Frederick's Coat (11 page)

And they walked unhurriedly round and round the tiny park as Frederick expounded and the boy tried to take it in, comfortable in this odd man’s company.

T
his prison superintendent kind of reminded Shane of Johno: open face yet hard as nails. Not a big bloke, but sure of himself, again comparable to his erstwhile friend, who he thought about often. Even when
Mr
Parkes was being affable he never lost his air of toughness. Just like Johno if you were stupid enough to take him on.

‘Mr Parkes …’ Shane began. Parkes had been brought in from another prison to run the joint. Only mid-thirties the inmates assumed they’d eat him alive. Didn’t take them long to find out his first name — Bruce, Brucie to the cheekier ones — and try this out when called to his office. After half a dozen immediate ejections the message was clear: Mr Parkes it was and he was the boss.

‘I have a problem,’ Shane began hesitantly. Parkes just nodded, kept full eye contact. ‘You see—’

Then the superintendent cut him off. ‘Internal problems I can at least give a hearing, as often as not a solution,’ said Parkes still with that slight smile in his eyes but not on his mouth. ‘Is it internal or external?’

Shane didn’t think of the free outside world as external. So he said, ‘To do with my mother.’

‘External. Can’t do anything about it,’ Parkes said.

‘I know that, sir.’ Might as well grow a few legs on his belly if he was to get his way. ‘I’d just like to find out if she’s all right.’

‘As I said, this office doesn’t do anything external.’

‘Well, what if she, say, died?’

‘Barwon has no such thing as compassionate leave, McNeil.’

Right there, a Johno Ryan trait: the eyes had gone flat, but if you looked behind there was a fire ready to rage.

‘No inmate of Barwon is granted leave to attend any funeral,’ Parkes said. ‘Of any family member — not even his child. They’re the rules of this establishment, and even if I didn’t agree, I’d abide by them. Happens I do agree.’

‘So we get punished twice?’

‘McNeil?’ Parkes’ eyebrows rose and stayed there. ‘Please don’t come the victim with me. It might remind me of
your
victims.’

Shane wanted to say spare me the lecture and that he and his accomplices had only used guns to persuade the security guards to hand over the money. But no point getting into a row.

He said, ‘All right. Just that my mother’s last two letters were strange, they didn’t make sense. And I haven’t heard from her in over a year. That’s how long I waited before I came to you, Mr Parkes.’ Keep crawling, break him down, flatter his ego.

‘Inmates have wives who stop writing to them,’ said Parkes. ‘It’s a fact of being in prison. Some even lose the support of their mother.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I can’t do anything, McNeil. And in case you had any foolish thoughts of going on the rampage, as someone did just recently when things didn’t go his way: remember it will only add to your sentence. It’s a childish way of handling a situation.’

‘I’m not about to do something like that, sir,’ Shane said.

‘Good. Is there anything else bothering you?’

He’d crawled this far, could crawl a bit further — for his old lady, the one person who had loved him unconditionally. His birth mother didn’t exist. He’d never set remembering eyes on her and had she turned up, like Johno’s mother, he’d have told her where to go. He only had one mother.

‘No, sir. I get by. But—’

‘Company you keep, we know you get by.’ The mouth smiled but the eyes said: Don’t bullshit me, McNeil.

‘Each of us has to choose someone to run with, Mr Parkes. It’s a dangerous place out there.’

Felt like reminding this bloke that he went home every night to a wife, pussy on tap, to kids, friends, a nice cool swimming pool in the hot months. How dare he judge the company one of his inmates kept.

‘As you said, your choice. Now—’

It was Shane’s turn to interrupt. ‘Sir, I hadn’t finished. Is there any way of finding out if my mother’s alive, if she’s unwell, if—’

‘No.’ Parkes sighed. ‘There’s not. Don’t tempt me to give you a moral lecture, McNeil.’

‘Can I just say I’ve thought about my mum’s last letters long and hard and I figure she has Alzheimer’s. Like a couple of the old-timers here.’ But Parkes just stared as Shane continued.

‘I know from experience about no compassionate leave. Before you arrived, I asked if I could go to my father’s funeral. At the time, being told no did hurt.’ Shane threw in a little humble chuckle. ‘But this is my mother I’m talking about. I just want to know she’s in safe hands and—’

‘I’m sure she will be. The system takes care of our elderly citizens. If she does have Alzheimer’s you should be thankful it’s a disease of the mind and not some form of cancer raging through her body.’ The prison superintendent leaned back in his chair, got that hard look.

‘I wish you a good day, McNeil.’

W
hat Danny Ryan saw in the many parks he went to with Frederick were the colours. Some days they were so brilliant it felt as if he was under some tropical sea full of coral and fish of all kinds, except every colour was brighter, each one had a different shimmer, as the light bent, shafted, came in ribbons and dancing butterfly movements, with here and there explosions like fireworks.

Every growing thing he saw with such clarity it hurt. A pond mirroring a sliver of a stone building, a landscape that crawled and flew and oozed with insects and birds, even what Frederick referred to as ‘the clouds in all their troubled, changing loveliness’. That was how Danny saw them, too.

His unlikely mentor gave words to Danny’s raw and questioning perceptions, articulated thoughts he didn’t know he had until Frederick’s interpretation went
zing
in his mind like a bright light being switched on. The older Danny got, the more the world came to him like this, and much of it he owed to Frederick, either his utterances or his subtle steering till the boy got the point.

He knew his father didn’t perceive it in anything like the same way. That didn’t stop him loving his dad, but he couldn’t talk to him about the way he saw the world.

From the day Frederick said to him, ‘My home looks like a painting, does it not?’, the man had him. Perhaps it happened at Danny’s first sight of that coat. And since Danny obsessed about any subject, at least until he had drawn or painted it out of his system, the coat consumed
him, entered his night dreams and sometimes felt as if it were tearing him apart. He had to
understand
it.

‘You see the world the same way I do,’ said Frederick. ‘Each day is different. Mine eyes have seen the glory and dwelt in the suffocating dark.’

Oh, the things Frederick talked about — that is, when he was sober enough, and not in that dark state of mind when he didn’t recognise Danny. The boy, now thirteen, had stealthily added the occasional Sunday visit of friendship to his Saturdays, once he’d had breakfast with his father at the same Williams Street café. He’d pick his moment, knew when his father wanted his company.

Because Sunday morning was quieter there was more to notice — colours, light and shade in endless forms, the textures of different tree barks, a single blade of grass made fascinating by Frederick linking it to a line of poetry, usually Hopkins, but Shakespeare too. Frederick spoke of ants, whose biomass surpassed that of every living thing, their variety, their teeming, frantic presence, their battles with insect enemies. He talked of bodies in space millions of times bigger than the sun, how the earth was a millionth the sun’s size and all existence was made of infinitesimally small atoms and there was dark matter yet to be confirmed that might be the biggest influence over the entire universe.

This unlikely man describing and explaining the world, the universe, with picture-perfect clarity, as though he knew Danny’s mind converted everything to images. This man who spoke of ‘meanings most humans do not experience’, as he put it, the perfect companion for a boy who had always, always, felt different.

When he was drinking, Frederick would talk until the alcohol gave him one last surge of lucidity and loud, animated exaltation, before taking it all away. Danny learned to take his leave before this undignified descent. As to his father’s concern that Frederick might have some sexual motive, Danny reported back that though no subject was off-limits, Frederick had never shown a sign he might have bad thoughts
where Danny was concerned. Squirming when his father asked, ‘How about you? I mean, are you thinking about girls?’

‘Dad …’

‘I’m allowed to ask. I’m your father. And I’ve been around, even if I made a rule not to bring any woman home, like my old man used to. Hated it when he did that.’

‘Were you jealous?’

‘Probably. He belonged to me, and so did Gramps. We had our little world of three people, plus I had Shane, and his mum was always there, too.’ Johno cleared his throat. ‘So where does that leave us with the opposite sex?’

‘Nothing,’ Danny answered honestly. ‘Should there be?’

‘I’d have thought anytime soon. But it’s not my place to be setting the pace for you.’ Johno gave an awkward grin; even the usual hair-tousling was a bit forced.

‘The birds and the bees,’ said Danny, feeling equally uncomfortable on the subject, not least with his father. ‘Frederick says women can weaken any man or cut him right off at the knees. But your knees are intact, Dad.’

‘They’re still subject to a woman’s power.’

‘Girls are interested in me.’

‘As if I hadn’t noticed,’ said Johno ‘Ask anyone, you have
film-star
looks.’

Tapping his forehead, Danny said, ‘But I’m something else up here. And happy, too. Movies don’t interest me.’

‘You got that from me. And you never were one for the mirror. How’s your friend Frederick?’

‘Dad …?’ At his father’s frown. ‘We’ve been friends for a long time now. He has his moments. Up and down, but, as he says, when he’s down it’s a car crash.’

‘And you can handle that? I’m figuring he acts strange, maybe lashes out?’ Danny shook his head. ‘I occasionally have a customer who has mental problems. Sometimes they confide in me. Just
saying I understand, kind of.’

‘He never says or does anything bad to me. Just sometimes he gets lost for as long as a month or two. But the same Frederick comes back, eventually.’

‘He’s still got that coat, I see.’

‘You’ve been spying on us?’ Danny was a little shocked.

‘I’d call it a father’s right to make sure his kid is safe.’

‘Oh … You do this often?’

‘I did it twice, just to reassure myself. So don’t be looking like I’ve betrayed you. It’s the opposite. I just wish you’d make friends with — well, not ordinary people, ’cause that’s not what you are. Just kids your own age, arty, musical, really bright, even a bit weird. Fine. They’re called peers, Danny. Most of us call it having mates.’

‘Like you’re surrounded by?’ Danny said.

‘I’m constantly talking to staff, customers, suppliers, salespeople. Coming home is heaven to me. That’s why I rarely accept invites to go out,’ said Johno. ‘I have times when I’d like to come home to a woman.’

‘What about the money?’

‘It’s never done it for me. I even thought there must be something wrong with a man who makes quite a lot of it yet has nothing he wants to spend it on — other than you.’

‘You keep bringing me into it. I know you love me, Dad,’ Danny said. ‘I don’t want money.’

‘But you’ll have needs that require money. And—’ Johno checked himself.

‘What, Dad?’ The question not so innocent either.

‘Let’s say your talent means you’ll need a little more assistance than others might, like a rent-free flat when you move out of home, money to live on,’ said Johno. ‘And the company you’re keeping, a homeless man with a mental problem, says you’ll need my money for a little while yet. Which is fine by me.’

‘I don’t get the concept of money. I know we all need it, but it’s of no interest to me.’

‘One day it will have to be. Even when you’re a great artist, you must learn how to cope.’

‘With what?’

‘Life. How hard and cruel it can sometimes be.’

‘That one again …?’

‘Because it never goes away, Dan. Like bad weather, bad luck, events that turn against us. One day you’ll hear my words.’

A
while ago Johno had rented an additional premises in his old suburb of Balmain, turned its beer garden into the main attraction; two bars fed into it. Same name, Danny’s Drawings, but this third version was more upmarket, a place Johno enjoyed moving around constantly, less the proud owner than the self-interested proprietor stroking his patrons’ egos, making them feel included by asking for their thoughts on the menu, the service, the décor.

The flirting from female customers was amusing, but made him realise he would rather like a long-term relationship. He still didn’t think he was looking for love, but there was an emptiness, a constant sense that something — or someone — was missing.

The suburb he’d grown up in was unrecognisable, now full of high-priced low-rise apartment blocks, architecturally designed houses, boutique shops, specialist food stores, pricey hairdressers. Even the take-aways were of a high standard. But Johno adjusted to suit the times and his more affluent clientele.

A decade to get here, and building it to overflowing, his Sunday barbecues kind of famous, every night busy, his accountant said he was ‘raking it in’ when making money still caused the earth to shudder. Still, better to have it than being poor. He closed the place on Mondays and Tuesdays, days he was more available to Danny, to go for walks, visit any number of beaches, sit around and chat, or happily be there while Danny painted in his bedroom and, hours later, might invite his father’s opinion on his work, though
they both knew his taste had its limits.

On this frenetic Friday night he was expecting a call about his terminally ill father: Laurie had succumbed to the same lung cancer that had taken Gramps three years ago. Johno would never forget his grandfather’s near last words: ‘Don’t be mourning a man who contributed nothing to society. Your father and I are glad you found a better way.’

Yesterday, when he’d visited his father at the hospice, Laurie had been delirious. Johno had wanted to leave, rather than see his father like this. But then Laurie had cried out a name: ‘Anita! Anita? Oh, God, Nita.’ It had frozen Johno to the spot. His mother was Anita.

Next his father had started moaning, almost weeping, and Johno had left. Maybe he didn’t want to hear an involuntary deathbed confession, that some of the fault was Laurie’s, that he beat Anita, said cruel things to her, cheated on her, drank too much. He loved his flawed father, as he had his grandfather, who was grumpy with everyone but his beloved grandson. Still believed he felt nothing for his junkie mother.

‘Boo!’ Danny with his sneak-up-from-behind greeting, Johno tickling his ribs in return. He noticed, not for the first time, how his sixteen-year-old son’s good looks were starting to form adult edges, like the strong lines of the pencil drawings he did little of now.

‘You come with Wilson?’

‘Yep. He’s right over there. Chatting up a woman,’ Danny joked.

‘Not him I’m worried about,’ said Johno. ‘A woman might flirt with me because I’m the owner, but walk around with you in tow and no woman gives me a glance.’

His son’s wan grin said they weren’t on the same page. Johno, old-school on the subject, hoped his son wasn’t gay.

‘I don’t like it when people point and stare. They’re not my best works, you know.’

‘Anytime you’re ready to give us a new batch they’ll be hung in a flash.’

‘I’ve almost finished a series I’ve called “Frederick’s Coat”. I’ll leave them in the living room for when you get home tonight. They’re kind
of dream sequences, but cohesive. I mean, they do have a clear point.’

‘You’re over my head, buddy. Much as I’d like to understand.’

This child now on the verge of manhood who yet seemed so childishly innocent, liked his own company when he wasn’t with Frederick, had no need for anyone outside his tiny adult circle. He never asked about his mother or his sister, though two female figures featured often enough in his paintings and the age difference said who they represented.

‘The pointing and staring is only admiration, Dan. Without your art I’d lose a good percentage of my customers. It really gets them talking,’ said Johno. ‘Often I’m asked if any are for sale. I should have asked, do you want to sell them?’

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ Danny said with patent lack of interest. ‘No. I’m not ready. Soon be embarrassed by my previous work.’

‘Your father won’t be. I’m keeping them all, from when you were just a nipper. We’ll go over them one day when I’m old and—’

‘And I have kids of my own — right?’ Danny knew the line.

‘I’m allowed to wish for grandkids,’ said Johno. ‘Let’s go say gidday to Wilson.’

‘I could get used to this place,’ Wilson said to father and son. ‘They’ve done a fine job.’

‘You abandoned the old bar?’ asked Johno.

‘Not completely, since I live upstairs. But it has no stunning garden filled with the aroma of meat and fish barbecued over real wood embers,’ said the university lecturer who looked somewhat out of place, as usual.

‘Thanks to your friend Marcus.’ Johno acknowledging the landscape architect who had designed the beer garden. ‘And don’t forget you.’ Wilson had been in the car, keeping Johno company as he sometimes did on a random whim, when Johno took the call to check out the property.

‘I was passing on the deal, not sure I wanted to rent,’ he explained to Danny, ‘but Wilson said let his friend take a look first. I didn’t even
know there was such a thing as a landscape architect. Now, I’d build statues of him.’

‘And in that case I’d paint a tribute,’ said Danny. ‘Seeing I love your barbies, too.’

‘Ours,’ said Johno. ‘This place is ours, not just mine.’ Every table occupied, standing room only, yet Johno knew his son didn’t appreciate what the numbers meant, not just in financial terms but for the pride Johno felt — and always the gratitude — that his life had turned out like this. And Danny an essential part of that feeling.

‘I must say,’ said Wilson, ‘for someone of socialist views watching your two businesses grow has bizarrely been almost as pleasurable as watching this young man develop.’

‘Except his is creative and mine’s just instinct,’ said Johno, ‘plus a lot of luck. Wasn’t for my old man staking my first business I’d be working behind some bar or staring out from behind steel ones. Which reminds me: Danny, how about you go to my office and call the hospice to see how your granddad is? I should really be there.’

‘But you’re not, Dad. You’re here where you love to be.’

‘I have to mingle with my customers. It’s become my addiction,’ he said. Danny, too observant by half, gave back a knowing headshake before he left.

‘I can’t buy you a drink?’ said Wilson.

‘In my own bar? You helped develop my son into— What is his true potential, Wilson?’

‘Huge,’ Wilson said, but not without hesitating and then adding, ‘If he can lift himself to the next level.’

‘I thought he always worked hard.’

‘In here.’ Wilson put a hand on his chest. ‘He needs the courage, the absolute conviction that he’ll push beyond what he thinks is his limit. Time will tell.’

A little shaken by that reality-check, Johno said, ‘Soil a father’s dream why don’t you?’, but without resentment. ‘Are you eating here or taking it home?’

‘I’d prefer here. But Danny doesn’t like the crowd, the noise and the attention. We couldn’t have him eating your delicious barbecue alone, could we?’

‘I doubt he’d notice.’

Maybe the novelty would wear off, but Johno was still taken by the splash and sight of the waterfall spilling down rocks. The beer garden was mostly exposed to the summer evening sky, but there were pull-out canopies in case of showers, and two covered walkways opposite each other with slatted panels one side, the other open to the light, with tables and plenty of standing room. Expertly laid-out planting, a series of connecting ponds with aquatic plants and semi-tropical greenery, flat sandstone slabs as seating, two barbecues working hard out — sometimes Johno had to pinch himself to banish an irrational fear of losing it all. As if he might lose his son with it. Tonight feeling glad that at least his father had been here on many occasions before the cancer got to him.

He found Danny in his office sitting at the desk, morose, half-facing the wall.

‘Not good?’ Danny shook his head. ‘Look at me, son. He’s not dead?’ Another head shake. ‘Then look at me.’

‘What if I don’t feel like it?’

‘Because at a time like this you have to act older than your age.’ Love him though he did, the kid still lacked grit. It might come: maybe he was just a late developer.

‘That’s better. No shame in being sad. Did you speak to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he able to— Did he say anything?’

‘He just moaned. I think he knew it was me.’

‘He would have.’ Johno was fighting the opposing urges to put an arm around his son and to tell him to harden the hell up. ‘You’d better go out to Wilson. He’ll be starving. You seen how much weight he’s put on since we’ve known him?’

‘Is Granddad going to die soon?’

‘Yes. Happens to all of us, even you — in the far-off future. Now get going, nothing worse than cold barbie.’ Johno played it stern, at least till he caught the confusion on Danny’s face. ‘I
am
sad about my dad. Just shed my tears in private.’ Certain that his son saw death as if it was one of his dreams: you get to wake up.