In Sickness, in Health ... and in Jail Read online

  Mel Jacob’s work has appeared in the Good Weekend, Sunday Life, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times and Kidspot, and has been performed on Radio National and at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Australian Museum. Her manuscript The Mothers’ Group was shortlisted for the HarperCollins manuscript award and her short film, Mischief, was a finalist for the Riverina Short Festival (Comedy). She lives in the Blue Mountains with her husband and two kids. This is her debut book. Read more about Mel at www.meljacob.com.

  Certain names and details have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike.

  First published in 2016

  Copyright © Mel Jacob 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781925267310

  eISBN 9781952534690

  Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Cover design: Design by Committee

  Cover image: Josh Durham / Bigstockphoto

  For Patrick

  And for our children

  CONTENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  PART II

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  PART III

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  PART IV

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  PART V

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dear reader, though we may not yet had the privilege of meeting, thank you for taking the time to read my book. I believe that reading allows people to connect in a most holy union and perhaps learn a smidgen more about the wonder and absurdity of being human.

  To write this account, I leaned on my journals, recollections, notes, court transcripts, research and conversations. Patrick’s letters, as they appear in the book, have been used as a device to include the details he shared with me via written correspondence, phone calls and prison visitations. Names and identifying features of many people who appear in the book have been changed for legal reasons and to afford certain individuals their privacy. Any similarities to names that have been changed is purely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘There was a lot of swearing at the table next to us today,’ my son Nick said, tapping a rhythm on the car door.

  ‘Quiet. You’ll wake up your sister.’ We were halfway home on our now regular six-hour journey from the middle of nowhere. Our lives had taken a disastrous detour and I felt sad, fragile and exhausted. Solitude was scarce, but it was rare for Nick to strike up a conversation.

  ‘Yes, there was a lot of swearing,’ I agreed. It was true; the family seated next to us possessed a more colourful vocabulary than Tony Soprano.

  ‘It was mainly the F word.’

  ‘You know that word?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve known it . . . like, for ages. Haven’t heard it that much though. It was like, eff this, eff that, like they were having a festival of the F word—an F parade.’

  Nick was right. The F bomb had been the most prominent expletive in the family’s conversation. But there was also the C bomb and the S bomb. Collectively, this family detonated more bombs than the IRA.

  Maybe the father had a perfectly good reason for calling his pre-teen daughter a ‘stupid bitch’, and maybe she had an even better reason for calling him a ‘fucking motherfucker’? Maybe they were being ironic. Until I had walked a mile in their fluorescent sneakers, who was I to judge?

  So I said to Nick, ‘Well, I don’t want you having any parades like that, or even saying that word, for that matter. You’re seven.’

  ‘I know,’ he said wearily. ‘They were using it so much that if they were on TV and they had to beep out the swearing, every second word would be beep.’

  We laughed and then he went quiet. Very quiet.

  ‘Can I ask you something? I don’t want to get in trouble, I just want to know,’ Nick said.

  ‘Of course you can. You can ask me anything,’ I said, delighted that, when faced with life’s tough questions, he chose to come to me. I was his anchor as he navigated the storms of life.

  ‘We’ve been doing the “ck” sound at school and I was wondering if you spell the F word F-U-C-K?’

  I paused. What does a good parent do in this situation? Frown with disapproval, or be all calm and Zen and open-minded?

  ‘Yes, that’s how you spell it.’ I said.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, triumphant.

  I glanced back at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘Anything else you want to know?’ I asked tentatively, wanting to keep the doors of communication open.

  ‘Is “bitch” B-I-T-C-H, like a witch with a broom or is it like “Which one is that?”’

  ‘Witch with a broom.’

  ‘Thought so.’

  There followed a spelling bee, of sorts, as he spelled every expletive from arse to shit. Though I can’t call it a definitive Mother of the Year moment, I took comfort in the fact that, with the exception of ‘bastard’, he spelled everything correctly.

  My kids are enrolled in an alternative-education institution that prides itself on extending childhood by immersing students in nature, creativity and tie-dye. Their verbal skills were outstanding and, while I relished the thought of them casting aside electronic devices, rediscovering the joys of skipping and playing with toys fashioned out of wood, sometimes I wondered if they would ever learn to read and write.

  ‘Maybe Martin should use swear words for your spelling list?’ I suggested.

  ‘Really?’ Nick asked, excited.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sarcasm,’ he said. ‘It would be funny, though. Imagine him standing out the front of the class, strumming his guitar: ‘Year Two, the first spelling word is—’

  ‘Don’t!’ I noticed that Lexie, my five year old, had woken up.

  ‘I wasn’t going to. Jeez!’

  ‘I’
m sorry you had to hear those words today,’ I said, making eye contact with her.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she said, desperate to be recognised as a big girl.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ Nick said, poking her in the side.

  ‘Mum, Nick’s poking me.’

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘But we went to see Dad because . . . he’s your dad and . . . when you love someone . . .’ My voice trailed off. I didn’t know if I still loved my husband or if I even knew what love was anymore. I was stuck. The same old question of why played over in my mind, like a broken record.

  ‘Mum, I’m talking to you!’ Lexie said.

  ‘Sorry—’

  ‘Tell us the story of how you and Dad met,’ she said.

  ‘You know the story,’ I reminded her.

  It was New Year’s Eve 1996, a lifetime ago, and though I have no recollection of our first introduction, Patrick insists he saw me across a crowded room and knew I was the woman he was going to marry.

  ‘At a party. Dad said he knew I was the one.’

  ‘Did you think he was the one?’ Lexie asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Nick.

  ‘I thought he was immature—’

  ‘What’s immature?’ Lexie asked.

  ‘Childish.’

  ‘Like you, in other words,’ Nick said to Lexie.

  ‘Or you,’ I countered.

  ‘So why did you marry Dad?’ Nick asked.

  An excellent question. Indeed, one that I had been asking myself in the past couple of gruelling years. In the beginning, it had been a case of opposites attract, and I had embraced his differences with the curiosity and fascination of exploring a foreign country. I used to think we were a perfect fit. Like two pieces of a puzzle.

  ‘Well, over time I got to know him and he made me laugh, and . . . and I knew deep down that, that . . . even though we were really different . . . he was a good person.’

  Without skipping a beat, Lexie said, ‘He’s not that good, he’s in jail!’

  ONE

  ‘Muuuum, it’s the police!’ Nick yelled down the hall, in a tone that suggested this was a regular occurrence. But it was not. The police had never knocked on our front door. We lived in a nice house in a good neighbourhood in the Blue Mountains. We had a white picket fence. We had roses.

  I’d seen enough late-night TV to know how this kind of scenario plays out. Two disparate detectives exchange witty banter and they argue, to add complexity and tension to the scene, but mostly because of mounting pressure to solve the case. They knock on doors. They ask questions. The people who have nothing to hide answer those questions, and the guilty ones either lawyer up or try to make a quick getaway over the neighbour’s fence.

  But there were not two detectives at my door—there were eight. Nick, who was five years old at the time, gave me no indication of this. Having answered the door, he simply returned to watching SpongeBob SquarePants with Lexie.

  ‘Mrs Jacob?’ the tallest non-uniformed police officer asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m Mrs Jacob.’ No one, not even my children’s friends, calls me Mrs Jacob. I am always Mel, or Melissa.

  ‘I’m Detective Cartwright and this is Officer Newman. We have a warrant to search the premises,’ he said, brandishing a piece of paper.

  ‘What is this regarding?’

  ‘It is in relation to your husband, Patrick John Jacob.’

  ‘Where is he? Is he okay?’ A montage of car-accident footage flashed through my mind.

  ‘He has been detained,’ the detective said, as though that somehow clarified the situation.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means,’ condescended Detective Cartwright, who I quickly decided was the Bad Cop, ‘he has been arrested.’

  ‘Arrested? What’s going on?’ I could no more imagine him being arrested than I could imagine him being dressed as a woman.

  ‘I’m afraid we are not at liberty to say.’

  Now, call me gullible, but in the fourteen years I’d been married to Patrick, certain incidents had given me the impression he was not the slightest bit interested in criminal activity. These included, but were not limited to: refusing to copy a yoga DVD for my mother because doing so would be in clear breach of the Copyright Act; regularly giving our clothing and blankets away to the homeless; and demonstrating an intolerably self-righteous attitude towards people who have either broken the law or expressed a modicum of interest in breaking it.

  Shocked as I was it did at least explain where Patrick was. He ran an online archery and camping store, and usually worked from home and sometimes from our warehouse in Penrith. He’d popped down there to tie up some loose ends before we left to go on our beach holiday. I cringed at the thought of the increasingly angry voicemail messages I had left for him, which the police had, no doubt, intercepted.

  10.03: Hi Paddy. Not sure where you are. Give me a call. Love you.

  10.27: Everything okay? Call me back. Love you.

  10.58: Paddy, it’s me. Can you get some lettuce? We may as well have lunch here now.

  11.02: What are you doing? I thought you only had to label a few boxes for the courier? Call me.

  11.23: Paddy, where ARE you? Lexie keeps pulling the clothes out of the suitcases. Are you couriering the things yourself? Call me, PLEASE?

  11.49: Okay, I’m officially angry. If you were going to take this long you should have told me so I could have planned to do something more fun like STAB MYSELF IN THE EYE WITH A PENCIL!

  12.19: WE’VE BEEN WAITING HERE FOR OVER FOUR HOURS!!!! Is this your idea of a joke? And THERE’S NO LETTUCE!!!

  12.31: Just giving you the heads up, there’s a high probability I will kill you when you do eventually decide to come home.

  12.33: Are you okay?

  ‘Would you mind using the side entrance?’ I asked. Bad Cop and the shorter, friendlier of the two men—hereafter Good Cop—exchanged glances, as if trying to decide whether I was going to make a run for it.

  ‘It’s just that the kids are here . . . and they’re young . . .’

  The men were unresponsive and I was unsure if they were being deliberately obtuse.

  ‘Could just you two come in the front, then?’

  Good Cop agreed but then, as though our conversation had not taken place, the entire group followed me past the children, who were still glued to the TV, and into the kitchen/dining room.

  The policemen towered above and around me. Bad Cop began a spiel about various protocols and about whatever I said being used in a court of law, but I swatted his words away because all I could think about was the kids.

  ‘I’m willing to cooperate but I’d like someone to pick up my kids,’ I said meekly.

  ‘We need to get the search underway and then there’ll be plenty of time for that,’ Bad Cop said and I noticed the rest of the men looking around the house. Taking it in. Looking for clues. Trying, I imagined, to figure out what sort of people we are. What made us tick? I wondered what they made of the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, or the fancy red kitchen appliances.

  After what seemed like forever, but may have only been fifteen minutes, I asked about the kids and, once again, Bad Cop dismissed my request with a wave. The same request and hand-waving dismissal occurred several more times until I heard my, usually very unassertive, self say, ‘I need someone to pick up my kids now!’

  Good Cop and Bad Cop shared another look, this time clearly saying, She’s not going to shut up about those kids, and authorised me to use the phone. I called my brother-in-law Karl who only lived a few minutes away.

  ‘Why are they still here?’ Nick asked, suddenly furrowbrowed and pensive. I had switched the TV off, so I had his undivided attention.

  ‘The police just need to have a look around.’

  ‘Are we still going to the beach?’ Nick asked hopefully just as Karl walked in the front door.

  ‘No, darling, you and Lex are going to Uncle Karl’s place to play,’ I sa
id.

  ‘Can’t I stay here?’ Nick asked as Lexie wrapped clothes from our open suitcases around her body.

  ‘It’s going to take them a while, so I’m going help them,’ I said, trying to make it sound fun. Nick seemed to accept this. Karl ruffled Nick’s hair and scooped Lexie into his arms and walked out the front door.

  As he left, Nick turned back to me and, as if it was the most important thing in the world, said, ‘Mum, do you think you can ask them to find my Sensei Wu sword?’

  The search commenced downstairs in the converted garage/ Bermuda Triangle. Things vanished there, perhaps because of our messy/non-existent storage method, or because Patrick had unwisely labelled all our moving boxes ‘Bric-a-brac’. Items of interest, mainly army memorabilia as Patrick was in the Army Reserves, were tagged and laid out on the driveway; neighbours were suddenly compelled to stand on front verandahs and check letterboxes to get a better vantage point for quite possibly the most exciting event that had ever occurred on our leafy suburban street.

  The police videotaped the search. In front of the camera, they made clear, reasonable and professional statements. Away from the camera, some of them sidled up to me and in hushed, accusatory tones asked: ‘Where is the stash?’ ‘Where are the containers of machine guns?’

  Machine guns? Patrick was a registered gun owner, and hunted foxes and boars. He didn’t have a machine gun. He did have an online archery and camping store and, in the past, there’d been miscommunications with customs about permits and the like. I assumed it had something to do with that.

  Too shocked to speak, and with nothing to tell the police anyway, I stayed silent.

  So they changed tack: ‘Do you know what sort of man you’re married to? Do you have any idea about his secret life? What he gets up to in that little warehouse of his?’ As far as I knew, any spare time he had was spent with the kids or watching TV.

  I’d always empathised with detectives in those late night-crime shows, understanding how, in the pursuit of justice, they might get a little hot-headed or heavy handed. How they would need to stretch the truth to see what response doing so elicits. But this felt different. I was outnumbered and they were so big and convinced that Patrick was some kind of criminal mastermind.