Matthew Flinders' Cat

by Bryce Courtenay

  Morgan turned away to watch something on TV and Billy said again, ‘Well, write to him, Davo. Look, I’ve got a pad and pen and stamps, it shouldn’t be too hard to find his address.’

  ‘Nah, that sucks. No way, mate.’ Billy had left it at that. They’d all learned that Davo couldn’t be coerced. But a couple of days later he sat beside Billy at breakfast. ‘Porridge sucks, I hate it.’

  ‘Have some toast,’ Billy suggested.

  ‘Yeah, suppose,’ Davo said, continuing to spoon the oatmeal into his mouth. ‘About Jeff Fenech, you fair dinkum?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘About writin’, mate? Yer know, sendin’ him a letter like?’

  Billy put his spoon down. ‘I said, you ought to write to him.’

  ‘Nah, can’t.’

  ‘Can’t what? What can’t you do?’ Davo was silent, tapping the back of his spoon against the plate of oatmeal in front of him. In a small voice he said, ‘See, I ain’t no good at writin’, mate.’

  ‘That’s okay, tell me what you want to say and I’ll write it for you,’ Billy said, trying to sound casual while realising at once that Davo was confessing he was illiterate.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘No problems,’ Billy said.

  ‘What’ll I say?’

  Billy pretended to be thinking. ‘Lots of things. How you admire him. How you’ve never missed any of his fights on television, that sort of thing. You could tell him something about yourself.’ Billy made a logical guess. ‘Maybe how you want to be a boxer?’

  ‘Shit no! He don’t want to hear that.’

  ‘Do you want to become a boxer?’

  ‘Yeah, I can fight, man. I ain’t scared.’ Billy knew not to push him. ‘Think about it for a couple of days, let me know when you’re ready.’

  ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks a lot!’ Davo said, reaching out and lightly touching Billy’s shoulder, then drawing back, suddenly aware that he’d touched another human being affectionately.

  It was during a lecture in the second week that Billy began to see a pattern emerging that began to explain his own life. The subject being discussed was codepen dency and his own past began to open up for him. He had always thought of codependency as something to do with substances. For instance, the cook and housemaid when he was younger didn’t need to take a Bex powder with their morning tea but they were codependent on Bex and simply had to have one. They believed that without the powder they would not be able to cope with the day ahead. But now he learned that the meaning of codependence was much more, it was a vicious and insidious psychological disease. He’d been somewhat doubtful when he’d first been told this, these days there seemed to be an explanation for everything and nothing was anyone’s fault any more.

  But he began to sit up and take notice when the lecturer said, ‘Remember when you were a little kid, all the messages you got were that there was something wrong with you, you were bad? You didn’t know why you were bad, you just were. If your parents fought, it was because you hadn’t been good, it was your fault. You were told you had to be a good boy, perfect, you shouldn’t cry, only sissies cried if they skinned their knee or bumped their head. If you made mistakes you got yelled at and this told you that you were unlovable and flawed and not the little boy your parents wanted. Sometimes your mother comforted you and sometimes she turned on you, aiming her rage and anger at you, blaming you for her misfortunes in life. “I wish I’d never had you!” “You’re a little shit!” “You’re just like your father, no bloody good! You’ll grow up to be a bastard, just like him!” Your father had very little to do with you, he’d shout at you to be a man, that you were a sissy and a coward. If you didn’t excel at sport you were a failure, no good to anyone and, even if he didn’t say so openly, you could sense his deep disappointment in you.’

  Billy had interrupted at this stage. ‘But isn’t that all part of the business of growing up? You know, the rough and tumble?’

  ‘Yes, of course, that’s because your own parents were subjected to the same thing when they were kids. They’re only following a pattern, but that isn’t to say it isn’t a flawed design. That it isn’t wrong to act this way.’

  ‘Sure, but it’s a real world out there. Isn’t what happens, like I said, the toughening-up process to prepare us for what’s to come?’

  ‘Right again, Billy!’ Though they’d had several counsellors for their lectures, it was Jimmy’s turn again. ‘That’s how we justify it, but the result isn’t always a stronger person, it’s often a person who has learned to live in a codependent society.’

  ‘Codependent society? What’s that mean?’

  ‘Okay, instead of believing in yourself, in your own intrinsic value as a human being, you devalue yourself. You learn pretty quickly that value is assigned by society as a list of comparisons, such as richer than, prettier than, sexier than, cleverer than, more spiritual than, healthier than, and so on. You relinquish your right to be yourself and you allow others to judge you. These comparisons inevitably lead to a feeling of separation, which can lead in its extreme form to resentment, violence, hopelessness, despair, to being an outcast. Codependence is vicious because it causes us to hate and abuse ourselves.’

  ‘Hang on, don’t we have choices? Are you saying that the process of childhood as it is conducted in our society corrupts the inner child and robs him of his intrinsic power?’

  Jimmy brought his hands together and applauded. ‘I wish I’d said that, Billy.’

  ‘To be truthful, it sounds like a bit of a cop-out to me,’ Billy countered.

  Jimmy frowned. ‘How old are you, Billy?’

  ‘Fifty-six, though sometimes I feel a hundred.’ The men around him nodded.

  ‘Okay, so your father was born, let me take a guess, around 1917?’

  ‘1915,’ Billy replied. ‘He was a last pleasant act before his father went to Gallipoli.’

  ‘Well, your father’s generation did it tough, many of them lost their fathers, and those who didn’t grew up with silent, uncommunicative men. Today we’d call it post-traumatic stress disorder, but at that time it would simply have been known as your grandfather’s ‘moods’. His silences and irritability would have been almost constant and the only way he could’ve shown his frustration was by losing his temper. Your father’s dad was a war hero, he had to be perfect, except for his anger, which his wife and his son grew to fear greatly and would go to great lengths to avoid. Am I making any sense?’

  ‘I can’t say, I didn’t know my grandfather, but you’re doing a pretty good job of describing my father.’

  ‘Aha! Let’s skip a generation then and go on to your father. Did your father go to war?’

  Billy thought of his father, whom he’d always seen as the stern-faced judge he’d greatly feared and who had often spent the whole night drinking alone in his study. ‘Yes, he was captured in Singapore and was sent to Changi.’

  ‘Righto, with the usual superficial differences found in the next generation, he was probably a lot like his own father, what we used to call the strong, silent type who only expressed himself fully when he was angry. He probably didn’t communicate very well with you but had unreasonable expectations of his only son, and when you didn’t achieve these he’d disparage and humiliate you.’

  Billy had picked up a number of expressions in the group discussions. ‘Right on!’ he said.

  ‘So your mother tried to compensate,’ Jimmy continued. ‘She told you how she loved you, how you were all she had. You watched how she too was humiliated by your father and would do anything to appease him. She loved you but he came first. Everything was for your father. But nothing helped your father’s rage or indifference or drunkenness or cruelty. You felt responsible for your mother’s wellbeing and ashamed that you couldn’t protect her from his raging or the pain she suffered in her life.’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘So there
was the evidence you needed. Here was someone who loved you and who thought you were worthy of being loved, but you couldn’t protect her from her husband, your father, from being humiliated or hurt or having an awful life. As a small child this was all the proof you needed that you were flawed and unworthy. You knew that she was going to find out that you were no good, and too weak and unworthy to help her. When she became exasperated and desperate and deeply depressed and screamed at you or blamed you for her plight, this was the moment of truth when she found out your unworthiness, when she told you what you knew all along, that you were useless.’

  Jimmy spread his arms. ‘I’m hypothesising, of course. But if these were your circumstances, Billy, then you may have unknowingly begun the continual cycle of shame, blame and self-abuse that would manifest itself in one of many ways in the adult you. The pain of being unworthy and shameful is so great that we eventually learn to avoid it, disconnect from our feelings. We look for a way to protect ourselves from hurt with drugs and alcohol, food, cigarettes, work, relationships and obsessions such as perceived body image. We become codependent and, in the end, it destroys us.’

  ‘Isn’t that universal, I mean the Christian church teaches that we are guilty of original sin?’

  ‘No! We are made to believe we are guilty. Yes, you’re right, the Church has been doing this all along, we are told we are born sinful and unworthy. The family environment encourages this idea and adds to it in the way I’ve just described and so guilt and shame are passed on from one generation to the next.’

  Jimmy stopped suddenly. ‘Look, I’m making it sound too complicated. Let’s take a simple example, eating too much. Right, I’m a bit overweight; so others start pointing this out, at school, my father. I feel ashamed but I keep eating, I don’t know why. Now I judge myself, call myself a fat slob; I mentally beat myself up for being fat; then I feel the terrible hurt that comes with being a fat slob and decide I must do something to stop the pain. But willpower doesn’t work, I’m too weak I tell myself, too useless, so to nurture myself I buy three hamburgers with cheese and bacon and a double portion of chips; I judge myself again for being weak, unworthy and a useless fat slob, and the cycle begins all over again.’ Jimmy looked around. ‘But the reason I became fat wasn’t because I was intrinsically an unworthy human being but because I was made to believe that I was.’

  This was something the men could understand and they clapped and whistled. They’d all been there a thousand times before with their codependent drug of choice.

  Then Morgan said, ‘Yeah, Jimmy, you know how you, like, made the case for Billy, his old man givin’ him a bad time and his mum lovin’ him but also abusing him when she got cranky?’

  ‘Yeah, what’s the question?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about the others here, but I reckon I’d have thought I was on easy street if that happened to me. Me old man was always drunk, he’d come home and beat the shit out of me mum, then he’d rape me and beat me up. My mum said we had to forgive him because it was his nerves from the war. But when I was about seven she also became a drunk.’ Morgan started to weep and Billy, seated beside him, put his arms around him.

  That evening while they were waiting to go into chapel, Davo came over to Billy and sat beside him. ‘Mind if I sit with yiz ternight, mate?’ he asked.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Billy replied.

  Davo was silent for a while then he said, ‘You know how Morgan said about his dad, you know, what he did to him and then his mum?’ Billy nodded, not speaking. ‘You know I told yiz I’d never seen me mum again after I run away from smashin’ the BM?’ Billy nodded again. ‘Well, it weren’t true. Last year I’m in this pub when this Abo woman comes up to me, she’s drunk and she says ter me, “Gimme ten bucks you can fuck me.”’ The tears started to run silently down Davo’s cheeks. ‘It’s me mum. She don’t recognise me, her own son.’

  Billy put his arm around him, ‘You ready to write that letter to Jeff Fenech tonight, Davo?’ The kid sniffed, knuckling back his tears, and nodded. That evening Billy sat with Davo while the young bloke dictated the letter to Jeff Fenech. Billy tried to put it down as it was spoken, thinking that if he corrected Davo’s grammar he would lose some of the feeling that came through in the spoken word. There were frequent stops and starts as Davo tried to work out what he wanted to say, often turning to Billy to ask his opinion. ‘Just be honest, Davo, tell him what’s on your mind.’

  William Booth Institute

  Albion Street

  Strawberry Hills

  Dear Mr Fenech,

  I’d like to call you Jeff but I got too much respect. My name is Davo Davies and I’m doing rehab here. The judge sent me to detox, like instead of going in remand ’til my case is heard. I hope yer ’aven’t got a BMW cos that’s why I’m in the shit, stealin’ and wreckin’ them. It’s cos somethin’ happened way back and I can’t help meself. But now I’m clean, man, and even if I get time I’m gunna try to stay clean this time.

  The reason I’m writing to you is that yiz always been me idol.

  Even though yer no longer boxing, yiz still in the game, coaching blokes. Yer putting something back in the game. That’s real good. I seen every one of your title fights since I was ten years old and there’s never gunna be anyone better than you, mate. I’m sorry about your broken hand, yer would’ve beaten Azumah Nelson the second time like yiz did the first time and got gypped, if yer wasn’t that crook yiz could hardly lift a finger.

  I think I’m going inside. I done this BM 740 and I reckon I’m gone, cos I’m eighteen and no longer a juvenile offender. I done a bit of fighting in juvenile remand but then I got hooked (grog and amphetamines) but when I’m clean I hope to go back and have a go. Maybe they’ll let me box inside?

  I’m sorry to go on like this, but I just wanted yiz to know you’re the best, mate. They don’t make two Jeff Fenechs in a hundred years.

  Your number one fan,

  Davo Davies

  Billy hadn’t heard from Ryan and he was now almost three weeks into the first stage of rehabilitation. Ryan’s failure to answer his letters was a constant preoccupation of Billy’s. Whenever chapel occurred and the wives or girlfriends of some of the men would turn up and mingle afterwards in the foyer for a few minutes, Billy would be especially disconsolate and confused as to what to do next.

  Chapel was the best thing that happened to the men all week, although it was intended as a religious gathering where they might come to terms with their saviour Jesus Christ. While every gathering included a short sermon aimed at repentance and a reading given by one of the men from the blue Selective Readings book, it was the singing they most looked forward to. The very act of singing is a strong bond between people, and the chapel was an opportunity to let her rip, to get their emotions out into the open. The singing, while not always tuneful, was lusty and surprisingly uninhibited given the lyrics. Although there were many favourites among them, such as ‘One Day at a Time’, ‘To God be the Glory’, ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’, ‘Put Your Hand in the Hand’, ‘Count Your Blessings’ and ‘Amazing Grace’, by far the most popular of the 133 songs in the book among the men was ‘Power in the Blood’. Would you be free from your burden of sin?

  There’s power in the Blood, power in the Blood;

  Would you o’er evil a victory win?

  There’s wonderful power in the Blood.

  Chorus

  There is power, power

  Wonder-working power

  In the Blood of the Lamb

  There is power, power

  Wonder-working power

  In the precious Blood of the Lamb.

  Would you be free from your passion and pride?

  There’s power in the Blood, power in the Blood;

  Come then for cleansing to Calvary’s tide;

  There’s wonderful power in the Blood.

/>   Chorus

  Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?

  There’s power in the Blood, power in the Blood.

  Sin stains are lost in its life-giving flow,

  There’s wonderful power in the Blood.

  Chorus

  Would you do service for Jesus your King?

  There’s power in the Blood, power in the Blood;

  Would you live daily His praises to sing?

  There’s wonderful power in the Blood.

  Chorus

  Nothing quite matched the gusto of this hymn with its easy tune and strident chorus and, while there may not have been a single born-again Christian as the Salvos would define one, the men’s eyes shone with conviction after completing it.

  On his final Sunday at William Booth, and two days before Billy completed the first stage of rehabilitation, the chapel was packed. They were about to be transferred to the St Peters rehabilitation centre for the lengthy second stage. Billy was relieved that he didn’t have to go to Newcastle after all. This would be the last time for two months that families and partners would see each other and there was a great deal of tension and apprehension in the air.

  This second stage was a truly frightening prospect, seven months of complete introspection one-on-one with a counsellor. They would be required to write every day, addressing their fears, flaws, assets, resentments, past sexual conduct and the harm they had done to others, specifically answering hundreds of related questions in minute detail. They would have to work through each of these, dredging up the past since childhood, facing every nightmare they’d ever experienced. They would even at one stage have to seek out and face up to all the people in their lives whom they had harmed and ask for their forgiveness, perhaps the most harrowing experience of them all.

  The second stage was where most men baulked and left the program, heading for the nearest pub or fix, telling themselves that the pain of dredging up long buried and deeply hurtful memories was too much to ask them to endure. In fact, experience showed that while certainly harrowing, the pain didn’t come from working through the past, it came from resisting doing so. Alcoholics and other addicts would often rather go back to their addiction than openly face some of the inner truths in the process of rehabilitation. It was Jimmy’s initial point all over again, when on the very first day he’d said that freedom from the addictive self is impossible if we hold on to the fears and secrets we’ve been harbouring all our lives. The way of gaining strength and hope is, paradoxically, to make ourselves vulnerable.