Remember Ronald Ryan (10 page)

Light up in a convent. Three little old
SISTERS
are reading a letter from
RYAN
, spoken by him upstage. They read the little note by blue candlelight. Soft light up on
RYAN
in his condemned cell.
RYAN
reads aloud as the three
SISTERS
patiently stare at the letter.

RYAN
: I cannot lay claim to my mother's unswerving faith and devotion, hence I would appreciate your intercession on my behalf through your prayers. I have a fairly resilient nature which enables me to remain in reasonable spirits and make the best of any bad situation. I employ my time by reading, playing chess and a little quiet prayer.

He undoes a Christmas parcel.

Thanks for the fruitcake.

He eats a piece of it.

GUARD
: Are you interested in politics, Ron?

RYAN
: I am now.

GUARD
: I think power is fascinating, don't you?

RYAN
: I suppose it can be abused. You'd have to use it wisely.

GUARD
: Look what happened to you.

RYAN
: Look what happened to me.

GUARD
: I happen to be a Marxist-Leninist.

RYAN
: I assumed you were a Liberal.

GUARD
: It's a shame about you.

RYAN
: Is it?

GUARD
: You'll be getting your breakfast shortly. Bacon and eggs. That's something to look forward to.

RYAN
: I wouldn't mind a walk.

They chuckle.

GUARD
: Your wife, Ron. Dorothy.

DOROTHY
stands opposite
RYAN
.

RYAN
: I never thought I'd see you again.

DOROTHY
: Me either.

RYAN
: Why didn't you write to me? I wrote to you.

DOROTHY
: I don't enjoy writing. I've remarried. He's dead. Had a heart attack having a cup of tea in his chair. How are you?

RYAN
: That's a shame. It's the only thing I believe in in here, I tell you. Reading. Not even a friendly word, any word helps. Not a word from you. And you wouldn't let me see the kids, would you? Or let 'em write to me. You tried to put me in. I thought you cared about me.

DOROTHY
: It was getting out of hand. It's all a bit much, really. There's a big difference between knocking over a butcher shop and killing someone.

RYAN
: You should've answered my letters, that was heartless.

DOROTHY
: Killing a person isn't heartless? Oh, let's not argue. There's not much time. Let me look at you. You've got lice. What are they feeding you on? So pale?

She examines his hair.

So pale, Ronnie!

RYAN
: [
to the
GUARD
sitting by the cell
] What are you looking so down in the mouth about, pal? You don't have to hang. Why don't you cheer up?

DOROTHY
: Are you going to talk to me? Do you forgive me?

RYAN
: Oh, Girlie. I keep thinking of the girls. How are they? I bet they get stirred at school. They call them daughters of the devil! Jan's good at basketball, isn't she? She likes her teacher, doesn't she, that Phys Ed bloke. I keep seeing them, you know, seeing them and smelling their hair. [
He is crying
.] Sorry, sorry. I didn't know you were coming in. Haven't seen anything good in here since a sunset I saw once in H Division. I've been reading the Bible every day. I thought I'd make peace with my Maker. You're my maker, Dorothy! You made me happy for the first time in my life.

DOROTHY
: Eight thousand seven hundred pounds worth of ham, Ron. Why?

RYAN
: Oh, the Huttons job, that was a bit of a fizzer, wasn't it? Jesus, was it worth that much? Oh, what a mess tears make. I haven't even got a hankie.

DOROTHY
: No-one steals that amount of ham, darling, do they? What did you do with it all? Circulate it around the pubs, did you?

RYAN
: I masterminded it getting circulated round pubs. Took 87,000 weeks. Maybe I'm not a professional burglar. Hey, I'm a bungler. Don't hate me.

DOROTHY
exits.

You find them in you. The ones you worship are in you. You front the Almighty by seeing them in you. You're a part of all of them. A world family it is. I'm sorry, George, I just couldn't do any more can. Listen, you can hear the Coburg City Council hosing the roads down. What I'd give to look at it. Just ordinary things. Homes. Road machines. Parks. God, what I'd give to walk through a park!

He gazes at the stars through the condemned cell window. Crickets and distant droning cars. Early morning Sydney Road trucks growl and are overtaken by a Christian group outside Pentridge singing ‘Silent Night'. The song concludes.

[
At the window, staring out
] Whingers!

Blackout.

Lights slowly fade up as
RYAN
stares at
DOROTHY
as if a dream.

RYAN
: It's on tomorrow. They really are going to do it. I'll never see my family again. I'd better pray harder than ever.

He relives working as a timber cutter.

When I worked for you, Mr Johnson, logging and timber cutting, you were good, you stuck up for me. Money you paid me was good. You stood out. Decent fellow.

The
GUARD
provides
JOHNSON'S VOICE
.

JOHNSON'S VOICE
: Thirty-five pound a week. Even forty. You were a good worker, Ron. Good home man.

RYAN
: Every second weekend there for a while I went to the kids. And Girlie. She got on the other end of the saw with me. She had her kids in the bush. I always got her to a hospital in time. I did my best by her!

JOHNSON'S VOICE
: Ryan's a cut above most of these fellows. I can't bring back any of their names. But you remain. I'll remember you, Ryan.

RYAN
: Thanks, Keith.

JOHNSON'S VOICE
: You organised the blokes good. You kept an accurate record of moneys due to each of them. You kept yourself clean and tidy and all your tools in very good order.

RYAN
: You'll have me crying in a minute. And what about you, Mr Harding, of the Police Company Squad? What do you reckon about me?

BRIAN
HARDING
appears.

HARDING
: I had the honour to first arrest you.

RYAN
: That'll get you a beer.

HARDING
: I wouldn't drink it, Ron. We called you Homing Pigeon, you were just so obviously going back to your nest.

RYAN
: Yeah. Forgery. What a joke. The Michelangelo of Warrnambool racetrack.

HARDING
: The cheques weren't very good, Ron. You'll have to do better than that in the Warrnambool-Port Fairy-Koroit area.

RYAN
: What was I like?

HARDING
: Tough. Impossible to question. Drooping left eye permanently damaged by severe ulceration in childhood. Intelligent. Hobbies: fitness and warehouses. An unusual criminal. Thirty-one before you committed your first offence. Got your Leaving and Matric in jail, didn't you?

RYAN
: Leaving and Matric. They've stood me in good stead. Where would I be without them? Jail's given me a lot when I think about it.

HARDING
: You were a mug.

RYAN
: Thanks, Brian. [
Desperate
] I like letters. I like talk. I need it! They're like voices! They are voices! Everyone is a part of the family. It's true.

A young woman,
GLORIA
RYAN
, Ryan's sister, sits in a plain chair downstage and reads this letter, slowly unfolding it from her purse.

GLORIA
: [
reading
] Mr Secretary General,

Dear Sir,

My purpose in writing this letter on behalf of my brother and family is to plead clemency for my brother, Ronald Ryan, who is at the moment under the sentence of death.

We find it impossible to believe our brother could kill any human being in cold blood. My brother is a man, who, at the age of sixteen, by sheer hard work and self denial, made it possible for my sister and myself to leave the Good Shepherd Convent in Abbotsford where we spent almost six years.

Even to this day I can now recall how Ron returned exhausted after weeks spent in the bush, cutting sleepers, so that his mother and sisters could have a simple, decent home, food, clothing and the chance for my sister and myself to finish our education in less formidable surroundings.

Our brother took upon himself this great responsibility of father, son and brother, when our invalid father could no longer support us. Surely that shows him to be a very warm and unselfish human being, not a cold-blooded killer. We can all attest to Ron's love and deep family affections, leaving it impossible to accept the fact that Mother's son, and our dearest brother, might hang.

In closing I can only say, we live in hope, and pray the powers that be see fit to grant my brother clemency.

We, his loving family, and numerous friends, are still deeply distressed over the grave doubts which arose over his actual part in the unfortunate incident.

Yours faithfully,
Gloria Ryan.

She very carefully folds the letter up once more and deposits it in her purse. Lights out on her chair.

RYAN
: Yes. I did try to better myself. Thank you, Gloria.

GUARD
: Your English teacher is here, Ron. Neville Drummond.

RYAN
: Really? Isn't that amazing. How'd he do that?

NEVILLE DRUMMOND
, a very cheerful Christian English teacher, enters the condemned cell and sits opposite a silent
RYAN
. He sits a foot away.

MR DRUMMOND
: [
very cheerful
] Ron Ryan sat for the External Exam, Leaving Certificate, at the end of 1962. He passed it. He sat for it at Bendigo Training Prison. All the mail came in weekly. I sorted out the students' work. There were a variety of pupils. From tots to criminals. Ex-servicemen and women. Certain disabled pupils at Yoralla and Turana. Each year I had a record book with every single student written down. If a person was in prison I made four vertical lines next to them to indicate prison bars. For my own reference. I suppose it was a kind of code. I did a blue wave if they were in the navy. A red cross if they were overseas. A fawn patch if they were in the army and so on.

Ron was my age. His writing was very neatly presented. Right-handed. His grammar was excellent. His essays were always well-paragraphed. That's how we knew each other. It was in the letters and he responded to encouragement. He passed. He must have read about it in the
Herald
.

If we got eighty-five per cent success rate, the Board of Inspectors were happy. The very first thing he wrote fell under the title ‘Myself and My Environment'. He wrote of his love of his three daughters.

He sees
RYAN
. His voice softens; he smiles at him.

By no means do I think of you only as a name. Your vocation. I'm sure you're a very interesting person to know. I tried to help you. I always recommended to all correspondence students they use a little well-chosen lightheartedness. And now your sentences are more detailed. Well done, Ronald! Some dropped out. Futility, I suppose. He didn't whitewash himself. No attempt to. He readily admitted he was a petty criminal. The hanging touched me emotionally. He was so perceptive, the potential. I used to look forward to marking his papers. I gave him eighty-eight once. But mostly he was in the high seventies. He passed the External Exam Form Five English from inside Bendigo. I walked to work the day you died. Through the Treasury Gardens. I loved that. The possums and the trees. About ten of us teachers sat silently at a big desk and listened to the radio. I sat with my head in my hands and I kept sobbing.

They stare at each other. Blackout.

Lights up on
RYAN
.

RYAN
: Everyone in my life is coming through! Who's next?

GUARD
: Your father's here, Ron.

RYAN'S FATHER
enters.

RYAN
: What have you got to say for yourself?

RYAN'S FATHER
: I came to speak of galahs.

RYAN
: You cared more about them than us.

RYAN'S FATHER
: They were more interesting.

RYAN
: Dirt floor, no electricity, no father. Good on you, Dad!

RYAN'S FATHER
: You can't be good at everything, son.

RYAN
: Don't depress me. I've got enough to think about. Why were you weak? Why did you abnegate the possibility of hero? You shot through on us.

RYAN'S FATHER
: I'm not a hero. Neither are you. Probably nobody is.

RYAN
: All you did was pull dead kangaroos out of water channels.

RYAN'S FATHER
: Wasn't a bad job.

RYAN
: You were happy with the galahs, weren't you, Dad? Up at Balranald.

RYAN'S FATHER
: They were things I understood. Who can understand justice? Can I sit down, Ron?

RYAN
: I had your job. I was the father. I provided. I protected. I looked after. What a shack we grew up in. Always a hundred-degree heat. Flies and mozzies! Mum always howling. You on the bottle in the bushes. It wasn't funny. What are you laughing about? What makes you laugh?

RYAN'S FATHER
: Nothing.

RYAN
: The law took my sisters to a hospice. You just took off.