The Easy Day Was Yesterday (19 page)

Exercising was a good idea though, and something I would have started day one if I had thought I’d be here this long. I removed the light, put it back in the Calvins and got under the mozzie net. I wanted to exercise without the caveman seeing me and reporting my efforts. I started doing push-ups. I placed my hands a little wider than shoulder width and went down very slowly until my chest touched the hessian and then slowly pushed back up. After 20 of these very slow push-ups my chest was screaming and I couldn’t get another one out, so I rolled on my back and started doing sit-ups. I raised my feet about 20 centimetres off the ground and, as I brought my knees to my chest, I raised my upper body at the same time to meet my knees, keeping my hands on my abdomen. I managed 50 and then rested for five minutes before repeating the cycle. Then I was rooted and just lay there for a while before putting the light back in and reading some more
Primal Fear
. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep me going for now.

Friday 30 May

Thankfully, there was no singing this morning. I suppose someone had finally got the idea after being bashed twice. Reminds me of that joke: what do you tell someone with two black eyes? Nothing, you’ve already told him twice.

I was awake at about 3.00 am anyway trying to mentally prepare myself to be here a bit longer; but it was impossible, it just couldn’t be done. I thought more about Colin Rigby’s advice. He suggested just getting through each day, that I shouldn’t get excited about leaving, but that I should establish a routine, exercise and eat. This was all good advice and all strategies I knew as that’s what I teach. But it’s bloody hard to put into practice — almost impossible when all I could think about was sleeping in a real bed that night, not having to bathe with a bucket of cold water, and not sleeping with rats and the constant smell of piss and shit. I also missed freedom, but felt like a whinger for thinking like that after only a few days in the big house.

The caveman grunted at me at 5.00 am and opened the cage. I sat up and grabbed my boots so I could challenge the morning obstacle course when I felt some pain in my toe and noticed some blood surrounding a small wound. My immediate thought was that one of the many rats that entered my cage at night had decided to make a meal of my big toe. The taste of disgust and repulsion rose in my throat and I nearly vomited; dirty, filthy, fucking thing. There was nothing else to do but forget it had even happened. Maybe I had stubbed my toe at night and didn’t notice. I didn’t have any antiseptic.

I emptied my bottle and wandered over to the drain for my morning leak. Then I waited and waited and waited. The old man nagged me to have a bucket bath and reluctantly I did. Kneeling on the concrete slab, I was deep in thought soaping up my body when I suddenly realised that the old man was washing my back with his old, weather-beaten, calloused hands. Oh God, I hope this is the last time I wash in this shit hole, I thought, as I carefully monitored how far his old hands went down my back. Then it was back to the cage where I kept waiting; every minute became an hour, every hour an eternity.

Finally I was called to the office where I was surprised to see Debu-San, my lawyer, and the High Commission guys sitting in the Warden’s office. As I entered the office I looked for the death sentence — plastic bag full of bottled water. It was there and I was crushed. I wanted to go off. I wanted to kick and punch out. I wanted to scream ‘what fucking now?’ I wanted to yell, ‘what’s wrong with you fucking imbeciles?’ But I didn’t. I just sat there and prepared to listen to what old rotten teeth had to say to me.

Apparently the police paperwork wasn’t as complete as we had all thought it would be, and a petitioner had presented a petition against my release. They didn’t know where this man had came from, but he was old, had a grey beard and suffered from severe vitiligo. Bloody hell, it was the angry man from the border, the criminal and police informer. But I couldn’t understand why he would go to so much effort to ensure that I was not released. I could only assume that the SP had pushed him to do this. The High Commission guys told me that Ujwal had gone to deal with him so he wouldn’t visit today. Old rotten teeth Debu-San told me there would be a hearing tomorrow, but only to deal with the petition and not my release. Debu-San told me not to be concerned with the petition as it was illegal and would be thrown out, but that I would be here for a few more days. I told him I’d heard the ‘don’t worry,’ line before and that, in here, there wasn’t much else to do but worry. Craig let me use his phone and I made a two-minute call to Sallie. I felt absolutely destroyed and this came through in my voice when I spoke to Sallie. She told me to be strong and that she was on her way to help. Craig handed me a letter from Sallie with comments about Trevor and the kids and more advice from Colin Rigby. The letter lifted my morale slightly and I was relieved to hear that the kids were well. Trevor seemed to be doing a great job handling the family. Craig and his mate decided to leave and pointed to a mattress in front of the prison that they said they had brought for me. The mattress would make the nights easier on my bones, but confirmed that I would be there for longer than anyone had expected. Maybe I was the only person who had thought I’d be out of here in a day or so. Maybe everyone else realised that this was bad and that I was in here for the long haul but no-one wanted to tell me. I thanked them for the mattress. Craig told me he was returning to Delhi, but that a local replacement was on his way to help. I thanked Craig for his efforts and was genuinely grateful to him, as I knew he could only do what the Australian government allowed.

Back in the cage, I cried like a baby. I couldn’t stop and had to ensure that no-one saw me in this state. Once I started, I just kept on going. This was getting crazy and ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop. The old man walked in and saw me in this condition and started rubbing my back. That was enough for me to stop and think about something else very quickly. I stopped as quickly as I had started and lay down for a while. The old man had a fan and started to fan me. I couldn’t handle the fanning and didn’t want to treat the old man like a slave, so I asked him to stop. A few minutes later, I dug out some old notes from my Calvins and gave the money to the old man. Then he started to bawl uncontrollably and I picked up his fan and started fanning him, and had to control my laughing — this was getting ridiculous. The old man eventually regained control of himself and left and I started laughing again. Could this get any crazier?

Crying was an interesting experience for me, because I hadn’t really cried since 1977.

Remembrance Day, 11 November 1977, and Shane, Graham and I were walking down the road heading to Shane and Graham’s house. Trevor was at home and we had just said goodbye to Steven as he rode off to a friend’s house on his bicycle. I was 11 that year, Trevor was seven and Steven had turned 13 two months before. ‘Tell Mum I’ll be home later,’ he had said. Steven hadn’t wanted to come with us as he had somewhere else to go. Mum had taken to stopping at Shane and Graham’s house for an afternoon coffee with their mum, Trish. We’d known Trish and her husband Kel for a long time and they were both actively involved with football — Kel was the manager of the team. Steven and I spent a lot of time with Shane and Graham. Most weekends, when we weren’t playing football, we were at the Keperra Golf Course looking for golf balls to sell to the Pro Shop or to golfers. We managed to save quite a stash. As we ambled along Patrick’s Road, an ambulance screamed up the road past us and we heard it turn the corner and stop quite close by. We debated whether to go and see what had happened but decided we couldn’t be arsed.

Mum and Trish greeted us as we walked through the door. Mum was sitting at the table with Trish while Kel was standing in the kitchen. ‘Here comes trouble,’ Trish said, ‘where have you been?’

‘Just at Paul’s house,’ Graham replied.

‘Where’s Trevor?’ Mum asked.

‘He’s at home doing nothing,’ I said.

‘What about Steven?’ asked Mum.

‘He went out, but said he’d be home for tea,’ I answered.

Satisfied with this, Mum and Trish slipped back into their conversation. Then the phone rang. Trish answered and I noted the change in the pitch of her voice — it told me that something was wrong. All she said was, ‘Yes, yes, yes, where? Yes, yes, okay, we’re coming now.’ Trish hung up the phone and looked straight at Mum and said, ‘Steve’s had an accident and we have to go now.’ Mum went into an immediate panic and assumed the worst: ‘Is he dead?’ Is he dead? What sort of a question is that? Of course he wasn’t dead. It was just like Mum to immediately think the worst, and it was just like Steven to have another accident and get a few days off school. Trish didn’t reply to Mum’s comment, but gave Kel a look as they scrambled for the car. Graham jumped into the back seat and Trish told him to get out and for all of us to go back to my house, get Trevor and bring him back here.

So off we went. We took the short cut through the bush, across the park, past Wayne’s house to my house. Trevor wasn’t doing much and I just said that we had to go to Shane and Graham’s house because Steven had had an accident. On the walk back we talked about what might have happened, but never linked the ambulance we saw with the accident. We decided that it sounded pretty serious, so he must have broken his leg or something like that. A year before, Allan had told me after school that Steven had had an accident and had been taken to hospital. Mum and Steven arrived home that night at about 7.00 pm — Steven had broken his collar bone. I didn’t even know we had a collar bone, but assumed it was located somewhere near where the shirt collar sits. We guessed it was going to be like that. When we arrived back at Shane and Graham’s house, the parents still hadn’t returned, so we just sat at the kitchen table and waited. About an hour later, Kel walked in and said, ‘Alright, do you know what’s happened?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Okay, Steven’s been killed.’

I felt as if someone had hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer and I wanted to scream, ‘bullshit!’ But I could barely breathe, let alone scream. I knew it was true, so I bowed my head and the tears started to pour out of me. I didn’t know what else to do. Kel tried to get us to stop and said that Mum was coming in and we should give her a big hug and that she really needed our support. Mum came in looking absolutely destroyed and broken. She could barely put one foot in front of the other and was supported by Trish. This was really happening. We moved to Shane and Graham’s bedroom where we just sat and cried while holding each other. We seemed to sit there for hours crying. I was destroyed, this couldn’t be happening. Poor Mum, she’d already been through so much and now this. She was crying so much and couldn’t really talk. Eventually we broke apart and Trevor and I went and sat in the lounge room and kept crying, as did Shane and Graham. Trish, who had already contacted Lex with the news, comforted Mum. I learnt that Steven had skidded on his bike on some spilt gravel and had gone under one of those semi-trailers that carry cars. It was Friday night and the time seemed to pass very slowly as an intense pain settled deeply into every fibre of my body.

We spent the weekend at Trish’s house while Mum insisted on going home. She collapsed in the hallway outside Steven’s bedroom and a doctor was called to sedate her. I went home the next day to see Mum, but she wasn’t much better and I knew it was going to be a long time before she would recover. For me, it was still surreal. Shane, Graham and I visited friends to talk about what had happened, but we were just kids struggling to decipher what it all meant. The tears had stopped momentarily, but came back the next evening when Trish took us to the cathedral in the city to light a candle for Steven; but again, I really didn’t know what this all meant. Trish described the usual routine in the church and, after lighting the candle, we all dropped to our knees in pews and prayed for Steven’s soul. But again, we were just kids and had no real idea what was going on. Frankly I was expecting Steven to just walk into the house at any time.

Trish was a solid friend and leader throughout all this and all but adopted Trevor and me while Mum struggled to maintain some sanity. Trish took us to church, she organised fundraising at the football club to help Mum pay for the funeral and basically kept us kids occupied while she helped Mum to cope. To my surprise, Shane and Graham spent our saved golf ball money buying Trevor and me silver and gold necklaces with a small crucifix with our names engraved on them. It was a damned nice thing to do.

The funeral was on Wednesday at the Albany Creek Crematorium. Most of the year 6 and 7 students from school were there, along with most of the football club. In all, about 300 people were present. Mum sat up the front while Trevor and I sat a few aisles back with friends. It was strange that we didn’t stay with Mum — I don’t know why we didn’t. We even arrived at the crematorium at different times. I cried some more and wondered if I would ever run out of tears. I learnt on this day that funerals seem to be about everyone else rather than the person who’d died. Everyone wants to be associated with the family and be part of the drama and loss. But when it’s all over you’re left with only your true friends, incredible loss, heartache and absence. This day was no different; the surreal experience continued, as if I was living someone else’s life for a while. I wasn’t sure what we were doing and expected Steven to be dropped off any minute so we could all get back to normal.

After the funeral I spent a lot of time thinking and continued to struggle to accept that Steven was gone, but realised soon enough that he wasn’t coming home. What sort of god takes a child so violently? A religious friend explained that it was ‘God’s way’. Well, I decided, if that’s how God worked, I wanted nothing further to do with Him. I gave up trying to understand why Steven was dead; the only way I could cope with what had happened was to forget about it. And that’s what I did. If the topic was raised at the dinner table, I walked away. If I was asked a question about the accident, I pretended not to hear and walked away. I was 11 years old and didn’t shed another tear for more than 30 years. What else could there possibly be to cry about after losing a brother? Only in the last year or so have I been comfortable talking about Steven’s death. I missed him then and still do now.