Frederick's Coat (16 page)

H
e’d answered the door buzzer to Frederick asking him to come down; didn’t tell his father or Mavis — none of their business. Danny was relieved his friend had turned up, yet even for someone in a permanently dishevelled state, the Frederick standing in the street looking more than the outcast: this was a completely defeated man.

Danny wasn’t sure what to say and if he should shake hands, even hug him. But that ripe smell was always a put-off and Frederick wasn’t demonstrative like Johno. Just a hand on Danny’s forearm, a pat on the shoulder.

‘You’ve been gone a while. You okay?’

‘No, son. I’m not.’ Calling him that in front of Danny’s father might not go down well. Even coming here could possibly anger Johno. So Danny wanted to move them away, in case, but Frederick wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Got darker,’ he said, out of a mouth that barely opened to speak.

‘I thought you took pills for …’ A Hopkins line learned from Frederick came then:
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, o what black hours we have spent …

‘Got darker … more and more weight inside my head. Like it’s trying to shove my pride down before … I don’t know …’

His normally intense stare gone, his eyelids fluttered and he rocked from side to side as though trying to come up for air. His hands formed into weak fists, then opened. The coat seemed much too large now,
nearly enveloped him. His supermarket trolley had the same
black-plastic-protected
pile inside its wire cage. How many thousands of kilometres of city and suburban pavement had it covered, how many park lawns and pathways? At the end of each day, before he got too drunk, he always attached a length of padlocked chain from the trolley to his left ankle.

After a while Frederick said, ‘Before they finish me, the dirty bastards.’ As if there was some conspiracy against him. But Danny knew how his friend saw his problem, that it wasn’t a singular force out to take him down.

Danny said, ‘But you’re not ready to be finished — are you?’
Wanting
to hear his friend say no. If Frederick was weak, then so was he.

‘It’s bigger than me,’ Frederick said. ‘It is me … what I am, what I was born …’ Another long pause, from this man who’d told Danny never to try to fill a silence.
It has its own voice if you’ll give it your ear.

‘Like you, eh, little flourishing artist …’ The barest twitch of the mouth to say he had tried to smile. ‘Born with a pencil, then a paintbrush in your hand.’

‘What about what you were born with? Your knowledge. Your mind—’ Emotion checked him, and anyway Danny couldn’t express in words what Frederick had done for him. He only knew that after their encounters he’d go home and his painting would flow.

‘I guess something of a mind — if you can call it that, fatally flawed though it is.’ His eyes fell to the pavement once again. The worn
twine-held
shoes shuffled and scraped against the concrete.
Fatally?

‘If you get medication,’ Danny said. ‘You said it works. I know not forever, but it lasts a period.’

‘If I take it every day, and I don’t.’

‘Why?’ Danny almost angry at this apparently wilful self-neglect. ‘What if I said you have to take your medication or I won’t be your friend anymore?’ Damn it, try anything. And when a smile ghosted across the bearded face, Danny thought he might have struck a chord.

Except Frederick shook his head. ‘Not how it works, Danny boy.’
Like someone calling up from the depths. ‘This one’s had hold of me since — I don’t know since when —’

‘Five weeks. I searched for you all over town, on the ferries across the harbour to all the parks. I even hung around at Central Station in case you were free-riding.’ He found a smile. ‘Good to see you, Frederick.’

‘You too, kid.’ Yet the eyes were blank, distant. His mouth, even partly obscured by the wild facial hair, turned — no,
pulled
— down, the brow with deeper creases and his stench so rank that Danny almost started retching.

‘Can you look after my trolley while I’m gone?’

‘Sure. Gone where?’ Danny easily panicked.

‘Taking myself to a psych unit.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The psychiatric unit of a hospital.’

‘Where they’ll fix you?’

‘Treat me,’ said Frederick. ‘What I have can’t be fixed, only given a temporary reprieve.’

Danny’s father’s words coming back, predicting Frederick would die out in the open in some park, forgotten, ignored, as if he’d never existed. He said, ‘But if you add the temporaries together, don’t they come to the same thing? A longer period of …’ Did he say life? Sanity? Wellness?

‘Of ranting to an unheeding world,’ Frederick said, without his usual wry smile. ‘Of fighting the darkness, always the darkness …’ The pause went on; Danny told himself not to try filling it. Let it speak.

Eventually he said, ‘You told me one day someone will find a reason for us to live. Discover the point of life.’

‘I did,’ said Frederick. ‘But I didn’t mean I might be the one who discovered this. No … No, not me. Much too far to come.’

Danny didn’t know what to say next.

‘Promise you’ll look after my trolley.’

‘I promise. But if my father says no to using his spare car park I’ll have to—’ Danny had an idea. ‘Then I’ll put it in storage. I’ve seen a
place on our walks that will store anything of any size for a small rent. I could bring you the key.’

‘See what he says. He’s not a bad person, your father.’ Frederick gave out a short chuckle. ‘But he didn’t like my being in your house that time.’

‘But normally he’s very kind to everyone.’

‘Yes.’ Frederick’s eyes came up. ‘I never doubted that. But it wouldn’t surprise if he’s not suffering, just a touch, from what I’ve got. Depression is quite common.’

‘You told me.’ Danny’s mind quickly found a comfortable slot that fitted too perfectly his father’s quiet moods, guarding his private side, even with his own son. ‘And my dad does get pretty serious, sometimes.’

‘Just he’s put his energies into his business, to raising his son. They say one of the secrets is taking yourself out of the equation.’ Frederick gave a long sigh. ‘I tried … Just not hard enough, I guess.’

‘You’ll be okay in no time.’ One of Mavis’s cover-all phrases. ‘Dad buried in his work, always making sure I’m okay. Now he has love. He’s got a girlfriend at last.’
They have sex.

Frederick nodded, looked over Danny’s shoulder. ‘And he’ll never end up living on the streets, unless the black dog catches up with him.’

‘But he says you never know how life will turn out. So never get smug.’ Danny tried to remember all his father’s words on the subject. ‘But I was never sure what he meant.’

‘I’m sure. He’s saying everyone can come down. He’s …’ Frederick’s hand went out as if he was about to start one of his typical rants. But he only shook his head; the words had dried up.

‘Where will I find you? I’ll come and visit.’ There was alarm in Danny’s voice.

But no sound came from those mutely moving lips, the facial hair claiming his voice like jungle growth.

‘I’d come often. But I need to know where you’ll be because Dad’s getting another apartment close to his new bar.’

‘I followed you to his bar,’ Frederick said. ‘A mate looked after my
trolley. I didn’t try to go inside. They would’ve stopped me anyway. Just smiled at seeing your name in neon. Danny’s Drawings. Some name. Some person in the flesh. How did I get a friend like you?’

‘You mean, how did I? And I hate it, the attention, people pointing at me like I’m some freak. I’ll get another key cut.’

‘For what?’

‘Storage for your trolley.’

‘Oh, that’s right.’

‘Where will I find you?’ Danny spoke again to silence. It was as if his friend had already begun his departure — his farewell.

‘Beach Haven Psychiatric Unit at Fairfield Hospital out in Marrickville.’ A chuckle rose up but became a choking instead. He coughed to clear his throat and said, ‘Beach Haven —
pah
. No beach within twenty kilometres. Someone thought that name might help cheer us up.’ The laugh escaped this time, but was gone as quickly as it came.

‘I have to go now, kid. Feels like big black crows are circling above ready to scoop me up. Here, shake my hand. And make it firm.’

Finding a grin, Danny said, ‘What Dad says. “Grip it, son. It’s not a bloody butterfly.”’ And did his best at imitating a so-called proper handshake. ‘Not fair, is it?’

‘Some things aren’t. You’ll take good care of my worldly belongings, won’t you?’

Yes, Danny could only nod, because suddenly he wanted to cry.

Hands gripping the trolley handle, aware they were sticky with accumulated grime, he watched the figure in its distinctive grey overcoat walk more slowly than usual down a street he didn’t belong in, and yet all streets — and none — were his home. Then Frederick turned and came back, removing his coat as he walked. ‘Forgot this,’ he said. ‘My identity, I guess.’ He folded it lengthways and placed it gently over the plastic hump protruding from the trolley.

He put out his hand again. ‘Be seeing you, kid.’

They were in his father’s accountant’s office and Mr Stringer was telling Danny that his grandfather’s inheritance now amounted to $728,000 and more numbers about what this invested sum earned annually. Danny was more interested that one of his paintings was the sole artwork on display here; he knew by the style it was from about a year or so ago. His father had asked if he could give his accountant a work of Danny’s choosing, and he’d asked why and his father said ‘as a gesture for looking after your money’. The painting had been inspired by a scuba-diving trip. He didn’t much like it now.

‘But it isn’t my money,’ Danny had said.

‘Nor is it your money being spent on your art career and keeping you alive. But who fucking cares?’ Johno was a little cross. ‘It’s a family thing. Your Gramps’s money made me, I paid him back, and he left it all to you. Why? To support your future career as an artist, same as I’m doing. Be your turn when I’m old and maybe broke and you’re a rich, international artist. The Chinese aren’t the only ones who do this.’

‘The Chinese?’

‘I have more and more of them as customers. I’m quite fascinated by how they think. They look after each other because they know no one else will. I know you don’t care about money and in a way nor do I. The only spending I want to do is on a nicer place to live and a good boat to take me — us again one day, I hope — out on overnight dive trips. But I do respect money and …’ His father went on a bit, but to unhearing ears.

They left with Brett Stringer’s assurance that his firm monitored all its clients’ investments ‘rigorously and thoroughly’. Keeping safe a sum of money that didn’t remotely feel like Danny’s own or of his deserving.

Though he did see one possibility as they walked the short distance to Danny’s Drawings and his father pointed out the apartment complex where he was negotiating to buy a unit.

‘What if I used some of Gramps’s money to buy Frederick his own place?’

His father didn’t react that strongly, just said, ‘I don’t think so, son. Kind thought though it is, he’d be back out on the streets in no time.
Just how these people are, sad as it makes you.’ His father’s big hand, though well meant, felt like a weight on his shoulders.

‘He’s been getting treatment in a psych unit.’ Danny had made many visits to Fairfield Hospital, taking a train then a bus. ‘Five months now. They’ve cleaned him up — no big beard, his hair’s cut and it shines. If he could come out to his own place I think he’d stay well. You see, the medication—’

‘Sorry,’ his father cut in, ‘but I don’t think your grandfather would be very happy seeing his money spent on buying a place for a homeless person with a mental problem. Nor would I.’

‘All right. How about renting an apartment for him?’

They stopped, Johno’s arm still around his son. ‘I’ve told you this countless times: your destinies are far apart. I reckon it’s time you bit—It’s time you terminated this friendship before it starts harming you.’

‘Harm? How, Dad? I don’t understand. You know I’ve had a lot from our friendship. You think I don’t know how odd it looks? I see how even the drunks and other homeless people look at me weirdly,’ said Danny. He took a deep breath; he must keep the emotion under control in front of his father.

‘It’s what I do, Dad. I observe.’ And then the floodgates started to creak open. ‘Did you ever notice the paintings I did of these two big rough guys kicking a young guy on the ground? No. Maybe I should have shown it to you and explained. I think they use the gangs of younger people to sell drugs. I noticed this, Dad. Who do you think helped open my eyes? Please say it, Dad.’

‘Thank you, Frederick.’ A father looking his son square in the eye so he would know he was sincere. ‘As one of your two trustees, I’ll ask Brett Stringer to write up a lease for a city apartment.’

‘Can he be paid, like, a weekly wage?’ Danny moved in quickly. ‘So he doesn’t feel tempted to go back to old habits.’

‘The government pays him a sickness benefit — you told me.’

‘It would be a top-up. Isn’t that what you call it? So he can buy …’ his eyes met this father’s knowing gaze, ‘the little extra things.’

‘Like cheap vodka?’ said Johno. ‘Or would he move to a better brand?’

‘I have sneaked him small bottles,’ Danny replied, slightly
embarrassed
. ‘It’s his only indulgence, along with smoking. And they don’t allow smoking indoors either. Patients have to smoke out in a garden, which could do with your landscape architect — his name’s Marcus, right?’

‘And what’s the name of the person trying to change the subject? And how about his trolley with that stinking coat? Does it go with him?’

2
007. My God. Thirteen years locked up. And now this, the worst part: the last few months. The growing fear that someone will deliberately provoke you so that your retaliation comes before a judge in court and more time is added.

Now he was, what’s the word, resurrected, a man wanting so badly never to ever come back that he shook all over at the thought.

But what if his mind snapped in the sleepless last ten hours? Felt it could go any moment.

In his old friend Gerardo’s cell, Shane was saying, ‘And I’m not fucking up this time.’

‘No,’ said Gerardo. ‘We won’t be putting you with untrustworthy dogs like Eduardo.’ The late Eduardo Puisi, whose murder had made the front page of Melbourne’s
Age
. Tortured horrifically, the article said. Genitals stuffed in his mouth — you name it and it’d been done to him. Gerardo had said they’d get him and, though Shane shivered at seeing it publicly announced like this, it was a deserved killing — say no more.

For just brief moments Shane had thought he couldn’t run with these people who were supposedly his adopted Family — always spelt with a capital F in his mind’s eye. Not with torturers, as if that was worse than murder.

He wanted to be as far from them as possible. To live a straight, even decent, life. He wanted to be so normal it popped up in his head with italicised emphasis:
normal
. As Gerardo described in lurid detail
Eduardo Puisi’s last living moments of unspeakable agony, Shane felt physically sick.

Yet, unlike his friend Johno, who had heeded the voice of conscience when they were threatened by the psychopath in Long Bay and remembered what he owed his wife and children, Shane let the thought, the whole suffocating feeling, the guilt by association, all of it, pass.

Now here he was on the eve of getting out, after
so
many years missing from the free human race, in need of a man who had ordered the torture and murder of several people.

‘Gerardo …?’

‘No. Please. Think I don’t know the turmoil your mind is in?
Me
? Of course you’re gonna say no more for you. After thirteen years why would you want to do anything that brings you back? Huh? You’ll be met right outside the gates of hell, with a one-way ticket out of here.’ It had been said a million times and still they grinned.

‘We’re about an hour’s drive from Melbourne so you’ll have to hang on a bit longer. But I don’t think you’ll be writing me to say how unhappy you are at your homecoming. Huh?’

Another kind of ‘huh’. These Eyeties could say it ten different ways, just as they could talk with eyebrows and brows alone, a separate language not needing words.

‘And
when
you’re ready, and not a day before, you know what we’re gonna do for you while you adjust? Put you in a luxury city apartment, out by Victoria Market, close to town but it feels like a village, too. People of every culture, Italians you can speak the lingo with and surprise them. Good fresh food, not expensive either. A hot woman your first day, gotta have that. Huh?’

On he went, in his soft, deep, persuasive voice. ‘Then to give you even more peace of mind, as you rightly deserve, we’re putting people between you and the hot end of the stick. Know what I mean? Like a wall separating you, a respected Family member, from the soldiers we got who never done time, or not much, and out to prove themselves.’

Gerardo smiled, put a hairy hand on Shane’s shoulder. ‘When you,
Shane McNeil, have done all your proving. Sound like you, son?’

God, was every man this vulnerable the day before his release, this churned up inside, this frightened and ecstatic and believing and cynical all at the same time?

‘You’ll hardly be mixing with the soldiers. More like an officer, let’s say a captain. Paolo’s running the show, so think of him as one down from a general.’ Paolo and Shane had become regular pen pals. ‘You and him get along, don’t you?’ As if Gerardo didn’t know.

‘Got anything going in Sydney?’ Shane asked. He’d had the idea, countless times, that he’d go up to Sydney, visit his beloved mum, find out why she’d stopped writing, perhaps find that Alzheimer’s or dementia had claimed her, but at least he’d know. And, with Gerardo’s reach, finding Johno wouldn’t be a problem; so much to talk about after all this time.

Least that’s what Shane assumed, till he thought about it some more and realised their lives had almost certainly taken different paths, and maybe Johno had put their past behind him. Or it might be that Shane was anticipating being rejected and preparing himself. Have to keep Johno Ryan away from these people’s radar.

‘We could have,’ said Gerardo. ‘But we see how you go in Melbourne. Be patient.’

It wasn’t the tornado of utter confusion he’d expected. Just endless excitement at everything, yet a constant state of nervousness, perhaps at being exposed, in fear of someone yelling out in the street that he wasn’t a member of society but a hardened criminal fresh out of jail. He could picture people staring, scorning, shunning him.

He didn’t feel he deserved his liberty, and yet there was ecstasy at being a free citizen, even if he was still required to report weekly to a tired, old, cynical probation officer.

All right, so he did intend going back to crime, but it would be a temporary measure, a means of getting back on his feet. No way was he going back in the slammer. He’d commit suicide rather than do that. Just make some big money fast and move to somewhere like Darwin, or
Perth, buy a pub, learn to be ordinary and lawful —
normal
. As Gerardo promised, he’d be some steps removed from the action so the risk was minimal, if it was there at all.

For hours on end he would stroll through the meat and fish outlets of Victoria Market, back and forth, back and forth, hearing the butchers and fishmongers bellowing out their specials, marvelling at rough-looking men so confident in themselves, their products. Held off speaking Italian to the Eyetie vendors — he’d wait a bit till he found his feet, got some self-confidence back.

Back at his
very
nice apartment just around the corner, white leather sofas, big television and great sound system. He played the Verdi and it still got to him. Man, did it get to him.

He always bought way too much meat and fish — couldn’t help it — along with a pile of other goodies from the markets. The apartment did have a freezer, which he’d already filled, and he threw out perfectly good meat, a bit troubled by this wanton waste.

The fridge he kept stacked with both Victoria Bitter and some imported German beer, which he’d dared to try and decided he really liked. Holstein it was called. Had far too much to eat and drink each day, ended in happy, drunken oblivion after starting on the booze as early as three in the arvo. Occasionally Paolo caught up, but for coffee only, as if keeping the social side on hold. Maybe Gerardo had told Paolo that he’d come out in quite a messed-up state.

So nice to crash out on a comfortable sofa, wake up to city lights out the big windows and that initial disbelief at being a free man. He’d take a tram into town and hit the city streets, taking in the shops, looking at restaurant menus in windows, but hated thought of dining alone and anyway lacked the confidence. Flabbergasted at the new fashions, at stuff that was available which didn’t even exist the last time he was out in the free world, the changes accelerated in his absence.

And everyone had a cell phone, a very public network of contacts, people to call, people who loved them. Wherever he looked almost everything was new to his eyes.

Where did torture and murder and selling drugs fit into all this?

Sometimes he felt like an outcast, impatient for the car Paolo had promised so he’d at least have a sense that he was on the move, going somewhere, even when in his heart he felt alone. It was as though his survival instincts had switched off now he didn’t need them, left him vulnerable, unsure.

On the day of his release Paolo had a woman with him, and she sat in the back seat with Shane, as bold as brass. He nearly ejaculated when she put a hand on his leg. She stayed all that day, and he laughed at Paolo asking if she could still walk.

But after two more days of her his old prejudices about easy women returned and he didn’t bother inviting her back. He’d find a woman somewhere, a decent one who hadn’t been around much. Like Evelyn, Johno’s wife — she was a good one.

Then he got asked into the Family fold.

Not until he’d been invited to several different Italian homes was he prepared to believe what his eyes saw: that these were guys who loved and respected their wives, doted on their children.

How was this possible?

Two, three or even four of the main players had to be the same guys who tortured and murdered Eduardo Puisi, and many others. Was one of them Paolo, who kissed his children as often as he patted his Labrador dog? He remembered Johno wanting a Lab when they were in their early teens, wondered if he’d fulfilled that wish or was doing time in some jail. Surely the incredibly handsome Tito hadn’t taken part in torturing Puisi or anyone else?

Back at Paolo’s for a third time, nice place but not a mansion or anything big and flash, just a good-sized dwelling out in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, with a Thursday evening backyard giving off barbecue smoke like thousands of others. The only difference was that the guys never produced a beer; they drank red wine and their wives drank white, but not much. And the men never got drunk, as Shane expected of professional criminals. They were slack, too, about filling up
a man’s glass. As if telling him of an unwritten rule that no one should get drunk. But he loved the feeling: it took him away, turned him into someone he liked better.

They ate a lot, sang big Italian songs with tons of emotion, laughed a lot too, very touchy with everyone; children belonged to every adult, not just the parents, constantly cuddled and fussed over, happily sitting on some tough guy’s knee, rolling on the lawn with some enforcer type. The younger ones were even fed mouth to mouth by some adoring relation chewing a piece of meat for easier eating.

Paolo — known in Barwon Prison as very dangerous, not to be crossed, didn’t matter how big and tough, how crazy you were, Paolo was crazier — would sit there brushing his daughter’s then the son’s hair. He got out two years before Shane, after serving seven. So, like Johno Ryan, his kids were little when Paolo went away. Shane would have expected them to be more distant, which made him wonder how Johno had got on with Leah and Danny.

‘Keisha? Did you give your Uncle Shane a kiss?’ Paolo’s ten-
year-old
daughter, ‘as beautiful as a painting’ according to her father, came over and kissed Shane on each cheek, in the European way. The famed Aussie mateship society could learn a thing or two off these Eyeties. This is how it should be done.

Paolo junior, twelve, kissed him like that, too — a boy? — and they called him ‘Uncle Shane’ as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Shane often felt emotion welling up when he was around these kids, whom he’d kind of got to know through Paolo’s letters and the occasional photographs he sent. Just their clean hair glistening in the sunshine could set off a longing to have children of his own.

There were no princesses among the wives present at Paolo’s barbie. Attractive, not one of them beautiful, mothers first and foremost, devoted to their children, and in private doubtless good, dutiful spouses. Shane hardly ever saw much physical exchange of affection. But plenty of respect for women, though not the adoration the men had for children. He couldn’t imagine any of the women fucking around. No
problem imagining the gory consequences if someone did.

The women who kept the men company in the restaurants and certain clubs always run by Italians they called their ‘baby girls’ or ‘hot chicks’. In Shane’s eyes they were no less than sluts and he wanted nothing to do with any of them, no matter how pretty or vivacious. But as he had with those three rotten, bent cops, he went with the flow, though not all the way to anyone’s bed — made out he was too drunk.

His thing about loose women was doubtless learned from his mother. She’d warned him against all kinds of people, kept a sort of verbal list to be read out regularly — of those he shouldn’t associate with, sleep with, talk to, be seen dead with. What would she think of these hypocrites going from this family setting to leering up with wild women, never mind how they all made their living?

‘Yes, but listen, Shane. It’s wholesale. We get the coke in and hand it out to distributors. Don’t set eyes on our customers and don’t want to. Do we, Shane?’

This was Gerardo, explaining how Shane should be involved in selling drugs, but a couple of walls removed from the action. His role was more supervising bulk movements of product from a distance and doing his part in making sure the money added up. The Family was strict about correct bookkeeping.

If anything had convinced him, it was this: a family barbecue, mothers talking about school — in English, though he didn’t mind if they spoke Italian, he could too — about their little ones. ‘My youngest isn’t like her older brothers and sisters. She’s so laid
back
. I worry she’ll grow up to be the type who misses the bus.’ ‘The plane, you mean,’ some other woman said. ‘No one catches the bus these days.’ And someone else said, ‘Business class, minimum. We never fly cattle class.’ Yet another said, ‘We’re strictly first, hon, but as far away from the morning champagne-guzzlers as we can get.’

Shane didn’t know what they were talking about. He’d never been on a plane. Sick of staring at his empty wine glass, Shane went and helped himself to the bottle. No one said anything, no disapproving looks. He
could’ve done this a few months sooner if he’d known.

That is, till Paolo sidled up to him and said, ‘Don’t be getting drunk. I got a call from one of the distributors. Cheeky fuck says he’s coming round here.’

‘You saying you want someone to discourage him?’

‘I want you to go meet him — in a bar just down the street, round a couple of corners. Tito will drive you.’