Frederick's Coat (17 page)

‘Case I get breathalysed?’

‘Case you get lost. Never knew a man with such a bad sense of direction.’ Paolo grinned as he always did, a sideways face slice.

‘Put that down to thirteen years of not driving and finding I’d lost my confidence behind a wheel. It’s not that I don’t have a sense of direction. I just kind of freeze up.’

‘You’ll get used to it again. We all know the feeling. Me, I applied rage when I drove. Ran vehicles off the fucking road, sideswiped ’em. Had a ball and got my confidence back.’

Indicating the families around them, Shane said, ‘Bet they never saw that side of you. No. You know Gerardo told me once that each of us is a public man and a private man, and the two don’t have a reason to have a discussion.’

‘He’s a wise man is our Gerardo.’

Shane loved how they said ‘our’ and ‘we’ and ‘the Family’ with the capital. Made him feel warm inside, maybe even loved.

‘So tell me the problem needs solving.’ Shane felt in his element now. The survival instinct was back.

‘This boy is a Polynesian. Tongan.’

‘Tongan? I know them — least I knew one I had to put down with the old battery-in-the-sock trick. Whack. Too big to fight fair. Like that cowboy bloke in Barwon?’

‘Yeah. You did him good. Gerardo said it was the making of you.’

‘He did?’ Shane surprised. ‘Well, he never told me that. Just doing my job.’

‘Which tonight is to tell this guy our price is already as low as it gets,’
said Paolo. ‘And it’s still cash up-front. Tell him don’t come a kilometre near the fucking house or that’ll be taken as a planned invasion.’

Shane got it. ‘And if he kicks up?’

Paolo shrugged. His dog was right there for a rub and pat every few minutes. ‘He’s a big man. Take four to lug his body. Ah, look at Keisha getting clucky already, holding my cousin Carlita’s baby. She was born to have kids, that one.’

As Tito came over and nodded to Shane in his respectful manner, the thought came from left field that if these people were in a normal business they would be successful and, if it was possible, even happier, since there would be no lengthy absences in jail. No emotional hardening that committing to torture would require. Normal.

‘I
thought you had a show on at a gallery?’ As Frederick opened the door and stepped aside, Danny could smell the alcohol on his friend’s breath. ‘It not go well?’

‘Yes. The owner says most of my work will sell.’ Danny didn’t want to glance around the apartment taken out in his name, the rent and a weekly hundred paid by his family trust, but his eyes couldn’t miss the untidy mess in the living room and the pile of dirty dishes, pots and pans in the kitchen and the general debris. A spilling-over ashtray on the glass coffee table smudged and smeared by something greasy.

‘That’s good.’ Though Frederick did not smile. ‘What sort of prices are we talking?’

‘I can’t really remember. In the thousands for each piece,’ Danny said. ‘I’ll give some money to you.’

‘I thank you, kid. But what use is money to me? I have more than enough from what the government gives and you adding to it. This,’ he held up an almost smoked cigarette, ‘is all I need, along with you know what.’ He nodded at one empty vodka bottle and another quarter-drunk beside it, a glass with the same look as the coffee table.

‘The medication not right yet?’

‘Have my moments.’ Frederick’s eyes went briefly to the ceiling and Danny saw his nails were getting black again, noticed the heavy nicotine staining on the fingers. ‘What of your big moment tonight, young man? What are you doing here when the invitation said it finishes at ten?’

‘You didn’t come.’

‘I said I might come.’ Frederick sounded a bit defensive. ‘But I didn’t. Sorry. So why did you leave? And don’t be telling me it was to come see me or I’ll be angry.’

‘At me?’ Danny smiled confidently. ‘Go on then. I dare you.’

‘I do and you’ll kick me out like some heartless landlord?’ Frederick seemed to lift to the lighter moment.

‘Depends,’ said Danny, ‘on how angry you get.’

‘You’d lose that one. I could never get angry at you, son. Never. But I still want to know why you’re here.’

‘Felt uncomfortable. All the fuss and people, as my dad said, wanting a piece of me. I only paint things.’

‘Society not only appreciates artists, it cherishes them. And if it’s near a sell-out and each one for thousands, you’d better get used to the fuss and attention because it’s going to be part of your everyday life.’ Now that he was more or less clean-shaven, given he’d not shaved for a few days, even his slightest grin could be seen. His hair, even if it hadn’t seen a comb or brush for a while, was in better order being cut short to a grey-flecked stubble. In clean clothes, too, he looked a different man entirely, and yet Danny knew instantly this was the same man. And clearly his medication wasn’t working.

‘The women were the worst. Telling me I had it all. You know, the art and good looks — as if I care about my looks.’

‘I care,’ Frederick said. ‘Maybe not the handsome part so much as the goodness I see coming out.’ Another flicker of a smile. ‘It makes you glow.’

‘If that’s true then I can’t see it.’ Danny was a little embarrassed.

‘Nor should you,’ Frederick said. ‘Or it invites vanity, much the worst version of anyone.’ Took a gulp from his glass of vodka, which he drank straight.

‘I still like to take care of myself,’ Danny said without thinking. His friend flinched ever so slightly.

‘A certain amount is both necessary and good for you.’ Frederick stared at Danny, who couldn’t hold his gaze, and looked away, only to
see a heap of clothes he’d bought with a cleaned-up Frederick fresh out of hospital, choosing for him as he wasn’t much interested, and happy to be able to pay. ‘When you can find the will to.’

‘If you don’t feel like it, I could ask Mavis to come in and tidy up,’ Danny said. ‘I’d help her.’

‘While the cause of all this mess stands here watching with a vodka glass in hand? You think I don’t see it?’

‘No,’ said Danny. ‘You just don’t care because at the moment I don’t think you can.’

‘That a statement or a question?’

Danny just lifted his shoulders.

‘How about won’t?’ But Danny wasn’t buying that. ‘All right — can’t. I can’t get myself to clean up my own mess. I see it but not enough to care. That make you want to kick me out?’

‘The first time you said that I thought it was a joke. Now …?’

‘Because I’m a hopeless case and you’re wasting your time and money. Putting me up in this apartment, even the view is soon lost to my vodka master.’

‘Still better than sleeping outdoors.’

‘You reckon? Sometimes I wish you’d tell me to get out.’

‘You said you’d never get angry at me,’ Danny said. ‘And I’d never tell you to leave. Never.’

Visibly trying to struggle up from his inner darkness, Frederick said, ‘I’ll get round to cleaning up. Yeah. One of these days, eh?’ A helpless expression, though, as he added, ‘When there’s a break in the clouds.’

‘There will be. And it’s better you stay here till there is.’

Frederick wanted to know every detail of Danny’s début exhibition. ‘Your old man must’ve been real proud.’

‘I overheard someone say he was bursting at the seams with pride. He thinks I’m better than I am.’

‘Why would you say that?’ Frederick quite shocked. ‘The three works you put on the walls here I look at till the vodka steals my eyes.’

‘Because I’ve seen other artists’ work. But I’m not bothered if someone is better than me. I’ll still paint.’

‘Show me that person and I’ll crown him king,’ Frederick growled. ‘But not bloody likely, mate.’

His father had asked when Frederick’s supermarket trolley could be either dumped or offered back to the owner because the neighbours were making louder noises about the ‘unsightly object’ in his car park. ‘But the main complainant happens to be a fan of your art. I told her you were looking after it for a very sick homeless friend and just waiting for him to get well again. That shut her up.’

The same middle-aged woman, a surgeon’s wife, Alexia someone, had been all over him at tonight’s gallery exhibition. She’d proudly told him she’d bought a couple of his paintings, then winked and whispered, ‘I hear you have a kind heart for the less fortunate. That speaks well of you, as if you’re not covered in praise enough already.’ So the cart was okay for a while. Maybe he could dump it, but not the big coat for which he had a strange affection.

Danny realised he hadn’t heard a word recited in the eight months Frederick had lived here. ‘Have you lost interest in poetry?’ he asked.

As soon as he spoke Frederick’s eyes suddenly became bright. ‘This is from Shakespeare’s
Macbeth
: “Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow.”’ Danny knew the routine: Frederick readying himself physically for one of his eloquent, quoted outbursts.

That familiar pause, the silence to which a young man listened.

‘Danny boy …’ speaking his name in a surprise, as if the more to include him, or grab his complete attention.

‘“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury” — are you hearing the Bard, lad?’ Hearing him indeed, understanding something, if not necessarily the words.

‘“Signifying nothing.’” The light in his eyes had gone out, as he said in a low voice, ‘Nothing, said the Bard. As does this depressed wretch agree. The king’s life in this tale came down to nothing. Seems Frederick’s life means even less.’

‘Come on now,’ Danny said. But no further words came, not when he stared into eyes reflecting no light.

The next time he found him in the Botanic Gardens, sitting near a rare Wollemi pine, which the previous Frederick had told his young friend came from the dinosaur age: ‘To think this same species has lived for a couple hundred million years. And found in only a few tiny sites in Australia. And here a mere human being, in a fragile state, no more than fifty years living, back in his old habitat and grown rapidly into his former self. All around him flying foxes roosted in the trees, hung like lanterns during the daytime, at night destroyed their own living environment by eating out the foliage.’

Danny remembered his friend talking of stringy barks and scribbly gums, of eucalypts and kurrajongs, wattles, bottlebrushes, dragon’s blood trees, banksias, cypress pines, Moreton Bay figs. Of sulphur-crested cockatoos, superb fairy-wrens, rufous fantails, paradise shelducks … ‘Here in a bustling city is a little paradise.’

This man who didn’t fit naming trees and plants and birds and insects, microscopic creatures invisible to the eye, in between swallows of pungent, cheap vodka. In the flower beds — begonias, succulents
— and delighting in introducing Mrs Macquarie’s Bushland Walk, as though the wife of Sydney’s founding father was going to turn up any moment.

‘It’s only because I missed it, kid.’ He looked at Danny like a sad, soliciting dog wanting both food and love.

‘I understand,’ Danny said. But in a way he didn’t — choosing to rough it when you had a rent-free, everything-paid apartment in Chinatown, only twenty minutes’ walk away. But another world.

‘I have some Danny’s Drawings Sunday barbecue if you want?’ said Danny. ‘We can eat it at your flat … maybe?’

‘Not hungry, kid.’

‘I can see that. You’ve lost weight, Frederick. A lot.’

‘That’s being without my coat. You still have it?’

‘Yes. And the trolley.’ Danny was afraid to ask the question, but he must. ‘You want me to bring your stuff here?’

But Frederick shook his head, hair grown a lot longer and the beard back, though not yet wildly entangled. His fingernails were filthy again, and there was a raw burn-mark from a cigarette gone out in unconscious fingers.

‘The day I ask for it is the day I’m back here for good,’ he said. The head shake grew vigorous, adamant. He conjured up a smile that didn’t seem to fit, not till he said, ‘Stringy barks and scribbly gums. You remember? Of course you do. The lovely language all around us, eh, kid? Words flitting like butterflies needing to be taken in gentle hands and admired.’

Danny couldn’t speak.

‘I’m okay. I’ll even come back and eat some of that barbie, eh? A couple of ribs at least. Salad I never liked.’

‘Do you like baked spud with garlic butter?’

‘No. Spud’s too heavy for my constitution. I remember you mentioned barbecued prawns covered in garlic butter.’

‘I have some. On the house, compliments of my dad, he said to tell you.’

‘He knows you came out looking for me?’

‘He guessed. Said to give you his regards.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ Frederick got up off the grass. ‘I thought he didn’t approve of me?’ Looked at Danny as if wanting to be corrected. But Danny just shrugged.

The clothes that had been brand-new some months ago were now much the worse for wear. Without his coat he was but a shadow of the strangely prepossessing man Danny first knew.

‘If you want your coat I could get it dry-cleaned and — or I could just bring it. Must be cold at night.’

‘I didn’t always have the coat,’ Frederick said. ‘No. Leave it where it is, long as your father doesn’t mind. Call it holding the fort for a bit longer than we all thought. I took a blanket from the flat if that’s okay?’

‘Yes, of course. Take anything you want — ask for anything.’ Wanted to tell his friend just to keep his head above water till the tide goes out, as surely it must.

‘You couldn’t spot me a few bucks, could you? I have an awful thirst and I’m all spent out.’

‘Sure. Come on.’ Danny led their exit from the park. ‘We’ll buy it on the way.’

Soon he noticed — and knew Frederick had, too, from the way he tensed and moved closer to Danny — a group of about half a dozen youths eyeing them or, rather, Danny. They conferred in staged whispers, nodding as if agreeing to something.

‘How ya goin’, rich boy? Couldn’t stay away?’ said one who Danny knew as Corey, the leader of this pack.

‘Where goes Freddy, goes his homeboy,’ said Jason, Corey’s closest sidekick, whom Danny had depicted in that painting a few years ago being kicked by two thugs heavy with gold jewellery as he lay on the ground in Hyde Park, not so far from here.

‘Chickens home to roost.’ Corey was a thick-set guy of about twenty, a couple years older than Danny.

‘Ignore them, Danny,’ Frederick said. ‘Fucking spoonheads.’

‘Still got his mouth, even with the cleaner look,’ another said.

‘But he’s falling back,’ said Corey. ‘We all do.’ Staring at Danny with an oddly assessing smile, as though he was sure they’d meet again.

Something about these young men was telling Danny they actually wanted to be friends. He was sure he saw this in Corey’s eyes.

Same person who said to his back, ‘Maybe you can show us your art one day, rich boy? Reckon you like the free life.’

That stopped Frederick, who turned and said, ‘You’re not free, you lost punks. You’re prisoners of your own anger.’ He broke off in a taunting cackle and said, ‘I could cure you in a week of unconditional love, you unknowing fools. Now leave us the fuck alone.’