In Sickness, in Health ... and in Jail by Mel Jacob

Author:Mel Jacob
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-07-29T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

‘We’ve been through this,’ I said wearily. ‘I can’t have another baby because Dad’s in jail.’

All Lexie wanted for her birthday was a baby. Her preference was for a sister but she would be willing to settle, she said, for a boy.

‘You do remember how babies are made?’ I prompted. After endless questions and my vague, wishy-washy answers, I had finally relented and bought the book Where Did I Come From?

‘You do the sex,’ she enthused.

‘Yes, so even if I wanted another baby’—and I needed a newborn baby like I needed a hole in the head)—‘I couldn’t make one on my own, could I?’ In New South Wales inmates are not entitled to conjugal visits and, on top of that, Patrick had had a vasectomy.

Lexie paused, tilted her head to the side and rubbed her fingers along her chin, like a wizened old professor. It was so adorable, and so incongruous, on a five-year-old girl wearing rainbow leggings and a crowned-kitten T-shirt. ‘Do you think Dad would mind if you made a baby without him?’

‘I don’t think he’d be all that thrilled, Lex.’

‘Because I was thinking that you could just find another man, do the sex, and then, when you’ve got the baby, you can get rid of him. You don’t have to be married, you know. Aunty Fiona isn’t married and she had a baby.’

‘I’m quite aware of how babies are made, Lex, but I have too much on my plate to have another baby.’

‘What plate?’

‘Never mind.’

I couldn’t give Lexie what she wanted for her birthday but I could give her the next best thing—a visit with her dad. In the first year of Patrick’s sentence, Lexie’s birthday fell on Good Friday, and Mannus Correctional Centre advertised that it was open for visitors on public holidays. Lexie knew that she couldn’t take her birthday presents into the prison to show Patrick, but a visit was all she wanted, apart from a baby or a cat.

All plans were in place. I secretly bought, assembled and hid Lexie’s bike, made and froze the birthday cake, and booked a house in Tumbarumba for the long weekend visit. Then a week prior to the visit, when I called to make a booking for a friend, the receptionist informed me that the centre would not be open on Good Friday.

‘The visiting hours on the website say you’re open on public holidays,’ I said.

‘We haven’t opened on public holidays for years,’ she said.

I was disappointed, Lexie was disappointed, and I was determined that, whatever happened, I was not about to be manipulated into getting a cat or having a baby. So, having limited experience with the prison system and being a little slow on the uptake, I did something very, very foolish and asked to speak to the manager. I’d found this strategy to be very effective in the outside world. I’d introduce myself, tell a joke, explain the broken-hearted daughter/ birthday situation and appeal to the person’s good nature.

I anticipated a friendly chat with

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