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 thescritch scritchof 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’scoming 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.
