by Duff, Alan
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me. When Danny asked his father what these words meant, his father said, ‘You’re asking me? Hell, kid, what would I know about poetry?’
But when he saw Danny’s disappointment said, ‘Okay. Say them again.’ This time listening hard as Danny recited.
‘I think it means he’s in despair.’
‘What’s despair?’
‘Like this.’ Johno put his hands over his face and looked lost and miserable. ‘He feels so bad he finds his own taste bitter, awful.’ Then he paused for a moment. ‘I’ve known that feeling and it’s not a good place to be. You friends with Frederick now?’
‘I guess,’ said Danny.
‘Want me to make sure the guy’s all right?’
‘No. Thanks. He’s a good person.’
‘You’re giving him money?’
‘Just a two-dollar coin to the ones I like. Frederick a bit more. I know you don’t mind, Dad. And Mavis has told me to keep my eye out for crazies and weirdos, the drunks most of all.’
That first time over a year ago when Danny gave Frederick a twenty-dollar note and Frederick asked, ‘Tell me why you gave me this much money.’
Danny said he didn’t know.
‘What’s your last name?’
‘Ryan.’
‘I have no last name. I’m just Frederick.’ He took off his hat, let it drop on the ground to reveal dark, staring eyes. ‘Lost my right to the family name, and nature is at fault, not my family or me. Explain yourself.’
‘What have I done wrong?’ If things got tricky he could always run.
‘It’s too much, son. Two bucks, sure. We all appreciate it. Except the ungrateful drunks. If you’d given one of them this twenty he’d want fifty.’
‘That’s what my dad says. They always want more.’
‘Scum,’ said Frederick. ‘I have nothing to do with them.’
Yet Danny had seen him drinking, wiping his lips and then staring at the empty bottle. ‘I don’t give the drunks anything, not anymore. Like you said, they don’t appreciate it.’
Frederick said, ‘I drink, see. But it’s for solace, dulls the pain — when I’m of a rational enough mind to know what I lost.’
‘What pain?’
‘Up here.’ Frederick tapped his head.
Danny expected dust or maybe insects to fall out of the thick hair so dirty it was matted and dull.
‘Sorry.’ He didn’t know what else to say.
‘Nothing to be sorry about. I have my burden. The people going by us have theirs. Am I crying?’
‘You might in private.’ Danny grinned awkwardly. ‘Do you?’
‘No. It’s like crying when it rains.’ Frederick waved the money again. ‘Now you take this back.’
‘No. It’s okay, really. My dad gives me good pocket money. He has a business, this pub, and he—’
‘I know. He’s a big, tough-looking man. But very affectionate, least with you.’ The man’s mouth tightened. ‘I had two children. Lost’em.’ Tapped his head.
‘Sorry,’ said Danny a second time. Frederick’s face had hardened; maybe he was struggling to live up to his no-crying philosophy.
‘That’s not a word you hear out here,’ said Frederick. ‘There’s pity but only out of self-interest. I don’t trust any of them.’ His sweeping gesture indicated his fellow homeless. Yet Danny saw that though the eyes were fierce the tone was gentle.
‘Did your family stop talking to you?’
‘We drifted apart. My condition, see? Effectively they’re dead because I live out here, in the parks and streets. And they live with their mother.’
Almost saying sorry again. Instead he told Frederick, ‘I don’t have a mother. She left us when I was little.’
‘Shameful woman,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure she had her reasons.’
‘She writes me sometimes and sends me gifts.’
‘But your father is your best gift, right?’
‘Yes.’ Danny’s smile came spontaneously.
‘I wondered why there was no mother with you and your old man.’
‘You sound, like, normal when you say things like that.’
‘This is a good day. Sometimes I’m not.’
Danny said, ‘But you’re not dangerous, are you?’
‘What if I was? You frightened of me?’
‘My father’s a boxer.’
‘He looks like one,’ said Frederick. ‘Except I don’t believe you. That’s just something he told you to say. Right?’
‘It’s true. He can box.’
‘But he’s not a boxer.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he has no scar tissue around his eyes and eyebrows. His nose is too straight. And besides, he looks too intelligent to have been involved in that brutish activity they call sport when it’s not,’ said Frederick. ‘It’s organised violence.’
‘He likes boxing.’
‘Then shame on your father’s head, too.’ Frederick ran his eyes up and down Danny. ‘Bet you don’t like boxing, eh?’
‘No …’
‘How many fights you had, kid?’
‘Me fight?’ Danny could only shake his head.
Frederick went over to his trolley, reached under the plastic cover and held up a wicked-looking knife. ‘This’, he said through gritted teeth that were stained yellow, ‘is my deterrent.’
Danny said nothing.
‘These parks look pretty to you, to everyone, right? That’s because they manicure the lawns, sweep the paths, trim the shrubs and keep the trees under control. Even the statues get chemically cleaned of bird shit and city gunge. A pity they can’t douse the drunks and sexual predators, the wild runaway kids and the roaming gangs in a chemical, something that will cleanse them of their horrible, violent outlook.’
Frederick was standing by his trolley, with one protective hand over it, the coat open — it must be stifling in this heat — the other holding out the twenty dollars. ‘Too much, son,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s a lovely windfall but too much.’
‘You want me to take it back?’
‘I insist you do.’
‘What if I say no?’
‘I’ll soon drink it away.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘Your father would say, “See? It’s why you don’t give money to the homeless.”’
‘I wouldn’t tell him.’ Danny grinned as if it were their little secret.
‘Twenty bucks keeps me in booze about three days.’ Frederick seemed to want to provoke Danny. ‘You know what I get like when I start drinking. The anger comes out.’
‘Not at me.’
‘No. You’re an innocent kid. Anger at my condition. It’s what I was born with and there are times when I weaken and wish it was otherwise. You said you’re home-schooled. I forgot to ask how come.’
‘Some older boys picked on me. School didn’t suit me.’
‘Sometimes young people can be even more awful than embittered adults. I was given a terrible time at school on account of things I didn’t know I was saying or doing. Bloody cruel kids.’
‘My friends Mavis and Wilson say I’m a bit of a loner,’ said Danny. ‘But I don’t actually feel lonely.’
‘Glad to hear that,’ said Frederick. ‘Or I’d be thinking you made friends with me out of desperation. So you’re a budding artist with a supportive father, a woman who loves you like a mother and an academic art mentor? Why do you come and talk to me?’
‘I learn things from you,’ Danny said. ‘I like it when you recite poems.’
‘You mean like this …’ Frederick drew his coat closed and lifted his head. ‘I quote Gerard Manley Hopkins. “The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame. Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came, Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.”’
And when Danny nodded encouragement Frederick continued, ‘“I want the one rapture of an inspiration. O then
if in my lagging lines you miss, the roll, the rise, the carol, the creation —” Can you hear that, boy? You can, can’t you? Your born ear hears what no other child your age would. That’s why you’re here.’
His eyes bright with some kind of inner revelation, or so it seemed to Danny. The same uplifting feeling happening inside him.
‘You are a true artist, therefore a benign kind of thief of others’ ideas, of their creative energy, even if mine is mere regurgitating of another man’s poetic genius. You understand me and yet you don’t because the barrier of your young years is still partly blocking what I have to offer. Do you wish to be my friend?’
The question had Danny giddy with delight. Yes, being friends with this strange, stinking person. He could only nod lest his joy spill out. Frederick nodded back, then repeated the words of Hopkins, asked Danny to memorise them.
The following Saturday it had taken some walking through several city parks before Danny found Frederick in Dawes Point Park, a small green space down on the waterfront. He was sitting quietly on a bench, feet up, the temperature too high to be wearing his coat, draped neatly over his trolley.
‘Well?’ Frederick had hardly seemed to glance at him yet he knew Danny was there, standing diffidently a short distance away. ‘Did you recite the lines to your father?’
‘Yes. He doesn’t get it.’
‘I thought he wouldn’t. Do you?’
‘No. Even though you explained.’
The shoes, tied together by twine, came off their wire cage support and Frederick stood up. He had on a light shirt, like a sleeved singlet Danny’s great-grandfather had worn, except this was brown and had big wet patches of sweat under the arms; his trousers had been changed, to a pair in a lighter material. Danny wished it was cooler so he could see Frederick in his coat. His mind couldn’t separate coat from man; they existed together.
‘You’re not expected to. Suffice that you remembered them. Understanding will come, but your father is a lost cause.’
‘What do you mean?’ Danny’s defences instantly up.
‘Not in a month, a lifetime, of Sundays, will he get Hopkins’ meaning, his depth.’
‘But that’s okay, isn’t it?’
‘You love your father. I’m not criticising him, just stating the fact that he’ll never get to experience the power and purity of Hopkins.’
‘But you ask my dad a question about any boxer and he can tell you.’
‘I told you boxing is for brutes. Poetry is for a real man,’ said Frederick. ‘Or a young person with an open mind and a willing heart to learn. Your father owns a pub. That’s quite a name, Danny’s Drawings. He must be so proud of you.’
‘It embarrasses me when people point and talk about me.’
‘I don’t blame you. Never let the noise and fuss go to your head. Though I can see you’re a shy one for a boy so handsome.’ Frederick made to move. ‘Come. I’ll tell you about galaxies and the more-than-epic scale of the universe.’
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.
Chapter fifteen
This 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.’
Chapter sixteen
What 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.
