JOURNAL OF A COFFIN DODGER CHAPTER G

CHAPTER G

Though dealing with Clare's incarceration in the asylum was straightforward, dealing with her brother Bill was something else. His febrile nature was challenging to address, no matter the setting or the occasion.

A fact written about in Clare's journals and an issue observed by Rebekah when Bill met Clare in the milk bar.

An encounter a couple of days back from where Rebekah was now, sitting in the front passenger seat of the Buggy.

She sat alongside Clare on a sunny Saturday morning as Clare drove the vehicle to the farmhouse.

As a flock of Crimson Rosellas flew over the Buggy and a Nankeen Kestel hovered overhead, Clare reached the farmhouse.

She turned into the driveway and drove into the dim, cool dampness of the garage. The Buggy's brakes screeched as Clare brought the vehicle to a stop and switched off the engine.

'That was a delightful journey, Sister. A lovely way to start my weekend free from work at the milk bar,'

Rebekah said as she and Clare climbed out of the Buggy.

Rebekah reached into the back of the vehicle, picked up a suitcase and carried it out of the garage.

Clare also reached into the back of the vehicle and

lifted out a large, heavy white cotton mesh shopping bag of groceries and a brown paper bag loaded with loaves of bread and cream buns.

She carried both bags out of the garage and

joined Rebekah to walk side-by-side with her towards the house as Rebekah continued the conversation, the air crisp and clear from an over-night rain shower.

'I've never travelled in a vehicle with the roof down,' Rebekah said as a mob of Australian Mynas squawked as they splashed their way along the gutters of the garage.

'I loved the brisk breeze flowing through my hair and the sun's warmth on my shoulders. You said the windscreen folds down?'

Clare smiled and replied, 'that's right.'

'So,' Rebekah replied, 'with the roof folded down and the windscreen folded down, the Buggy makes an ideal platform from which to preach God's word. Yer?'

Clare exclaimed, 'Now, that's an idea! A steadier stage than the wooden box I stood on to preach at The Domain of a Sunday afternoon when I lived in Sydney.'

Rebekah responded, 'then that suggestion has possibilities.'

'Now, I noticed the Buggy has a tow bar. So, I am also thinking about hymns to accompany the preaching.'

She nodded and furrowed her brows before saying, 'Hmmm! I know someone who will lend us a trailer.'

She gave a mischievous grin and then concluded by saying.

'What if we push the harmonium, the one inside the farmhouse, the one you told me about, onto the trailer and...?'

Clare burst out laughing, 'Oh! Come on! Now you are being fanciful.'

Rebekah chuckled. 'It's possible, Sister. The Lord has ways ...'

'His wonders to perform,' Clare added, 'like His beautiful creation of the world around the farmhouse.'

Rebekah laughed and replied.

'That was not the ending I had in mind. But you are right. It is beautiful out here, the green paddocks rolling away from the front of the house towards those blue far distant hills. The currawongs calling...'

Rebekah paused and looked at Clare as, half-way along their stroll to the house, Clare had stopped.

She turned towards the unpaved road that led past the front of the farmhouse and gazed at a cloud of dust billowing along that road.

'I heard a vehicle just before I stopped,' she said in a hushed voice.

Rebecca also stopped her stroll to the house as she looked towards that cloud of dust, moving fast from the direction of town, while she stood beside Clare.

'It's probably the blokes in their utes, with their camping equipment and dogs,' Clare said, her voice a pensive whisper.

In a sudden startling movement, Clare's hands and arms started shaking.

Bread and buns cascaded out of the brown paper bag as Clare dropped both bags onto the soft, damp grassy ground as her eyes opened wide with fear.

With a quaver in her voice, she exclaimed,

'But heck! Rebekah! What will we do if it's Bill?'

But, then, no one knew what to do with Bill. Not even the male nurses he worked with at the asylum.

Because Bill functioned according to Rafferty's rules.

During the years he worked at the asylum before he left and never returned following the fire in the derelict asylum ward, the male nurses described Bill as 'a toey bastard.'

A description I often heard as conversations flowed around me while I ate a meal in the Staff Dining Room before that fire in the derelict ward.

A description borne out by Bill's frequent Weekend Detentions at Long Bay Gaol following altercations at pubs in and around the Cross. Incidents also frequently mentioned in those conversations.

Therefore, a bloke whom the male nurses wanted to keep at a safe distance. Not the sort of bloke they invited to the pub if they wanted a quiet beer after work rather than the place exploding in violence.

Bill's mate, Mike, however, was a different kettle of fish.

A top bloke, according to that chatter in the Staff Dining Room, which meant the asylum's male nurses didn't mind having a beer with him at the pub. They admired Mike's fucked-up skills as an apex predator in the sexual exploitation of women and girls.

Plaudits because Mike welcomed other male nurses to share with him in this predation. A fact noted by me when I worked in Banksia and appreciated by male nurses who worked with him during the years Mike worked as the Charge Nurse of Banksia.

But despite their differences in nature, Mike found Bill useful.

The do-gooders who complained about that predation and other matters that involved the interests of the asylum's alpha males needed to be sorted out. Bill was the bloke to do that, and Mike was the bloke to organise the sorting out.

An arrangement that ended in a temporary separation, when Bill went nuts during one such sorting out.

'For Christ's sake, Bill! I'll get you out of this mess, but if it happens again...'

'Look! Mike! I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you, Ok?'

The sounds of the men's voices drifted through the door.

'The task was bloody simple, Bill,' Mike continued. 'Routine stuff when dealing with a do-gooder.'

The door creaked as I assumed one of the men leaned against it.

I crossed my fingers that the errant cool breeze that had closed the door behind me had latched the door so that the door had no chance to swing open.

'I know, I know, OK?' Bill butted in. 'Wrap dog shit in a newspaper.'

'At night, go to the do-gooder's house. Put the parcel at the bottom of the front door, set the parcel alight, ring the doorbell, and run like hell away from the place,

back to whatever vehicle I'm driving.'

'Who ever answers the doorbell will stamp out the flames and get dog shit over their footwear. I've done it, how many times?'

The air was hot and stuffy in the storeroom as I prayed the door held fast.

But I did not dare open the window at one end of the room in case the window's wooden frame screeched as I did so.

'So?'

Mike's voice drifted through the storeroom door from the other side from where I stood, frozen to the room's dingy, broken lino floor covering.

'Well',' Bill responded, 'over the past fortnight, I did another usual thing.'

'I left my car at home, of course. Instead, I drove my cousin's car a couple of times at crawling speed behind the do-gooder's kids as they walked home from school.'

The conversation paused as sweat greased the palms of my hands.

'But then,' Bill said as he finished in a rush, 'I got the hots for one of the daughters.'

'Jesus bloody Christ! Bill!' Mike's shout boomed through the storeroom as sweat dripped from my forehead. The salt from the sweat stung my eyes, but I didn't dare move to wipe away the sweat.

'The oldest daughter is fourteen! The youngest is twelve!' Mike thundered. 'They're both underage. Do you know how much it costs to pay a lawyer to get you out of the mess your dick wanted to lead you into? Bloody hell! Bill!'

The stench of cigarette smoke drifting into the storeroom accompanied another pause in the conversation. The acrid smoke tickled my nose.

Mike's voice had an edge to it as he continued.

'So, what happened next?'

'Well,' Bill said, 'I drove round to the do-gooder's house last night with a parcel of dog shit...'

'But rather than light it at the front door, I lit it near a kid's cubby house in the front yard and pushed it inside...'

'Holy bloody hell! God spare us! Last night was a stinkin' hot summer's night!' Mike yelled.

'The tree that the cubby house was in caught fire, and if the fire brigade hadn't arrived promptly...Well! let's just say it is lucky that they did as the tree was alongside the do-gooder's house.'

Inside the storeroom, I was battling to stifle a sneeze from blowing my cover.

'Fuck me dead! Fuck me bloody dead!' Mike said, his voice lowering its volume.

'If that house had gone up... Goodbye salad days at the asylum. A commission of inquiry would shut this place down. Just because of your sexual frustration. Is that right? Is that right? Yer?'

'Yer,' Bill mumbled as I finally stifled the sneeze by placing a finger across my philtrum.

'Now, what I'm going to say next will really stuff-up things between us,' Mike said. 'But I have a way to restore the happy times.'

'Fuck! Mike! What in Christ's name have you done?'

Bill's anger scorched through the storeroom as my legs wobbled like a bowl of jelly over what I was hearing.

Mike replied in a low voice with an edge to it.

'Dobbed you in.'

'Holy fuck!' Bill screamed. 'You bloody low life dingo! You fuckin' piece of shit! I'll smack you so fuckin' hard you'll never walk again.'

My legs now had such a furious wobble that I desperately wanted to sink to the floor. But I didn't dare risk the floor creaking if I moved.

Mike, in a calm voice, said, 'have a smoke, and don't do anything silly. I have a plan to keep you employed at this asylum and restore the good times. So hear me out. OK?'

The stench of cigarette smoke drifted into the storeroom. The smoke didn't irritate my nose this time. However, my legs had reached the point of no return.

After Bill muttered a menacing, 'OK,' Mike said. 'I had a chat with Chris...'

'At least he's bloody sensible,' Bill butted in. 'He knows what a pain in the arse do-gooders are.'

'...yes he is,' Mike continued, picking up on Bill's comment. '... because a couple of hours before our meeting here in the Recreation Hall, Chris checked the bookings for the Hall on the bookings sheet in the Admin. Office.'

'No one, according to Chris, is using the Hall until later this morning. Therefore, no one will hear or see you or me during our convo. Which is why Chris, being a sensible person, suggested you and I meet in the Hall for our conversation.'

With immense feelings of trepidation, I leaned forward and rested against a set of shelves lining the storeroom. I trusted the shelves to remain soundless and to take my weight, as my legs no longer served that purpose.

'Now,' Mike said, 'Chris read the local paper first thing this morning when he went to his office in the Administration Office Building.'

'The account of last night's fire, the one you started, led the news on the paper's front page.'

'As the person named in that article as the owner of the property where the fire occurred is a known do-gooder, Chris wondered if you and I were involved. So, Chris came over to my office in Banksia, and, with the door closed, we had our chat.'

A brown spider crawled out of the jumble of sporting equipment scattered across the shelf in front of me.

The spider crawled along an untidy heap of tennis racquets an inch or two away from my hands where they grasped the edge of the shelf as Mike continued talking.

'Now, Bill, as you know, Registered Nurses, after five years service in the asylum are appointed to the position of permanent members of the NSW Public Service by the NSW government.'

'Therefore, after such an appointment, nurses, like you and I, can't have our employment terminated. Except if we retire or resign or don't report for work for twenty-one days. So, sacking you is not an option. Not that Chris wanted to do that.'

My heartbeat went up several notches as the brown spider continued creeping along the tennis racquets, crawling closer and closer to my hands.

As the odoriferous whiff of a fart drifted into the storeroom, Mike's chatting paused.

He then continued as the spider turned away from my hands and crawled further into the pile of tennis racquets.

'The other option,' Mike said, 'is for you to go on four weeks Special Leave starting now. Chris will arrange the paperwork and arrange for you to be paid your usual leave entitlements, including the leave bonus.'

'So bugger off to a distant corner of the country where the police don't know you. But somewhere out of the state of New South Wales, like north Queensland, or the Northen Territory.'

I scanned the jumbled pile of tennis equipment. But the spider had disappeared.

I took several deep breaths as Mike said, 'send me a forwarding address and I will mail you your pay cheque. Agreed?'

'Yer,' Bill snarled. 'But geez, I'm pissed off. I really want to...'

'I know,' Mike cut in. 'But I didn't want to take the chance of having the beautiful thing I've created in Banksia disrupted. Fucked-up by a do-gooder looking for blood if you remained at work. A pissed-off do-gooder screaming about the fire and God knows what else. Yelling loud enough for the radio and TV stations to take notice.'

'When you get back, I'll make it up to you. I have a plan for something wonderful I need your help with. OK?' Mike paused before continuing, 'everything's now clear and understood?'

Bill mumbled, 'Yeah' after a long pause. 'But I will hold you to what you just said about a plan.'

Another pause followed Bill's affirmation before Mike said, 'Right! Let's head back to ....Oh! One other thing. Did you check the storeroom before we started talking?'

My heart thumped in my chest as Bill replied, 'No! I thought you did.'

'Bloody hell!' Mike responded.

'Open it now and have a look inside. Wait! Fuck! Stop! Look! See! Through the open doors on the other side of the Rec. Hall. Two cars have pulled up. People are getting out.'

'I bet that's the bloody architects. Here to discuss renovations to the Hall. Let's fuck off! Move! Out the back. Quick!'

As their voices faded away, I took a firm grip on the shelving lining the storeroom and dragged myself to the window.

While one hand held onto a shelf, I used the other hand to push up the window.

Though the double-hung window screeched in its wooden frame, I no longer cared. I welcomed the rush of fresh air that poured through the open window as I burst into tears with relief at not being discovered.

As I sank to the floor, my stomach churned as bile rose in my throat after over-hearing the ugly awfulness of Mike and Bill's conversation.

While I sat on the floor with my back resting against a wall with the open window above me, I gazed at a brown spider some distance from me. It wandered around the jumble of paint pots, paintbrushes, other items of art equipment, and disparate items of sporting equipment tumbled together along the storeroom's shelves.

I moved my gaze from the spider and stared at the door as I reached into a pocket of my uniform. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the door had not sprung open as I took out a handkerchief.

After I had wiped the sweat from my forehead and wiped my eyes, I looked at my hands. They were trembling.

I waited until the tremor settled before I returned the hanky to a pocket of my uniform and took out a notebook and pen.

I postponed the sorting out of equipment for a game of quoits that led to me entering the store room several minutes before Mike and Bill's conversation. A game that required the booking of the Rec. Hall that Mike mentioned. A game between the inmates of two asylum wards.

Instead, I needed to ease the tumult in my mind by making notes of what I had just heard.

While I made notes, I also thought about Mike's 'beautiful thing,' Banksia.

The NSW Government announced plans for this ward a few years before Mike and Bill started the brothel in the derelict asylum ward. The abandoned ward that Anne and I burnt down.

These original plans, announced through the Sydney papers, led to union involvement.

Asylum nurses, through the Federation of Asylum Nurses, NSW Branch, threatened to strike if those plans remained unchanged. An action that dominated conversations I heard in the Staff Dining Room.

The government caved in.

The amended plans, rather than having no Seclusion Rooms, AKA Single Rooms by the asylum nurses or cells, as the police described such spaces, now had six.

Also, the ward was now to be staffed by both male and female nurses. The original plan was for staffing by female nurses only.

But, the ward kept its original purpose as a ward for the mental health care needs of female adolescents.

As well, the amended plans kept the name 'Banksia.'

So called, according to those conversations in the Staff Dining Room, because of the name's association with characters in a popular Australian children's book.

Therefore, with the completion of the ward and its fit-out, the asylum got its own version of 'Banksia Men.'

But these 'Banksia Men' did not behave in the way narrated in the children's story.

Rather, what the asylums 'Banksia Men' did reached into the darkest depths of a child's screaming nightmare. A nightmare put into place by the Charge Nurse appointed to Banksia at its opening, Mike.

Who organised the nursing staff rosters so that only male nurses worked the morning shifts. Male and female nurses worked the afternoon shifts, and male and female nurses worked the night shift together.

Apart from the over-time shifts when either a male or a female nurse filled the vacancy caused by a gap in one or other of Mike's rosters.

I puzzled over the reasons for Mike's staffing arrangements when I heard about them on the asylum grapevine. But I found it difficult to put my finger on why they perplexed me.

Until I started working over-time shifts in Banksia about a year or two before I met Anne at the asylum.

These nursing staff arrangements tied in with a memo Mike issued to the staff of Banksia. A written message which I read when I worked there, regarding the management of Banksia's patients.

Banksia had several en-suites. A NSW Government initiative for granting privacy to Banksia's female adolescent patients rather than the mass showering arrangements of other wards.

However, the memo issued by Mike aimed to knock any idea of privacy for those female patients on the head.

That directive specified '... patients must use the en-suites only of a morning...'

The memo explained that keeping the en-suites free allowed domestic staff access. A no hindrances access, such as a patient having a shower, when a member of the Domestic Staff went to clean an ensuite of an afternoon.

But Mike's reason for this memo had a dark, twisted agenda. An agenda that linked in with the nursing staff rosters Mike had written up.

Because it meant that male nurses on the morning shift escorted young female patients to an ensuite, not female nurses. An escort who showed little interest in a young female patient's need to be free from the observation or disturbance of others.

When I worked one of those over-time shifts a couple of months before I over-heard that convo. between Mike and Bill, I watched Mike, one morning, escorting a young woman dressed in a thin cotton nightie.

She clasped her hands across her chest and hunched her shoulders forwards. With head bowed, she walked with short, quick steps as Mike's gaze roamed the young woman's physicality.

He walked close beside her, brushing alongside her nightie as he left a trail of stinky, stale tobacco smoke in his wake.

He carried towels, face washers, toiletries, and a change of clothes, including underwear, as they walked from a four-bed room to an en-suite.

When they reached the en-suite, the teenager stepped inside. Mike looked around before handing the items he carried to the young woman.

I don't know whether he saw me as I stood at the entrance to that four-bed room.

I also don't know how frequently the male nurses totalled an adolescent's desire for privacy by entering an ensuite when a young woman was showering herself.

A short time after observing Mike escorting that young woman, it was time for my morning break. I, therefore, headed for Banksia's Staff Room. As I entered the room, Mike was at the point of leaving the room.

I asked him about the practice of male nursing staff taking part in the showering routines of female adolescents.

Mike smiled and said, 'It's my professionalism and that of my male nurses that stop any feelings or anything happening.'

He then left the room.

Though I worked other over-time shifts in Banksia, that was the only morning shift I worked there.

A morning shift which started with the nursing staff reporting to Mike's office, which I did on that shift.

Cigarette smoke thickened the BO enriched air of the musty office as I entered and leant against a wall while I waited for Mike to allocate the nursing duties.

I was the only woman amongst the male nurses in the room. They ignored me as they chatted and laughed amongst themselves. Suddenly, the room went quiet.

I turned to face the doorway.

A social worker, Belinda, who I had worked with in other wards, stood at the open doorway.

I went to say 'hi!' but she turned and walked away.

As she did so, the male nurses resumed chatting and laughing amongst themselves.

As I turned back towards the room, I said to myself, 'You nasty bastards! You fucked up shits! Poor Belinda's received the Silent Treatment.'

The asylum grapevine frequently claimed that only male nurses and male doctors knew the best ways of treating the inmates. Hence, any other method, proposed by any other health professional, was a load of bollocks. And, therefore, according to that grapevine, such a professional well deserved the Silent Treatment.

I caught up with Belinda that afternoon when I finished my morning shift as she crossed the car park toward her car.

I strode past the grey murky puddles of a recent shower of rain, scattered across the carpark's black asphalt, as I made my way towards her.

The puddles shimmered when a cold, wet breeze brushed across them as I called out, 'hi!'

Belina stopped when she reached the car, turned and said, 'Hello there!'

She leant against the car as I stood to one side of the vehicle.

'Are you OK?' I asked.

'I will be,' She replied. 'Thanks for asking. But that's me finished. I'm on my way out. That's twice now I've received the Silent Treatment. You heard about Cath....' I nodded. 'To tough it out and ignore the Silent Treatment is one thing,' Belinda paused....

'But to walk out the front door of your home one morning and see your pet moggy hanging by its neck from a tree in the front yard,.....'

Belinda, her eyes brimming with tears, reached into her handbag and took out a hanky, 'Well, that is something else....'

She dried her eyes and blew her nose before whispering, 'who are these men? Where the heck do they come from?'

She sighed as she put the hanky back in her handbag and shook her head.

'How is Cath?' I asked.

'Getting better. She took sick leave, resigned whilst on leave and is seeing a therapist.'

Belinda paused.

And then spoke, her voice trembling.

'My kids have a pet puppy. I don't want them to find it hanging by its neck from the Jacaranda tree in the front yard of my place.'

She gave me an intense stare as a puzzled frown creased her face.

'You've been here for a few years. So how do you survive?'

'I keep a low profile, do what's possible, on an individual level, and take notes,' I replied.

I tapped the notebook and biro in a pocket of my uniform.

'Good. I pray you keep surviving and that you write the place up in a book.'

'Society needs to know, not only the history of this place but also about the everyday mistreatment of clients and the misogyny that drives ... I better stop. I don't want to upset my kids with tears in my eyes and a worried look on my face.'

Belinda paused and took a deep breath.

'I did not realise how dangerous this asylum is until I started working here. And I am gobsmacked that the male nurses have a social licence to behave the way they do.'

'Anyway, time to get going.'

'I'm picking up the kids from school.'

'It's been nice knowing you. Keep yourself safe, but I think you will. You know how the male nurses behave, especially towards women.'

'I will,' I replied, 'And it's been nice knowing you. I hope you find a safe place to work that appreciates your talents and skills.'

'Thank-you.' Belinda smiled, opened the car door, climbed in and drove away.