Remember Ronald Ryan

by Barry Dickins

  WALKER: I need a tan… Yeah, I’ll be in it.

  WALKER does a few vigorous push-ups.

  RYAN: You make Tarzan look like a girl.

  WALKER: Listen to Mr and Mrs Decent out in Sydney Road, will you? Having a ball, aren’t they? Escaping.

  Traffic noise floats through loudly.

  RYAN: Wish I was with ’em.

  WALKER: We soon will be. Teed up the table?

  RYAN: The barbecue table to hop up the wall on? Yeah, I have. We’ve got a few assistants. You require the patience of a monk to break out of Pentridge.

  WALKER: Hop up the wall and in Brazil.

  RYAN: Exactly.

  He whips out a Herald newspaper folded up.

  I’ve been following the tides.

  They closely examine the paper.

  WALKER: The tides of the earth. You’re a scholar, Ron.

  RYAN: You’ve got to keep up appearances, dear boy. Now where am I?

  WALKER: What time’s the tide to South America? What time’s it go?

  RYAN: Half past four. Here it is. Neap.

  WALKER: Neap? What’s that? When it’s coming in?

  RYAN: That’s when we’re going out.

  WALKER: Someone’s coming.

  They laugh. Blackout. We hear voices in the blackout.

  RYAN: I had a mate was gonna go instead of you. But now he’s not. It’s you. Not him. Right?

  WALKER: Yeah, that’s right, Ron. I can’t do any more can.

  RYAN: No man can. The time is ripe. Be ready. Brazil is imminent. It calls.

  RYAN in his cell alone, musing. Staring out the tiny cell window on a hot night. Music bridge: one or two bars of ‘The Crystal Chandelier’ on acoustic guitar.

  RYAN: Eight years or eight hundred?—What’s the difference? I’m a man of action, Dorothy. I’ll fly over that tower to you, Girlie! I don’t know what divorce you’re talking about. The Governor reckons I’m a top guy. He’ll vouch for me. I’ll be a top guy again in South America. We’ll meet up in the jungle if necessary. Come back to Australia loaded. Grow a moustache and they won’t know me. A couple of coconuts for breakfast. Just like Melbourne only they laugh over there. I could do with a laugh. Not much fun here. Fancy staying here your whole life. Rotting. Why do it? Why bother? Ten years for strolling through a nice warehouse. Quiet, like a moth, with a rifle. Neap. Gee, that’s got to me. I believe in having a go. You’re not meant to fail. I’ve got go in me. When I’m old, I’ll have go in me. Shooting pigs going grey. Listen to the screws guzzling the beer. Can’t run, most of them. It’s going to work. I can feel it. I know it. I can trust him. He’s fit. Into the carpark and hot-wire anything to get out of here. The least you could’ve done is let them write to me. My three daughters. [He stretches and relaxes for the first time.] When we met. What we said. When we wed. Where are you? Where are you?

  Cross to two pretty young women coming down the stone steps of Princes Bridge to the Yarra Bank where ferries are moored. They are DOROTHY GEORGE and BETTY BRADFORD. Both lit up and dying to dance to the music of Glenn Miller. We hear that music.

  DOROTHY: Mother said not ‘The Dancing One’. ‘The Dancing Ferry’. Where is it? It sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

  BETTY: Look, it glitters. ‘The Dancing Ferry’. There it is, Dorothy.

  DOROTHY: Isn’t it hot? How are your shoes? Are mine okay? Do I look okay? Oh, isn’t it lovely? Look at all the lights on it. Like pearls, aren’t they?

  BETTY: We’ve got to have a go on ‘The Dancing Ferry’. Look how boring ‘The Undancing Ferry’ is? Old men reading the Herald with their teeth out. God, Melbourne’s dead.

  DOROTHY: I love Glenn Miller, don’t you?

  BETTY: I love men! Don’t you?

  DOROTHY: My family are so formal, they get tense if the broth is served at a minute past seven. They get all agitated. I’d love to dance. But fun’s not the thing in Melbourne, is it? Anything but have fun. Why were you born? Who can say?

  BETTY: You were born for fun. You don’t live very long. Have fun. [Spying RYAN] Who’s he? He’s just looking. He’s not someone to dance with. He’s well-dressed at least. Don’t stare at him.

  DOROTHY: [murmuring] Beautiful!

  BETTY: That’s right. Play hard to get. Now, he’s coming over. Why hasn’t he got a mate?

  RYAN: Like a spin?

  DOROTHY: Yeah.

  She is in a dream. They dance.

  RYAN: Do you come here often?

  DOROTHY: Yeah.

  RYAN: Jeez, you can thrash.

  He laughs.

  DOROTHY: Yeah.

  The Glenn Miller swing music builds and they dance into a street light. RYAN smokes and holds his girl.

  RYAN: You’ll have to marry me now, Dorothy.

  DOROTHY: Why?

  RYAN: I’ve missed the last tram back to Footscray. Have to walk.

  DOROTHY: How many trams do you need to get to Mother and Father’s? How many trams from your boarding house to our mansion?

  RYAN: Well, let’s see. You get the Footscray one to The City, Flinders Street, and then you wait an eternity for either a Wattle Park, or what’s the other sort? Glenferrie Road, is it? Oh, I don’t know, they’re all green, aren’t they? Now I’ve missed the last one. Curses. What am I gunna do? Walk back to Footscray. I will. I’m so athletic, maybe I’ll hop, skip and jump back home. Did you know I’m a champion bike rider? I’ve got cups. Gold they are. Melt them down into a front gate.

  They are laughing and taking it easy with each other.

  DOROTHY: [laughing] I’ll wet myself.

  RYAN: Don’t do that.

  DOROTHY: Melt a gold cup into a front gate. Why do you say things like that?

  RYAN: [laughing] I don’t know. I don’t know why I say things like that. Just for fun.

  DOROTHY: [collapsing in mirth] You’re fun alright.

  He helps her up, cuddles her.

  I defied Mother. I’m bad, aren’t I, Ronnie? So bad.

  She kisses him.

  Are you a ratbag?

  RYAN: You must defy authority. Otherwise you go under. It’s well-known.

  DOROTHY: [in a passionate whisper, ravishing him] We won’t go under, my love.

  RYAN: It’s hard when you’re twenty-two and too old for a pushbike.

  DOROTHY: What’s that about a pushbike? What are you saying now?

  RYAN: I could ride my bike home, but I’d look a bit of a goose.

  DOROTHY: Please love me. And don’t forget you’re coming to dinner next Sunday. They want to satirise you.

  RYAN: I think I’ll bring the pushbike. Lean it up against your old man’s money.

  They kiss tenderly. Blackout.

  See you in leafy Hawthorn.

  RYAN and WALKER break out of Pentridge Prison. The prison yard. They have the hook and towels tied together. They run up the overturned picnic table, which becomes a stepladder. They cast the hook and climb the towels to the tower. They are climbing the wall.

  RYAN: It was worth six months getting fragments of wire junk to spin this hook thing. It seems to be holding on alright. Doesn’t it seem strong to you, doesn’t it, Peter?

  WALKER: As long as the bloody bedcovers don’t fray, that’s what I’m worrying about. Nearly there.

  They stand on the tower.

  You beauty.

  RYAN: I enjoyed that. Do it again one day. Piece of cake. Don’t know why it doesn’t catch on. Make a sport of it. Put it in the Olympics.

  WALKER: But will you give up the fruit shop for me, that’s all I want to know?

  They smoke on the tower wall. GUARDS are still boozing up. RYAN grabs guard Lange’s carbine.

  RYAN: [whispering ironically right in his ear] I write to you and you don’t write to me. Hello, darling. What’s your little name? Come here often? You’re so cute. Give us a kiss.

  WALKER: I love you.

  LANGE: It’s Lange. Warder Lange. You won’t get away with it.

  RYAN: Fritz Lange. You’re a filmmaker. How�
�s the gate undo? How’s the gun work? Explain everything to me, Mr Lange, sir.

  LANGE: Put the shell in it—like that, I suppose you do. It’s an M-901. American kind.

  He loads the gun.

  RYAN: Don’t you know how to fire it? How’d you get this job?

  LANGE: Don’t shoot me. I’m very new at this.

  RYAN: I’m not going to shoot you. It’s too hot. Just open the gate. And we’ll get on great. Don’t bugger me around.

  LANGE: Which gate? Which gate you want?

  RYAN: Ground floor women’s lingerie. Aren’t we at Myers, Lange? Hey! Is this your first day here, Fritzy? Now undo the wicket gate. That’s right.

  WALKER: Come on. Come on. Move it. Move it. Move it.

  RYAN: What do you want, a green light? Open it. Open it, will you?!

  LANGE: I’m opening. I’m opening. Give me a chance.

  WALKER: All this is too slow. It’s going too slow.

  RYAN: Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Put a penny in it.

  WALKER: What do you reckon this is, bush week? Open it!

  LANGE opens the wrong gate, and they are trapped. RYAN and WALKER run down the steps to the grille. LANGE has a tube of beer. Sweating and shaking, RYAN and WALKER run back.

  RYAN: Wrong gate, Deputy Dog. Now do the right one or they’ll find you floating somewhere.

  Sirens ring out.

  WALKER: Fucking Germans. Listen. It’s the Luftwaffe!

  RYAN: [with the carbine to LANGE’s ear] The right gate, mate. Don’t disappoint me. We’re all going to Brazil.

  The gate opens and they are in the carpark with only one car.

  RYAN: Can you hot-wire it, Peter? There’s only one car here, of all the luck. Where’s the warders’ cars?

  Sirens from Pentridge Prison ring and reverberate deafeningly, then for a few seconds fall silent. The subsequent ringing of them is slow and soft, like distant church bells. Everything is not quite normal. Running into traffic and monstrous tram brake noises and Mr Whippy vans and shrieking tyres and shrieking human voices are the escaped felons—RYAN and WALKER. Shots are fired and they swear.

  Cunts are everywhere.

  WALKER: Language, Ron.

  RYAN: Who’s this? Now what?

  They collide with an old SALVATION ARMY BLOKE, his tambourine goes flying with his tattered old Bible.

  SALVATION ARMY BLOKE: I’m an old Salvo. Who are you?

  WALKER: Fuck me dead.

  SALVATION ARMY BLOKE: Christ, you say what you like, don’t you?

  WALKER: Shoot him.

  RYAN: I hardly know him.

  WALKER: He might be of use as a hostage.

  RYAN: I wouldn’t give you two bob for him.

  SALVATION ARMY BLOKE: I’ll pray for both of you.

  RYAN: Not another Bible basher. Get out of the road. Get out of the road.

  WALKER: Shoot him. Just shoot him. I’ll do it. Stand still. Stupid old prick.

  SALVATION ARMY BLOKE: We can’t all be Einstein.

  RYAN: [clubbing him under the chin] Goodnight, Sergeant Major.

  The old SALVATION ARMY BLOKE falls in a heap. RYAN picks up the Bible.

  Something to read on the banana boat.

  The truck tyres and tram brakes and general chaos are unbearable. RYAN spots a LADY trying to start up her car. He rushes up to her and holds the rifle at her head as she determinedly strives to get the car moving. Noises are hellish but not so loud we cannot hear RYAN and other characters effortlessly.

  I’ll get it going for you, lady. Give me the keys. Hop out.

  LADY: Jesus, how long since you’ve had a bath?

  RYAN: Get out of the vehicle. I’m not joking.

  LADY: I just paid this off. Why don’t you save up and buy your own vehicle?

  RYAN: I’m warning you, lady. We are committed.

  LADY: You ought to be. What’s wrong with it? Not the starter motor, is it?

  RYAN: It’s a bugger when they play up, isn’t it? Got enough oil?

  LADY: You don’t worry about oil.

  RYAN: Don’t you? Get out of the car.

  LADY: Just piss off, will you please? I can’t hear it start up. I paid a year’s salary for this Austin 1800. Now look at it. Useless! Why do we bother?

  RYAN: What’d you do with the old Salvo bloke?

  LADY: I didn’t do anything with him. What’d you do with him?

  WALKER: [upstage, out of puff, shouting] Chucked him over a wall near a church. I’ve tried the visitors’ carpark, Ronnie. Nothing to hot-wire. A Simca Aronde with a flat battery. A silver Jap motor scooter up on bricks.

  RYAN: [to the LADY] Get out or I’ll shoot you. Is that plain enough? Come on. Give us a go.

  RYAN stands over the LADY in the car and threatens her again with the rifle right on her forehead.

  LADY: I’ve just told you I just purchased this as-new vehicle. If you want to, shoot me, because you can’t obtain a decent job and save up, scrimp and save up, go without, just as I have, to boast a decent vehicle to get from Point A to Point B, then fire.

  WALKER: C’mon, Ronnie. Come on.

  LADY: I will not give you my vehicle. It’s mine. Not yours. Do you understand me?! That is the end of the matter!

  WALKER: [screaming from upstage, apparently wounded] Jesus, them sheilas from Preston, aren’t they stubborn?

  Sirens loudly; traffic loudly; kids playing gently in nearby school ground. School church bells gonging deliriously. Dogs yapping. Mr Whippy vans.

  Look out. Hodson. Ronnie Ronnie! Ronnie!

  HODSON: Ryan, forget it.

  HODSON shouting as he rushes toward RYAN from a distance of twenty feet. RYAN whirls around and fires in roo-shooting position. We hear a gigantic explosion. HODSON falls downstage of WALKER. Lights out on the LADY in the car. A REPORTER stands over HODSON with a small notebook. Tram bells softly. Gently gonging State School bells and teachers’ voices calling like birds for the children to come in to class.

  Light up on HODSON. Blood is gurgling out of his huge chest.

  REPORTER: Man: nothing left of him.

  HODSON: My Father; My Father; My Father. I just wanted to tell you that…

  REPORTER: Nothing.

  HODSON: Father; My Father; I just wanted to say that…

  REPORTER: Right through both lungs from twenty feet away.

  Two POLICEMEN appear.

  FIRST POLICEMAN: What’s his name, mate?

  REPORTER: He’s a prison officer. George Hudson. That’s who he is.

  SECOND POLICEMAN: Who he was. Now, look out. Rest his neck on this foam car seat thing. Prop him up on that. There, that’s better. More comfortable.

  Sirens piercingly three times.

  Who killed him?

  REPORTER: Ronald Ryan.

  FIRST POLICEMAN: You got here quick, didn’t you?

  REPORTER: Quicker than you.

  HODSON: My Father, I just wanted to tell you something. It was on my mind as I must have forgotten what My Father…

  The two POLICEMEN fill in their notebooks as the REPORTER looks on. Sirens stop. School bells slightly louder, children playing. Some birds. Blackout.

  WALKER: This one’s got two flat tyres, and there’s no battery in it.

  RYAN: What luck. Normally there’s hundreds of guards’ cars here. Perfect Irish Catholic luck. This is a comedy of errors. What can you do? Do something. How do you fire this? What have you got there?

  WALKER: An iron bar with a Hawthorn footy sock over it. Bolt. They’re onto us. Up Sydney Road. We’ll have to run for it.

  RYAN: Oh, brilliant! My gun doesn’t even go off.

  Sirens are deafening. RYAN and WALKER run onto Sydney Road, laughing.

  It’s so hot the asphalt’s bubbling. Look at all that traffic, will you? It’s so glary. Can hardly see anything.

  WALKER: Taxi! We’ll have to get a tram.

  RYAN: I can’t remember Silver’s number. Three four something. Who cares? We better split up.

  They are weavi
ng in and out of traffic.

  WALKER: Look out for the fuckin’ Tarax truck. He’s trying to run us over. We’ll be as flat as his lemonade. I’m a Boon Spa man. Look out!

  They are in a car.

  RYAN: [shrieking] Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!

  WALKER: When your battery snuffs it, holler for a Marshall.

  RYAN: Let’s go, Donald Campbell. Take me to Lake Eyre. Just one more time. Go! Go! Go!

  The tremendous blast of the engine.

  Brazil! Brazil! Brazil! Brazil!

  WALKER: I don’t know why more don’t go there. We all need a tan sometime.

  RYAN: New set of points.

  WALKER: Sloppy fanbelt. Good car. Motor’s good.

  RYAN: Not Drummond, that’s North. Go Pascoe Vale way. Do a yooee. There’s coppers. Hey, say hello! Don’t be rude.

  WALKER: I’m going the other way. I’m never rude.

  They wave to police.

  RYAN: Ryan an’ Walker. Gentlemen travellers.

  They laugh loudly. Accelerate through the blazing, hot Melbourne night.

  Short edited machine gun-like bursts of almost incomprehensible un-language to keep tension. The following homicide messages can be performed by RYAN and WALKER at old-fashioned stand-up microphones.

  POLICE RADIO: Message from Coburg Car 150 ambulance required. Report of warder shot outside Pentridge. Need assistance at main gate, Sydney Road. Warder badly shot need escort. Warder has been definitely shot. Two offenders are in red Vanguard PA002. Car was last seen to head west in O’Hea Road. Another person is also shot require another ambulance. It is believed offenders are escapees. Escapees armed now said to be travelling west in Bell Street: car is said to be a blue Vanguard. Car is a green Velox sedan. To all units for information.

  POLICE RADIO: Definitely established car is a blue/grey Vanguard. Not known yet who escapees are. To car 201 take King Street Bridge. To S/C73 Bell Street and Cumberland Road. Description of one offender said to be five feet ten inches and eleven stone. Sandy hair brushed back. Placid features. From motor registration branch: standard sedan. Grey. M. Mullius of 3 Frayer Street, Coburg. Check that address. Car 352 Spencer Street Bridge. To Moonee Ponds CIB for information Essendon Airport. Ronald James Ryan born 21-2-25. Victoria, five foot nine. Medium build. Fair complexion. Brown hair. Green eyes. Peter John Walker. Born 5-5-41 native of England. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Appendix scar and tattoos on left upper arm. Both wearing blue jeans grey coat and a white shirt with red and blue stripes. Armed with a carbine rifle. Here are the roadblocks. Hume Highway at Craigieburn. Warder is dead. To Bourke Street West attend Spencer Street Railway Station. Gaffney Street and Cumberland Road. Grimshaw and Settlement Roads to Frankston: roadblock at the Mile Bridge. To Dandenong: roadblock on two highways.