Blue-and-red lights swirling over a windscreen white-out, and the siren sounds exactly like the guitar feedback loop on an Arctic Monkeys track.
Through it all, the haze of people talking, people moving, people’s breath in my face, my own hair in my mouth, the rancid taste of vomit and a blur of fast noise –
‘…gethimouttathe…’
‘…just easy now…’
‘…transfer, but Mildura won’t…’
– and a constant slow thump in my head, like the heavy beat of night-club bass. I’d like it to shut up now, but it doesn’t. It can’t, although I’ve got no fucking idea how I know this.
‘…lift him up and onto a trolley…’
‘…two, three – that’s it, nice and…’
‘…stabilised, if you’ll take…’
Firm hands hold me steady so I don’t tip. Sense of movement, the ka-chunk of wheels over bumps in the floor. Reverb travels up my bum and back, through the rest of me, so I vibrate into the bed I’m lying on. Then – the glare, the whiteness. Those lights, thrown right in your face.
‘…get them off and have a look, don’t…’
‘…wait for Doctor McGaven? He’s only just arrived, so…’
‘…keep pressure on, gimme the scissors…’
Sudden draught on my skin. It travels up from ankle to shin to thigh – my thigh, fuck – so fast I don’t realise I’m cold until the gooseflesh rises. Now everything hurts, hurts bad, the pain in my leg like a crosscut saw on bone. Fighting against it forces my mouth open. I hear a long lowing moan somewhere far away, like bulls roaring for food, lost love, the end of fences, the open road –
‘…his arms in, Nick, for god’s sake!’
‘…holding him, I’m holding him, just cut off the…’
‘…theatre’s clear, if you want to do a CT we should…’
‘Wait!’ someone says. ‘I know him! I know him. Just let me get in there.’
Sight returns without warning and there’s a face above me. Dark eyes, white teeth, brown skin, pulled-back hair a little frizzed from sweat and effort. The girl smiles at me, smooths my forehead.
‘Harris! Hey, Harris, it’s okay. You’re all right, yeah? You’re gonna be fine.’ Something red smeared on the girl’s face, near her cheekbone. She swipes at it with the back of one gloved hand. ‘It’s okay, mate. We’ve got you.’
My lips, swollen and gummed-up, move to no effect. Words are so dry they won’t come.
‘Shh, don’t try to talk yet,’ the girl says. ‘We’re gonna go to sleep now, okay? Just watch my face, that’s it. We’re gonna have a rest. Watch me count – ten, nine, eight, seven…’
Her nose is strong and her bottom lip is full. I got no idea who she is. Her lip is round and powerful and pillowy. I stare at it, sink into it, sink back like I’m falling, clouds soaking me up, all the noise, all the blood, calm and quiet and soft and –
*
Me and Rachel are on a bright white beach, someplace the air is really soft. Sand trickles between my toes. The moon is still out, in that way it sometimes is in real life, hanging up in the blue sky like half a Jatz cracker. I’m playing with Rachel’s hair, and she’s letting me…
I wake up to the smell of Tang.
Tang is this fluoro-orange powder you stir with water into something that’s supposed to taste like juice. What it actually tastes like is Fanta that’s gone flat in the bottle, if you let the bottle sit in a hot car all day. The powder has a bitter chemical graininess. Mix it up with vodka and it’s almost bearable.
We used to go into Five Mile for immediate needs – bread, milk, tobacco, baked beans, eggs – and there’d be half a dozen dusty packets of Tang sitting next to the antacids. For years I thought it was some special thing they used to stock for the exclusive use of my father. Later, I realised I was right. Nobody will drink that shit except my dad.
Which means I know straightaway who’s breathing on me, even if the voice isn’t already too familiar.
‘Harris. Harris, come on, mate.’
I try to ignore the jet-fuel burn of vodka and Tang. Go back to the beach dream.
‘Harris, wake up. Get up.’
Throat’s so parched I can’t even make the obvious response, Get fucked.
He flicks my face with the backs of his fingers.
If there’s one thing my dad excels at, it’s being a pain in the arse. He can be a pain in the arse all fucking day, not even break a sweat.
He keeps flicking.
‘Harris, we’re gonna get you outta here, mate. Hospital’s no place for you.’ He leans closer, whispering. ‘I know we’ve had our disagreements, son, but we can discuss that later.’
I don’t know what he’s talking about for a second. Then it comes back to me, like an ice-water drench. I groan, shift my head.
‘That’s it, boy. Wakey wakey. Coppers already gimme your bag, with your stuff from the Watts place. Just crack open those eyes and we’re outta here –’
There’s a mechanical hiss, a shuffle, and I feel how the air in the room has shifted. Someone else in here now. A large someone, I reckon.
‘Hands off, if you don’t mind, Mr Derwent.’ A large voice, for a large someone. Female. Full-throated and brassy. A Bette Midler voice.
‘He’s me son.’ Dad’s got that narky tone. Automatic Defensive Aggro mode. ‘Do what I like with me own son.’
‘Not really, no. He’s on the ward, so he’s my responsibility at the moment.’
Bette, I bloody love you. Did you ever know that you’re my hero?
‘I was waking him up,’ Dad says. ‘He’s been sleeping for ages –’
‘He’s recovering from the anaesthetic,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘He’s only just out of surgery, he’s in no shape to be getting up. Leave him be, Mr Derwent.’
Bette moves nearby. I hear the scritch scritch of chafing polyester. The wheeze in her breathing. She must be right beside me, her quilted padding against my dad’s barbed wire.
‘Come on, Dennis,’ she says. ‘Your boy’s not going anywhere. Look at him, eh? Come on out of the ward, I’ll find you a coffee. You can have a smoke out in the ambulance bay. No more trying to wake him, or I’ll have to ask less nicely, okay?’
More scritching, the shuffle of shoes on lino, taking the smell of Tang away. Herding my father towards the door, please god.
‘I just wanted him to see me. Know I’m here and stuff…’ and bullshit bullshit bullshit, Dad lays it on like this all the way out. I stop listening after the first bit.
The door hisses shut and I’m in the clear. I can prise my eyes open for a peek around.
Hard to tell what time it is, but I’m gonna say night. The lights are dim. Everything in the gloomy room is powder blue – a dilapidated shade of blue, like Mr Metcalfe’s old ute. Now Dad’s gone, the smell of antiseptic slices its way up into my nostrils.
My eyes remember how to focus. A privacy curtain is pulled aside to my right. Two other shadowed beds lie empty. The vent blows air-con cold, the sheet over me is starched, and I’m not wearing a shirt. I don’t think I’m wearing jocks, either.
I must be on some cool drugs, because I feel okay. I mean, not fighting fit or nothing, but I don’t feel too bad. About as good as you can feel lying in a hospital bed without your jocks.
My gaze runs down to the humped shape over my left leg.
I make my hand – the one without the IV tubing stuck in it – work enough to flick the sheet up. Catch sight of my Betadine-yellow leg, the cage over it. The sickly gleam of plastic that’s coming out of my skin, Jesus Christ.
I finally figure it out.
I am not okay. This is not a dream. I got shot. I’m in hospital, just out of surgery. Rachel’s gone. I’m back in the country, back in Ouyen, flat on my back, at my father’s mercy.
I’m fucked.
Well and truly.