Frederick's Coat (19 page)

A
wkward though it was seeing his friend in their new flat, and Johno trying his best to act normal, at least Frederick had turned up looking presentable.

Hair newly cut, maybe a day or so ago, the beard gone, and in clean clothes including, to Danny’s delight, new shoes. Not fashionable, but practical. With laces and a shine, not broken and held together by twine.

Danny had never seen him so relaxed, not bothered at being there, surrounded by the three adults in Danny’s life: Mavis and Wilson were present. Danny wondered if he’d picked his time to come, unannounced. He hoped, however, that his friend didn’t start any of his rants, Hopkins’ or Shakespeare’s mighty works notwithstanding.

Frederick’s handshake near lifted the mild-mannered Wilson off his feet. To Mavis he gave a gallant bow and took her hand lightly. Danny’s father he looked in the eye but was never going to surprise him in a strong handshake greeting.

‘Gidday, Frederick. You’re a changed man.’ Straight to the chase, but put well. Danny felt proud of his father, too.

‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Mavis offered. But Frederick shook his head.

‘Not for me, ma’am. A bit early in the day.’ Gave a small chuckle. ‘I usually have something a little stronger.’

He looked at Danny, who turned to his father. Now what?

‘Whisky? A brandy?’ said Johno. ‘I’m not short of stock or choice, am I?’ Warmth in his eyes at least, unless he was putting it on for Danny’s sake.

‘I have fifteen-year-old single-malt Oban in my memory from my last visit,’ said Frederick. He was calm, almost serene.

‘I got put onto Oban by Wilson,’ Johno said.

‘I’ll join you,’ Wilson said. ‘It is my favourite tipple and, what the hell, it’s Saturday morning in one of the world’s greatest cities.’

‘And a glorious day out there, too, sir.’

‘Please. It’s Wilson. I’m sure Danny’s told you about me.’

‘His art mentor,’ Frederick said with a rare full smile. Was he drunk? Danny wondered. But he couldn’t smell booze on him. ‘We all thank you — Wilson. I have always felt more comfortable being formal with people. My condition, I suppose. A cover-up.’

Pure, honest stuff. Typical Frederick. ‘Not that I had much to do with the wider world, only the learning acquired when my mind wasn’t so troubled.’

‘But less troubled now?’ said Johno. ‘Some of my customers would ask if you’d won the lottery. But as I never indulge, can I just say you’re looking great and I hope you take that as the compliment it’s meant to be?’

This wasn’t a father Danny had seen much of, almost falling over himself to make Frederick feel welcome.

‘Thank you. And thank you for the flat.’

‘Danny’s idea. I was happy to run with it.’

‘It’s all tidied up,’ said Frederick, a glow in his eyes for Danny.

Johno poured three whiskies, then glanced at Danny and mouthed did he want a beer. Danny shook his head, but let his father know he was very pleased with his hospitable gesture.

‘With a splash of water? Ice if you want.’

‘Neat for me and no rocks,’ said Frederick, like a man used to normal social company.

‘No ice for me either,’ said Wilson, ‘and with a third of water. Thanks.’

‘Cheers.’ Johno clinked glasses with Wilson, then Frederick.

Danny saw then his father was studying his friend in a rather overt manner. ‘My manager will think I’ve lost out to drinking-publican
syndrome. No offence intended, Frederick.’

‘And none taken. We are what we are.’ In one gulp Frederick’s whisky was gone, and Danny began to worry that he might make a fool of himself.

‘Another?’ said Johno.

‘No, thanks. That one did the trick.’ Frederick handed his glass to his host, turned to Danny. ‘I was wondering if we could go through your paintings and choose a couple more for the flat.’

Danny, not willing to speak lest that damned emotion escape at the same time, gave a thumbs-up gesture instead.

‘Anything else you need?’ Johno asked.

‘I want for nothing,’ Frederick said. ‘Or nothing money and your good intentions can buy. You are all so kind.’

‘Leave me out of the praise,’ Wilson said. ‘I’m only the would-be artist living vicariously through his young protégé’s real talent.’

And Frederick said, ‘You speak my language, Wilson. That of honesty. I am the same in riding on the shoulders of my great poets and the incomparable Bard. Something of a mediocre talent myself.’

‘Ah, but a fellow worshipper at the Bard’s feet?’ said Wilson.

‘Less his feet than what came out of his mouth. But I know exactly what you mean.’

Danny had never heard his friend talking so clearly, without throwing in lines of Hopkins or Shakespeare.

After some slightly stilted chat, Danny’s father said, ‘Gotta love and leave you.’ The words, directed first to Frederick, weren’t typical of him and nor was his overly friendly manner. Had he been giving the friendship he’d been so opposed to some thought? Or had Frederick’s surprising serenity won him over?

Wilson and Mavis took their cue from Johno, and when Danny offered Frederick another whisky he said no again.

‘I’m still savouring the first,’ said Frederick. ‘Let’s go and choose something created by your remarkable hands.’

Danny said, ‘Not as remarkable as the change in you.’

But Frederick just followed Danny to the bedroom that had become his studio. After much consideration Frederick tapped a painting from several years ago. ‘This,’ he said.

In Frederick’s apartment he held the painting up in different spots till he was satisfied. ‘If you hang it right here,’ he made an imaginary mark with his hand. ‘Had I a hammer and a nail.’

Then his eyes closed. Stayed like that for some long moments.

But this time the silence did not speak. For the first time ever, Danny saw eyes not bloodshot, not glazed and distant, but clear and looking at him.

‘Shall we pop down to the Botanic for old time’s sake?’ Frederick said.

‘Sure. Mrs Macquarie’s Bushland Walk?’ Danny grinned and got a grin in return.

Frederick said, ‘If I hugged you would you mind?’

Despite his surprise Danny said, ‘Sure.’ This Frederick had but a trace of the body odour of old. It felt like hugging a man at peace with himself. Perhaps the black tide had done its worst and was now in retreat.

S
he looked straight at him but there wasn’t even a flash of recognition. And he only just knew her, his mother, the woman who adopted him and had given him her all.

She was like a prison inmate broken by too many years. The eyes that had looked on him only with kindness, the mouth that used to break easily into a smile and a witty comment, the hand that would ruffle his hair — that person was gone. She smelled strongly of urine.

‘Hello, Mum. It’s Shane.’

She accepted his embrace without response, regarded him as she would a flower in the well-tended gardens outside the window of her room. It was the same size as his old prison cell.

Then she muttered words that made no sense and cocked her head curiously at his tears.

‘Poor little boy,’ she said. ‘Who growled at you?’ Then her face grew stern. ‘What did you doooo?’ It spooked him.

He should have been here before she started the descent into this twilight world where humanity becomes shadows and meaning is lost. He could have loved her, tidied up after her, wiped her bum if he had to, fetched her back from wandering the streets — as a good loving son ought.

Instead he’d let her go without tribute, without honouring her, without saying thank you. Now she didn’t know the difference between goodbye and hello, let alone the kid she’d raised as her own. Didn’t realise how grateful he was, and how guilty now.

‘They’ve got nice gardens here,’ he said. ‘Do they let the residents grow their own veges? You had the best vege garden in our street.’

‘Nurse said to clean up my poos.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I didn’t do it. I use my potty. My mummy growls at me.’

‘Does she really? I thought she was a good mummy? Your dad wasn’t such a good bloke, was he?’ Shane had never forgotten his mother telling of her upbringing in a poor, rough neighbourhood, with a drunken father.

‘I …’ She looked startled, trying to find the memory. ‘Alfie died.’ Who was Alfie?

‘A lot of people have died—’ He almost said Mum. ‘Been a lot of change since I was here last.’ His old man long dead. Who knows the whereabouts of his brother Willie. The house they used to live in? Gone, an apartment block in its place. The Trianon pub gone, where Johno’s father had run his illegal bookmaking for the late gangster, George Freeman, and where two fledgling criminals thought they were cutting their teeth — some career that had turned out to be, for one of them at least. Funny, though, how he hadn’t asked Paolo to track down Johno Ryan. And Johno’s father’s house? Gone, too, another big apartment complex there with its fancy sweeps and curves gleaming white in the Sydney sunshine — a more intense light than Melbourne.

‘Is the food all right here, Mum?’

‘What?’ Her mouth fell open, showing stained and rotting bottom teeth with gaps between each one. Why the hell didn’t the people running this place order them pulled? ‘I’m not your mum. I’ll tell the doctor on you. Get out.’

‘Just wondered if everything’s all right here.’

‘I caught a butterfly. But it died. Did you see it?’

He knew she was back in her own childhood and his was a blank. He’d never felt so empty.

Paolo had the new life in Sydney all arranged. The very nice apartment
overlooking Darling Harbour. His place on the top floor of a
twenty-one
-storey block, his senior ‘rank’ keeping a buffer between him and going back to jail. Plenty of cash, savings in the bank, fifteen grand a month paid as a ‘salary’, annual bonus promised. All right, a standard older-model car parked in his own basement parking space, but at least he had wheels and he’d got his driving confidence back.

Only thing missing was a girlfriend. He might even marry if he could allow himself to fall in love, instead of pre-judging every woman who had sex with him. He wanted kids like Paolo’s, little ones he could love and fuss over, as his mum had him.

‘Not one but two walls between you and the heat,’ Gerardo had said the day before he walked out of Barwon Prison. But no wall could stop him reading the newspaper account in every Melbourne newspaper of one Bernadette Hoeser screaming in court at being sentenced to twelve years in prison, crying out she was a victim who had been duped into being a mule for people dealing in class-A drugs. She’d never been before a court in her life, had worked for the tax department, lived with her parents. Two others, young males with criminal convictions, were given
fourteen-year
sentences — a familiar number to Shane McNeil. The woman was described as ‘much reduced in weight since her first depositions appearances. Her only support at the trial came from her parents, both of whom were distraught and refuse to accept that their daughter is guilty.’

And what did that fucking heartless Paolo say?

‘Hey, we did her a favour. She’ll be out in half that time, all nice and trimmed down. Soon have a boyfriend and put it behind her. Only thing is, she won’t be able to hide the stretch marks.’ He thought it was a joke. The other two jailed street-dealers would get discreetly looked after in jail, but no tears were shed for them either.

Shane stood at his living-room window looking out at the night view, the mass of building lights, the lit-up ferries and leisure boats on the move. Somewhere out there could be his old mate Johno Ryan. Or Johno might have moved to another town, even left the country. Shane would start a serious search for him soon.

C
orey? Yes, and outside Frederick’s flat, for which Danny had a key. He’d found no sign that his friend had been there.

‘Yeah, it’s me.’ No friendly grin like the one he’d given Danny just two days ago when he and Frederick were at the Botanic Gardens. At Frederick’s insistence Danny had left his friend to it.

‘A solo trip down memory lane, kid. You’ll be seeing me.’ Frederick looking happy with life — or at something.

Perhaps wanting to know one way or other, Danny had asked, ‘You want me to bring your stuff?’ Meaning the supermarket trolley.

‘No. I won’t be needing it.’

Pleased, Danny had said, ‘Shall I get rid of it?’ But he didn’t want to ditch the coat.

‘I wouldn’t yet. But if your dad’s patience runs out there’s a painting you gave me under the wrap. Don’t be throwing the beautiful baby out with the dirty bath water.’ So why hadn’t he laughed?

‘Come with me,’ Corey said, indicating a waiting taxi.

Danny had to skip-run to catch up with Corey’s quick stride. Not once did he look at Danny or speak to him. His pals waited around a bend in the footpath and without a word of greeting joined the pair.

They veered off the main path at Rainforest Walk. Still no one said anything. Danny was becoming anxious, even afraid. ‘Have I done something wrong? Has Frederick?’

No answer.

Corey slowed and stopped and flicked an indicating hand, as if at a pesky fly. ‘A drunk found him … Hanged himself.’

‘Found who?’ Though he knew.

‘Your pal,’ said Corey. ‘You guys take a walk.’

The arm that came round his shoulders was never more welcome. Corey was telling him how sorry he was. ‘Not saying Fred and us were, like, mates. But you get to know people in these places. Just we don’t live here like he did. But we’re kind of the same people, like a sort of tribe.’

Danny clutched at that word.
Tribe
. Made him feel safer, even a little comforted.

Corey said, ‘Cry all you want. I ain’t tellin’.’

But Danny couldn’t cry. It was something that must be done first in private. Maybe at the foot of the tree Frederick had used to end his life. His
life
. He recalled Frederick saying to Wilson how he didn’t worship at the feet of the Bard, it was Shakespeare’s words he worshipped.
Signifying nothing.

Time became another kind of nothing, caught in some kind of echoing chamber repeating itself, pulse beats, heart beats, a steady beating of a drum that wanted to become something else but couldn’t find a way, as he and Corey meandered aimlessly around the park.

He remembered his confusion when his grandfather had died, how he’d lost all interest, felt no grief. For months afterwards, though, he cried for his grandfather in private.

Well, this was grief starting to come, great dollops of it, like swallowing food he detested and still it came. And all the while Corey was there, talking softly, an arm around him, saying there was no shame in crying. ‘Not when something like this happens. Jeezuz.’

And did Corey say, at some stage, ‘I have something to take away all the pain’?