I nod with my eyes closed.
‘Yeah, that doesn’t look good,’ Westie says, from somewhere a bit further away. I hear the snip of scissors, then everything sounds further away as the dressing is pulled off my skin. My hands clutch the sides of the bed.
Amie’s speaking with this fast authoritative voice, now. ‘Mark, could you please go down to the admin desk and say we need the charge nurse to come here straightaway? Like, immediately? Thanks.’ She lays something over my hips, covering me, before squeezing my hand. ‘Harris, you look pretty sick, mate.’
‘I…’ Nausea barrels into me. ‘There was a fight…’
‘Sure,’ Amie says. ‘But the site of your surgery is really inflamed. The charge nurse is going to examine you, all right?’
I can’t stop shivering. ‘It was hurting at the pub.’
‘I’ll bet it was hurting for a while before that, too, am I right? It’s gonna be okay. It’s good you came in.’
Amie scoots around as another lady arrives to stand on the other side of me, and they start talking. Amie’s doing a lot of nodding, which makes me seasick. I roll sideways suddenly – there’s a quick movement as someone slips a bucket near my head close enough for me to hurl. My stomach cramps and the smell of regurgitated booze makes me gag and retch again. My hair is pulled back gently off my face.
‘Well, he’s clearly got cellulitis all up that thigh, but let me have a look first,’ the other lady says, and Amie wipes my face with a damp cloth as I groan back onto the bed.
‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Hey.’ Somehow the sound of her voice helps me settle. ‘Harris, it’s okay. You’ve had a bit to drink, so it’s probably better out than in.’
‘At the Five Flags.’ I breathe slowly through the shudders.
‘How’d you end up at the pub, Harris?’
‘Ah, I jus’…’ I wave a hand, but she’s asked the right question. She’s pinpointed exactly where this whole night started. ‘I jus’ couldn’t deal with Dad, y’know?’
She’s looking right into my eyes, nodding. Her face looks very sad and soft. ‘So you decided to go, was that it?’
‘Yeah. I crutched it to the Flags –’
‘You walked all the way there?’ She glances across at the nurse, back to me. ‘Wow. That’s, what, about eight kay?’
‘Yeah.’ I snort, raise my eyebrows with my eyes closed, remembering. ‘Yeah, s’a fair way…’
‘Did you have sore arms after that?’
‘Sure… My armpits got pretty sore…’
‘You must’ve really needed that drink,’ she says drily.
‘Hah, yeah. Ow.’ Something’s going on with my leg, the charge nurse is doing something painful. ‘Hey, whatcha –’
‘Harris.’ Amie’s fingers on my chin draw my face back around. ‘Look up at me here, that’s it. So what happened at the pub? You got into a blue with someone?’
‘Yeah…’ The pain in my leg makes it hard to focus. ‘Um, yeah, well, I was jus’ talkin’ to Snowie. His mate…’
‘His mate belted you, did he?’
‘Snowie, he’s –’ Lancing heat shoots up my thigh. My hand jerks towards my leg, what’s going on there.
Amie reels it back. ‘Tell me about Snowie,’ she says.
I have to concentrate to talk. ‘He’s…he’s visiting home and he’s…he’s talkin’ about some work maybe. Asks me if I can handle myself and I say yeah, and Ando says…Ando says he’ll be the man to find out.’
‘Right,’ Amie says, her eyes narrowing. ‘So did he?’
‘Did he what?’ I gasp, catch my breath, keep my gaze on Amie.
‘Did Ando find out if you could handle yourself?’ she asks patiently, clasping my wrist, nodding for me to go on like she really wants to hear the end of the story.
