The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘They sent you to a reformatory for three cartons of cigarettes?’

  ‘Nah, the asshole cop dat caught me, he tol’ the desk sergeant he bin watchin’ me, I on the way to being a habitual offender. There’re three heists in other marts they got on der books, the cop who arrest me says he hears talk I done dem. It ain’t true. I ain’t stoopid. Them three heists, they got greedy and took too much and leave a mess behin’. But they put me down for them. Cops don’t like unsolved when dey got some dumb kid to blame who ain’t got a daddy.’

  ‘What about the brothers, Father Geraghty?’

  ‘Yeah, they know the system. Irish cops and priests, dey a brotherhood. Dey ain’t gonna rock the boat. First it’s Audy Hall, like I tol’ you, it’s this big buildin’ where they hold the kids for processin’ and assessment wid a social worker. That all bullshit. It’s just another fuckin’ jail. The social worker, Mr Smybert, ask me these questions. Did I sleep wid my mother? “Sure,” I say, “I was four years old, there weren’t no other bed.” I’m just supposin’, I can’t remember, I’m four years old, ferchrissakes. Did I wet my bed? That the next question he ask me. “What now? Or when I slept wid my mother?” I say. He don’t smile, he jes write all this crap on his yella pad. Do I play wid myself? That his next question, that his exact words, “play wid yourself”. “Yeah, I ain’t got no friends, I a lonely chile,” I say, ’cos it a stupid question, I’m fourteen, nearly fifteen, it ain’t possible I don’t. “Masturbate?” he says, now he’s smilin’ and he’s got one eyebrow cocked like he’s suggestin’ somethin’. “Nah,” I says. “When the devil temptation come, I think o’ Jesus.”

  ‘Next thing I know I’m in the Juvenile Court and the judge says, “Your social worker’s report indicates that you were extremely uncooperative and recalcitrant.” Later, at Pontiac dey tol’ me, if I let Smiley Bert, dat the social worker’s nickname, play wid my wienie I coulda got a good report.

  ‘The judge says my intelligence test is good. I must learn me a trade. He gonna send me to a correction facility upstate, the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac, to Mr Googerty. He gimme three years. “Get some education, son,” he says to me. “The best helping hands you are going to get in life are attached to the ends of your arms.” He don’t tell me that is because Mr Googerty, the superintendent at Pontiac, is a master blacksmith and every boy got to learn himself blacksmithin’ skills. Workin’ wit your hands, it suppose to break delinquent habits. Lemme tell you summin’, it don’t work — when we got outa that place we all got good blacksmithin’ skills, and there ain’t no place we can’t break into, no safe we can’t open.’

  ‘So you’re a blacksmith by trade?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah, they say’d I’m too small for the work. I got to do general duties. Joe, he was good.’ Kevin laughed, recalling. ‘One day he says to me, “Judgie, I like dis blacksmith work, man. I black, this mah work, man. It good, you pick up dat big ole hammer, you sweatin’ like a nigga, de metal it red-hot from dat forge. You hit it hard, you change da shape. You keep hittin’ ’til you ain’t angry no more!”’

  ‘You never know, maybe he went straight and he’s a blacksmith somewhere?’ I said.

  Kevin looked doubtful. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘And you? What did general duties involve?’

  ‘Library, laundry, sanatorium duties, but it mostly involve getting me an education, three years’ high school. I already got one year when I at Angel, De La Salle Catholic High School. But I didn’t take much notice in the classroom. I couldn’t read so good, so the brother he ain’t interested. Now they say I must get me three more or no general duties. If I don’t do no learnin’ dey gonna send me back to the workshops wit the big hammer.’ Kevin laughed. ‘It’s funny, when I ain’t in juvenile detention I hate school, the brothers, they call me stoopid, useless, brain-dead, or dey jus’ ignore me. Now in kids’ jail I like it. They gimme special lessons for slow readers and in three months I’m readin’ everythin’ I can find in that library. They said I ain’t stoopid no more. In fact, I suppose to become bright. So I learned me everythin’ I could. At the end, graduation, dey said I was the best they ever had. I was college material. Mr Googerty say he disappointed I don’t turn out to be no blacksmith but he gonna try an’ get me wunna them state scholarships. It ain’t easy cause it jes after the Depression, but he gonna try. But by den I done my time and I’m back on the street. I’m seventeen, I can make my own way, I don’t have ter go back to Angel.’

  ‘No college then? You didn’t accept?’

  ‘Hey, maybe I ain’t so bright after all. But, man, all I want is freedom. One way or ’nother I bin in jail all my life. I seventeen years and not one day I get to do what I want — when I don’ need permission to scratch my ass.’

  I thought how, with the exception of boarding school, I’d lived my life largely unsupervised and at seventeen had been free to go butterfly hunting in Java and then, as we were doing at present, sail across the Indian Ocean. It was quite a contrast to the little bloke’s first seventeen years.

  ‘So what did you do with your first taste of freedom?’ I asked.

  ‘Ha! Freedom! That a big, big joke! Wit my record I can’t even get a job stackin’ groceries at the supermart.’

  I laughed. ‘I should think not!’

  Kevin did a quick double-take, but then got the joke and chuckled. ‘Yeah, maybe you right. I get dat job, hey, I doesn’t need no toilet winda no more. Dat a whole lot o’ temptation to put in front my two hands dat suppose to be the best help I gonna get in life.’

  ‘What about Joe Popkin? Was he with you, released at the same time?’

  ‘Nah, he was involved in this fight in the washroom. Three big wop kids, Latinos, they attack him, one wit a knife, they gonna cut him bad. It about cigarettes… the wops dey control the distribution o’ smokes. They chargin’ unfair and the black kids, they got to pay more dan the white kids. Joe says they ain’t gonna pay no more, they gonna start their own supply, get deir own outside connection wit a guard.’

  ‘So, what happened? Joe get hurt?’

  ‘He got cut on the arm, but it ain’t bad. He broke the arm o’ the wop wit the knife. He broke the jaw of der second one and the last, he threw him against the shower wall and he got himself, that wop, he got fifty-two stitches in the head. Joe says to me, “You da cigarette man, Judgie. Why you not go talk to dat Irish guard wid da red head. We can do dis busy-ness, man. You got da distribution and I do da protection. What you say, man?”

  ‘So I talk to the carrot-head, Mick O’ Rourke, that the same as my mother’s maiden name, Mary O’ Rourke, and he got hair, freckles jus’ like I remember hers. But he says he don’t know her, he come from Detroit. I put the deal, the proposition, to him. He greedy, but he agree to give me three cartons’ credit if we pay triple for the first order and after dat double above retail. It ain’t good, but also it ain’t bad. Soon we got ourself a good cigarette business wit the blacks and then wit the white guys. The wops, dey don’t come near, because Joe, now he the man, black an’ white, dey call him “Joe ‘Hammer-man’ Popkin”! “Hammer-man” fer short, like, “Watch out, here come the Hammer-man!”’

  ‘Punishment? The fight?’ I asked, feeling certain they couldn’t have got away with the washroom brawl.

  ‘Yeah, nobody grass, not even the wops, but der’s too much blood and bones broke, the sanatorium, dey involved. Dat mean no cover-up. Joe got six months added on for assault and battery. Mr Googerty he put in a good word wit the judge ’cos Joe is the best blacksmith apprentice he got and he don’t make no trouble before, otherwise he coulda got two years for A an’ B. Dat wudda meant when he turn eighteen, he ain’t no juvenile no more, he got to leave Pontiac and go to Joliet, the state prison. But now wit the six months added, Joe don’t come out wit me.’

  ‘That’s tough,’ I sympathised. ‘I mean losing a good mate like that.’ It occurred to me that I’d n
ever had a Joe as a mate. Never had anyone like that. Aloneness has its drawbacks.

  ‘I shoulda gone to college,’ Kevin said, shaking his head ruefully. ‘But I got dis one dumb idea. I want to find my mother, dat the first thing.’

  ‘Oh? Hasn’t she been gone a fair while, since you were six? How did you know where to start looking?’

  Kevin gave a grim little laugh. ‘Saloons. She’s a lush. Irish. Mary O’Rourke. If she still pretty, it ain’t too hard to figure.’ Kevin looked up at me knowingly, expecting me to react. But I didn’t, not sure what it was I was supposed to figure out. ‘The game… she floggin’ pussy,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You mean she’s a prostitute?’ I said, somewhat shocked at this assumption.

  His voice grew suddenly angry. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it? Poor Irish, she’s an alky, how else she gonna buy her booze?’

  ‘But you couldn’t be certain?’ I protested.

  ‘Nah, yer right, maybe she become a nun,’ he said, still angry, but I could see, also hurting inside like hell.

  ‘So you didn’t find her?’ I asked, almost hopefully. I tried to immediately dismiss the name Mary O’ Rourke from my mind. When Kevin had mentioned his mother’s name the lyrics to a song I’d heard sung in a Rabaul pub jumped into my mind. It had been sung by a drunken Irishman, a broken-down jockey named Tony Crosby, while he strummed a very indifferent guitar. I don’t suppose it was much of a song but it brought the house down when Tony sang it and it had the virtue of earning him copious drinks. I learned the lyrics while playing poker in a room at the back. It was a story of four young Irish lads and their first attempt at seducing a girl in the pub, something I knew it was damn near impossible to do in Rabaul. To pick up a young white woman in the pub, that is.

  You could get a mission girl for five shillings and a puk-puk girl for two and sixpence, but it wasn’t the sort of thing the son of the local Anglican missionary could get away with. The funny thing was, hearing the diminutive little ex-jockey singing about a girl in a pub in Ireland made it all seem so wholesome, clean and romantic. You’d imagine this girl with shining titian hair and rosy cheeks with skin so fair it was almost translucent. Whereas imagining a similar scene in a pub in Rabaul seemed impossible. There were the odd hennaed or over-bleached blondes, beaten-up tarts in their fifties known locally as ‘scrubbers’, and the rest were native women, black as the ace of spades, with skin roughly the consistency of a croc’s back.

  Sweet Mary O’Rourke

  We’re four young jocks who have a thirst like a drain.

  We’ve been out doing track work from the break of day.

  So now it’s down to the local to ease the day’s strain.

  Two pints of Guinness ought to wash the horseshit away.

  There at the saloon bar stands Sweet Mary O’Rourke.

  She’s a long-legged young filly, pretty and frisky.

  We’d welcome her company and a bit of small talk.

  So we’ll lash out and buy her a wee glass o’ whiskey!

  ‘Good day, Sweet Mary, how goes the pretty one?

  We’re four young lads who good company seek.

  Would you fancy a whiskey and a rare bit o’ fun?

  It’ll brighten yer eyes and add a blush to yer cheek.’

  Now it’s well known Sweet Mary is fond of a drop.

  ‘Ta, lads, it’s Irish, pray… how did you know?’

  She’s wiggling her bottom and she’s straining on top.

  We’ve all got this warm feeling of fire down below.

  ‘Shall we have yet another, lads? What do you think?’

  Mary’s skirt has crept up near the top of her thighs.

  We’re laughin’ and clinkin’ with a nod and a wink,

  All hoping we’ll be first to win this delectable prize!

  Then it’s ice over a double Irish for Mary to gargle.

  Her fingers are nimble and she’s willing to please.

  Her flick of a fly button is nothing short of a marvel.

  Is she checking for size or is she simply a tease?

  One last whiskey! It’s clear we’ve won on this track.

  She’s home and she’s hosed and she’s willing to star.

  It’ll be a romp in the sandpit as she lies on her back.

  Then it’s ‘Time please, gents! We’re closing the bar!’

  ‘Barman! A stall in the stable?’ we boldly request.

  ‘Rooms are paid in advance, lads, show us the brass.’

  Alas, our pockets are empty; Mary drinks only the best.

  We’re flat broke and we’re on the bones of our arse.

  ‘Come, lads!’ says Mary. ‘There’s no need to fret.

  Such stabling fees would be my pleasure to pay.

  But I’ve looked at the fare and it’s with some regret,

  The bangers are too small to put on the menu today!’

  The filly had bolted when we thought she was tame.

  But she left this message with quite clear directions.

  ‘Lads, grow up just a wee bit, then we’ll all dine again.

  When I promise to sup well on your rampant erections!’

  Tony had a voice not all that bad, perfect enunciation and he would sing with a sense of nostalgia that touched every expat, even Mustafa Malouf, the Lebanese cement contractor. He’d be bawling his eyes out at the end of it. That’s the funny thing, it was a comic song, meant to get a bit of a laugh, but in Tony’s hands it turned into pure nostalgia and always brought tears to the eyes of the drunks. Funny, that. I pushed the memory of the song to the back of my mind and brought my attention back to Kevin.

  The little bloke was sitting cross-legged on the deck, elbows resting on his knees, hands hanging loose, staring at the deck between his legs. Finally he spoke. ‘I found her. At first I ask they know a Mrs Mary Judge. Nobody heard of no woman got that name. Then I ask them if they know Mary O’Rourke? Then it not too hard. I check all the sleazy saloons in the docks near the Lake. Pretty soon I get the nod, drinkers, regulars, who know her. My mother gone changed back her name.’ He shot me a wan smile. ‘Ain’t nobody like to sleep wit a Judge. “Son, you don’t want to go there,” they say; some they warn me she’s a lush, a two-dollar whore who done blow jobs for drinks.’ Kevin was close to tears. ‘Some say, I should try the Bosun’s Locker but leave my watch and wallet at home. I ain’t got no watch and there ain’t nothin’ in my wallet anyhow.’

  ‘Did you find her there?’

  ‘Nah, it was too late, she were already in the hospice wit advance Vee Dee. I seen her there.’

  ‘Did she know who you were?’ I felt trapped into asking. Suddenly I was desperately anxious to find a way to abandon the subject of Kevin’s mother.

  Kevin glanced up at me, his expression somewhat impatient. ‘Course not, but she start to scream when I come in the ward, “Patrick, ya bastard! You fuckin’ dogshit! You left me!” She’s sittin’ up in her bed and she’s shakin’ her fist, her long red hair it flyin’ from her head, it got all grey streaks like a witch. Den she get hold a glass of water and she throw it at me. Der’s water and broken glass on the green polish floor and she’s still screamin’, “You left me with da fuckin’ stoopid ugly brat! Go away, ya bastard! Ya fuckin’ dog turd! Ya piece o’ useless crud! Fuck off, ya Irish motherfucker!”

  ‘The sisters dey is running every which-way, holding der hands against der face, shooin’ me out the ward. Black cleaner-woman come runnin’ wit a bucket and mop. Outside, the doctor, he says Mary O’Rourke she ain’t right in the head no more. I tell him I’m her son, my name’s Kevin, that Patrick, the name she’s yellin’ out, he my father, maybe he can explain to her?’ Kevin glanced dolefully up at me, his voice uncertain. ‘I jes want to see her once, Nick. Hold her hand, tell her it’s okay, I unnerstan’. Tell her maybe I can go to college. Make her prou
d o’ me. But he, dat doctor, he says it too late, she got third-stage syphilis, it the final stage, she crazy, she gonna die, I mus’ leave her alone. No excitement allowed in dat place ’cos everybody dere, dey is busy dyin’.’ Kevin was now sobbing softly, his little crew-cut head bowed and shaking, the bright morning sunlight shining crimson through his jug ears.

  I moved and sat down beside him. Anna was the only person I had ever held in my arms. I knew I should do the same for the little bloke, hold his head against my chest, embrace him and comfort him. I tried to force myself, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m no good at touching. So I put my arm around his shoulders. ‘Steady on, mate, take it easy now.’ It was the best I could do to comfort him. I felt ashamed. He deserved more from me.

  Two days later in the midafternoon we were idly watching the sails respond to the variable wind. I spotted a tiny speck on the horizon that I took to be a lone bird, then realised its course was straight and steady. As it came closer the low throb of an engine could just be heard above the slop of the waves. I remembered how the Dutchman, teary-eyed, had presented me with the Dutch flag by way of a handing-over ceremony. With the flag hurriedly hoisted and the two of us waving like mad, the flying boat dipped its wings to tell us we’d been spotted and took a lazy right turn and soon became a slow-moving dot on the cloudless horizon.

  ‘If I’m correct we ought to sight the coast sometime early tomorrow and with a bit of luck it should be Rottnest Island. They’ve seen us and know we’re here so someone will be looking out for us.’

  ‘We safe, huh? No more dirty, rotten, stinkin’ Japs. That Captain Bligh, he sure know a thing or two wit the rope trick.’ Kevin reached up, grinned and patted me on the back. ‘You the best, Nick!’

  ‘Safe?’ I paused for a moment, trying to cover my embarrassment. ‘Yeah, just about, maybe, nearly safe. A sailboat without an engine is only really safe once she’s moored, and we’ve got almost a day’s sailing ahead of us. Right now, with the Japs practically in our backyard, everyone would be a bit trigger-happy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the patrol boat from port defences isn’t a tad wary of us. Notice how the Catalina stayed up above two thousand feet and didn’t come any lower to take a closer look?’