Chapter 30
WHEN I tried to move, my shoulder screamed with pain. Actually, I screamed with pain as well. My forehead throbbed and felt sticky, and when I touched it with my good hand it came away bloody. I was strangely calm; whenever there wasn’t anything really wrong with me I tended to panic and overact, but it seemed in the face of real injury I was remarkably resilient. I knew head wounds tended to bleed freely even if only a small one, so I was more concerned about the arm.
Trying not to move it as much as possible, I pulled myself upright with my good arm. It was like being in The Poseidon Adventure, although my car was sideways rather than upside down. I was going to have to get out through the driver window, which currently resembled a sun roof. My bag was lying at my feet, and I looped it around my neck and began wriggling out of the window, using my good shoulder to latch onto the opposite side of the roof and pull myself out.
I could hear voices above me. It turned out that people coming from the opposite direction had seen my car veer off the road, and they had stopped to investigate. An ambulance and the police had already been called, and my good Samaritans hoisted me out of the ditch and up onto the bitumen of the road.
By the time the ambulance arrived, the police had already breathalysed me; my three or four sips of champagne barely registered, and I was cleared to go to the hospital.
I felt stupid that an ambulance had been called as my injuries weren’t that extreme, but as the officers explained, I couldn’t drive because of my shoulder, and the minor fact of my car presently lying at an angle in a deep ditch. So I meekly hopped into the back and lay down on the stretcher; one of the ambos cleaned the blood from my head, immobilised my arm and applied a couple of stitches to stem the bleeding.
In the lobby of the emergency room at the hospital, I knew it would be a while before I was seen by a doctor. It was Saturday night, and although the night was still young, the department was full. I was glad I hadn’t been injured a couple of hours later, or else I would have been here until Monday. I rang Roger’s mobile; it was Fran who picked up.
“Well?” she answered happily. “Can you put Declan on to say hi?”
“Uh, I don’t want you to panic, but I’m at the Austin.”
“He put you in hospital?” she screamed.
It was then I realised that she had had a little too much to drink. “Get a grip, Fran. Put Roger on.”
Even though Roger was more sober, he was still Roger. “Declan beat you up?”
“Is there anybody with a working brain still with you guys?” I asked, exasperated.
“We’re home already.”
“Already?”
“We were bored without you. Why are you in the hospital?”
“I didn’t even make it to the Docklands. I ran off the road in Fairfield. I think my car is totalled.”
Roger snorted. “About time somebody put it out of its misery.”
“Thanks, Rog.”
All of a sudden, he kick-started into panic. “Oh fuck, you really are in hospital! We’re on our way!”
“Don’t worry about it! I don’t want you to even think of driving!” That was all I needed.
“We’ll catch a taxi.”
“I’m serious. I’m fine.”
“Shut up. We’re coming.”
There was no further argument, because he hung up on me, and I knew it was useless to try and call back. I sat back, waiting for my name to be called out, and tried to shut out everybody else in the waiting room by concentrating on the blaring television above my head.
“BROKEN collarbone,” the doctor told me.
“Is that it?” I asked, disappointed. “It hurts like hell!”
The doctor shrugged. “It’s still a broken bone.”
“I was hoping it would be something I could sucker more sympathy for. I mean, it’s the kind of injury a kid gets at a rollerskating birthday party.”
He grinned. “You’re covered in blood from your scalp wound. That might get you something.”
I winced as he fitted the sling over the opposite shoulder to the fractured one and manoeuvred my arm into it. “So I have to wear this thing for four weeks?”
“At least,” he looked up. “Looks like your friends are here.”
I turned, expecting to see Roger and Fran.
Declan was standing in the small sliver of light coming from the curtain surrounding my bed.
This was… interesting.
I swallowed heavily. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he replied, his tone neutral.
“The nurse will get your paperwork,” the doctor said, and he moved off to the next patient.
I wanted him to stay, because I had no idea what to say to Declan. Except the obvious question; the only question I could think of.
“How did you know?”
“Roger called me in a panic. He made it sound as if you were at death’s door.”
“He’s a panic merchant, and he’s drunk. So he’s prone to hyperbole.”
“I came down here, expecting to find you in a coma.”
I tried to bite down on the anger rising in me. “Is that the only way you would talk to me? If you thought I couldn’t answer back?”
Declan’s hands were defensively positioned on his hips as he towered over me. “Jesus, Simon. I came here because I was worried. And now I’m wondering if it was all just a ploy to get me down here to finally see you.”
Even he must have known how ridiculous it sounded. “Yeah, I trashed my car on Yarra Boulevard and paid this doctor off to give me a sling just to get you to finally return my calls.” I picked up my jacket and jumped off the bed, ignoring the sudden spinning of the room.
“Where are you going?” Declan demanded.
“To get the paperwork.”
“He said the nurse would bring it. Sit down.”
“Piss off,” I told him.
“Real mature.”
“Look who’s talking.”
He suddenly leaned across me and easily picked me up and placed me back on the bed. What was most amazing was how he managed to avoid my shoulder so it didn’t hurt. My pride was, though.
“I’ll go and look for the paperwork. Stay there.”
I could only sit and fume as he disappeared. I couldn’t even turn on my mobile and find out where Fran and Roger were as we were in the emergency department and urban legend reliably informed me I could make somebody’s heart explode if I did so.
Declan came back and handed me some paperwork in a clipboard. I took it and started to fill it in.
“How long would it have taken?” I asked.
“What?”
“For you to talk to me.”
He rubbed his hands against his face. “I don’t know.”
“If you’d just listened to me—”
“Yeah, well, that’s always the problem, isn’t it? We never listen to each other.”
“I was on my way to see you.”
He looked at me, and I thought I saw a softening of his features finally. “Yeah?”
“Lisa and Abe told me that you almost came to the festival.”
“I thought about it.”
“Would you have let me in, if I had made it to your place?”
He avoided the question. “Have you finished the paperwork?”
I tried to reach for his hand, but he pulled it away. “You say we don’t listen, well, sometimes we don’t talk either.”
Declan looked at his watch, and my anger grew.
“Do you have to be somewhere, Declan?”
“No.”
I thought when he turned up here, that it meant he was willing to try and sort things out. But he was closed off, distant. I suddenly found myself wishing he had never come.
“Won’t your boyfriend be wondering where you are?”
Declan looked surprised. “What boyfriend?”
“That’d be right,” I said snarkily. “You’ve had so many recently, you probably don’t even know which one I’m talking about.”
“The guys in the paper?” Dec scoffed. “You know what it’s like. I can’t even ask a guy the time without them speculating over whether I’m fucking him. They’ve published photos of me with my brother-in-law, possible new recruits for the team I’ve been involved in trying out. Even the bloody broadband guy when he came out to fix the cable in the apartment!”
“What, so it’s the closeted ex, then?”
“You can be a real prick when you want to be.”
“Tonight, you’re making me one!” I cried. “Why did you come here? Why haven’t you released a statement saying we’ve broken up? Why haven’t you even told me if we have or not? Why can’t you talk to me now?”
His lips were white, they were so taut. “I just can’t handle it right now.”
I pushed it. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“No.”
“Oh.” I was relieved, but I still didn’t know what it meant for me. “Well, I’m not either.”
“I didn’t ask if you were,” he said coldly.
“Oh.” It was obvious he still wanted to punish me. I couldn’t blame him, but I wondered when I would finally pay enough so that he could get past it.
Declan sighed. “Jesus, Simon.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he thought better of it. Without another word, he began to walk off. He stopped only a few feet off, turned back halfway, but before our eyes met he was off again.
I should have run after him, made him talk to me some more, or force him to say anything just to keep him there. But I was so tired. The meds were kicking in, and my knees were rubbery. I shuffled over to the nurses’ desk and handed in my paperwork.
Discharged, I pushed through the emergency department doors and sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room. All I could do was stare at the white walls before me. My arm was now throbbing painfully, and any kind of movement in my face made me aware of the torn skin rubbing against the stitching holding it together. I think I would have cried if I hadn’t known the damage it could cause, and stoicism won out.
I felt a hand upon my good shoulder. I looked up to see Fran and Roger staring sympathetically at me.
“We saw Declan in the distance, leaving,” Fran said, confused. “He didn’t stay?”
I shook my head.
“He sounded panicked on the phone when I called him,” Roger said.
“Well, he had obviously had a huge change in temperament when he saw I was okay.”
“Was it wrong for me to call him?” Roger asked worriedly.
“No,” I reassured him. “I just… still don’t know what’s going on.”
“Sorry we took so long. It was ages waiting for a taxi,” Fran told me. “But Declan didn’t offer to drive you home?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“That bastard,” Roger fumed, looking as if he was going to go and hunt him down and bring him back.
“He’s not the bastard,” I said. “I am.”
Fran and Roger immediately started trying to assure me I wasn’t, but I shook their protestations off. “Can you please just take me home?”
They flanked me as we walked out into the cold night air to wait for another taxi. But as we sat in the rank a familiar SUV pulled up and Dec jumped out with the engine still running. By that stage the drugs were making me feel like I was flying, and I was pretty sure I was imagining it until he hovered over me and said, “Can I give you guys a lift?”