirt, rethreaded the needle, knotted it at the end, and expertly sewed on the button, biting the cotton off at completion. ‘There yer go, mate.’

  ‘How excellent!’ Billy said. ‘Thank you, Davo.’

  ‘No worries, mate,’ Davo replied, his voice flat, although Billy could sense he was pleased at the compliment but didn’t wish to show it. ‘Your mum teach you?’

  Davo’s head jerked back, surprised, and he gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Osmond Hall, mate.’

  The name rang a bell somewhere in Billy’s mind, though he couldn’t remember quite why. ‘Osmond Hall?’

  ‘Juvenile Detention Centre.’

  ‘And they taught you to sew?’

  ‘Occupational therapy, yer got the shit beat outta ya if yer didn’t. Laundry duty, sewing on buttons, patching, hemming, darning socks and then darning the fuckin’ darn.’

  ‘Mailbags? Did yer do mailbags?’ Morgan called from his bed. It was meant as a joke but Davo missed it.

  ‘Nah, just mendin’ and stuff like that. The screws would bring their gear from home and yid get into the shit if it weren’t done perfect.’

  Billy looked down at the button on his shirt. ‘Yes, I can see you’re an expert.’

  ‘Nah, it’s only a button. We had this matron, real bitch with a moustache, we hated her, she were there the first time I done Osmond. She’d make yiz sew on a button, you were eleven years old, see, and you’d sew it and she’d take the needle . . .’ Davo hesitated, ‘Like you know there’s four holes in a shirt button so you makes an X with the stitches, sewing like from one hole to the diagonal opposite, like you seen I just done. She’d take the needle and, with its point, separate the stitches, countin’ them. If they weren’t the same number o’ stitches on both the crossovers, yer didn’t get no dinner.’ Davo laughed. ‘Count ’em, mate, betcha there’s the same number on both arms o’ the X.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it, Davo. I’m afraid my eyes aren’t up to it.’

  ‘Give it here,’ Freddo called. ‘Okay, who wants to make a bet? What odds you offerin’, Davo?’ Davo looked momentarily confused. ‘Er . . . two to one.’

  ‘Righto, gennelmen, Morgan?’

  ‘Ten bucks says they ain’t,’ Morgan cried.

  ‘Ten to win twenty, how about you, Billy?’

  ‘I’m on the kid’s side,’ Billy said. ‘Ten dollars says he’s right, both sides are even.’

  ‘Hey, wait on! I ain’t got no money,’ Davo cried.

  ‘Do
n’t matter,’ Freddo said. ‘I’ve got a bet each way. The book, that’s me, takes ten per cent.’ He turned to Billy, ‘Here, ’and me the flamin’ needle, mate.’

  ‘Hey, just a moment!’ Morgan said. ‘If you count, you can make it come out any way you like!’

  ‘That’s denial, you don’t trust anyone,’ Billy laughed.

  ‘Too right! Who says Frog Face here can be trusted?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I do,’ Billy said.

  ‘Oh? On what authority? You don’t know him from a bar of soap.’

  ‘His terms are not negotiable, he isn’t an opportunist and can be trusted.’

  ‘Eh? And how would you know that?’

  ‘Quite simple. The er . . . tattoo on his rear, it’s a firm price, he doesn’t take advantage of his customers, it’s one price for everyone, that means he can be trusted.’

  ‘You mean the same for all comers!’ Morgan said, unable to resist the pun.

  Davo was laughing and Freddo laughed as well. ‘Good one, mate! If I go back on the game I’ll have that tattooed as well – “One price for all comers!”’

  Using the point of the needle to separate them, Freddo now set about separating each strand of cotton on first one diagonal of the newly sewn button and then on the other. ‘Billy wins! They’re exactly the same,’ he announced.

  ‘Told yiz, didn’t I!’ Davo cried, pleased with himself.

  Morgan paid up reluctantly and Freddo deducted twenty cents and gave the remainder to Billy.

  ‘Thanks,’ Billy said. ‘That was lucky, a dollar eighty, that’s what you said it cost to sew on a button, didn’t you, Davo?’ he said, handing the money over to the young bloke.

  The ice had been broken and a much easier relationship developed between the four men, though each had times when they slipped off to the clinic to hide behind a curtained-off bed and fight their demons. They would return red-eyed and often still trembling but the others would pretend not to notice. The nights too were noisy affairs with one or the other shouting and calling out in his sleep or weeping quietly in the privacy of the dark. The drug of their particular addiction was out of their systems but it remained firmly in possession of their minds.

  Davo and Billy became friends and one afternoon Davo explained how he’d turned eighteen and was now eligible for a prison sentence and how frightened this made him. ‘Osmond Hall, I shit it in, didn’t care nothin’ about that, mate. I been going there since I were eleven, there’s nothin’ them bastards can do to hurt me no more. But this time they gunna throw me in with the big boys and I’m shittin’ me daks.’

  ‘What have you been charged with?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Motors. Stealin’ motors.’

  ‘You mean cars?’

  ‘Yeah, motors.’

  ‘What do you do when you steal them? Sell them?’

  ‘Nah, drive them, go for a burl, then crash ’em, drive ’em off a cliff or somethin’.’

  ‘Crash them! Whatever for?’

  ‘I hate them fuckers, them BMs!’ Davo said with vehemence. ‘BMs?’

  ‘Yeah, BMWs.’

  ‘What, that particular make or just expensive cars?’

  ‘Nah, not the motors, I love ’em, they’s things of beauty. The wankers that drive BMs.’

  ‘What? You love the cars but you hate the owners?’ Billy shook his head. ‘All the owners?’

  Davo nodded. ‘They’re wankers. They makes me mad, that’s all. I want to hurt them, see how they feel when it’s done to them.’

  ‘Done to them? What is done to them?’ Slowly the story of Davo’s one-man war against BMW owners emerged. At the age of eleven his alcoholic father had deserted the family for the umpteenth time and at the same time his mother had lost her job as a cleaner at Central Station when she’d found a wallet that had been planted by the cleaning contractors in a railway carriage with forty dollars in it and because she’d kept it they’d dismissed her. ‘We was living in these two rooms and a sort o’ kitchen in South Dowling Street and when the landlord comes around for the rent she don’t have it and he’s already given her a week to find it and when he comes back she still hasn’t found the money, so he tells us to leave.’ Davo went on to tell how his mother had pleaded with the landlord and when he wouldn’t listen she had attacked him.

  ‘He was an old bloke, about your age,’ Davo said.

  ‘Fat, and he wore this black overcoat and hat like you see in them old movies and he don’t speak like us, he’s foreign, like he’s a Lebbo or something. Me mum don’t hurt him but she’s half-pissed and pretty aggro and he’s frightened and he’s backing out onto the street and she’s following him, abusing him, calling him names, she wants to kill the bastard. He jumps in his BM and me mum’s bangin’ on the roof and kickin’ at the door and I’m trying to pull her away. Next day these three big Maoris arrive and they take all our stuff and throw it on the pavement, mattresses, chairs, blankets, everything. We’ve got this old TV and they put it with the rest of our gear, bringing it out last and putting it down. Then one of the Maoris says, “This is from Mr Malouf, you black bitch!” and he kicks in the screen o’ the TV and they gets in this old Holden station wagon and drive off.’

  ‘And the landlord drove a BMW?’

  ‘Nah, that’s not what done it. Me and me mum are sitting on the pavement with all our gear and there’s people lookin’ out their windas and standing in the doorways watchin’ but nobody’s doing nothing to help, because we’re Abos and me mum’s crying. It’s getting real cold so I’m sitting next to her wrapped in this doona. I’m eleven and I don’t know what to do. Me mum says looks like we’re gunna have to sleep on the pavement and she needs fags, to go get her a packet o’ B & H at the shop. The shop’s like two blocks away and as I get near I see the landlord and the three Maoris standing on the pavement outside and he’s paying them. His BM is between him and me, there’s workers digging up the pavement using them jackhammers so I find this big piece o’ cement that I have ter lift with both me ’ands and I smash the windscreen, then I smash the cement lump hard as I can into the bonnet and the doors and the roof and the boot and I do all the windas. The jackhammers are going, hammerin’ away, digging up the pavement, so the Maoris and the Lebbo don’t hear me doing the deed. When I’m almost finished wreckin’ the BM, they catch sight o’ me and they come running and I run for me life. They don’t catch me, but I got to go back to me mum, don’t I? But she ain’t there and so I can’t leave because then she won’t know where I am. The Lebbo musta called the cops, because they come in the wagon and I’m took away.’ Davo paused. He’d told the story almost without drawing breath. ‘That’s the first time they put me in Osmond Hall.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  Davo shrugged. ‘I ain’t never seen her since.’ Billy didn’t know whether he should believe Davo or not, but told himself it didn’t matter, that he wasn’t there to be his judge, but that Davo was pretty damaged and needed help, although Billy had no idea how he might get it from the justice system. His only hope seemed to be if he could kick drugs and alcohol, but even then what was waiting for an Aboriginal kid like him in the so-called straight world?

  Billy could see Ryan on the same path, his life already had all the ingredients required, a mother who was a heroin addict, his grandmother, the one steady influence in his life, probably dead, nobody to watch over him. Billy was suddenly filled with a terrible fear and sense of helplessness. Davo had shown him almost precisely what would happen to Ryan. He was beginning to see clearly that time was running out, that ten months in rehabilitation was too long. He’d have to do something soon. But how could he? He wouldn’t last five minutes out there on his own. If he tried to rescue Ryan, he’d only destroy himself and do nothing for the kid. Billy spent that night in the clinic behind the bed curtains knowing that whatever he did, he was going to fail Ryan.

  The foll
owing evening the men were watching the rugby league game of the week when the camera turned onto the crowd and showed a close-up of Jeff Fenech, the ex-featherweight champion of the world, who was sitting in the Channel 9 commentary box. ‘He’s the best there ever was, mate!’ Davo said to Billy. ‘Pound for pound!’

  Billy hadn’t been concentrating and only caught a glimpse of the boxer before the camera turned away. ‘Who?’

  ‘Jeff Fenech, mate! He’s me idol.’ It was the first time Davo had ever mentioned anyone in a positive vein. ‘Why don’t you write to him?’ Billy suggested.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Why not, have you seen him fight?’

  ‘Every one of them from 1988 when I were only ten years old, mate. On TV that is. I seen all his title fights since then, Victor Callejas, Tyrone Downes, George Navarro, Marcos Villasana. Azumah Nelson in Las Vegas, that were for his fourth world title. It were a draw but he was gypped, he won it easy, everyone said so. It were a Don King decision, the big boys had their money on Azumah.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, what about when he fought the return in Melbourne? The black bloke KO’d him in eight,’ said Morgan, who was sitting close by.

  ‘Jeff was crook, mate, he shouldn’t never have fought that day, he had asthma real bad.’

  ‘Fight’s a fight, mate. He took it, he lost it, it’s down in the books,’ Morgan replied in a dispassionate voice.

  ‘Yeah, but his hands, they was RS as well.’ Davo was clearly upset.

  ‘Should’ve given it away then,’ Morgan countered.

  ‘Didn’t he lose to the next bloke as well?’

  ‘Yeah, Calvin Grove. Like I said, his hands were ratshit, he retired straight after,’ said Davo, defending his idol. ‘Can’t take his record away from him, mate. No Australian boxer ever done better, never will neither. Twenty-nine fights, twenty-six wins, one draw, two losses when his hands were gone.’