‘All right.’
‘Did he hurt his neck?’
‘I don’t know, Jim, he was fuckin’ set about by eight blokes. He’s lucky to be alive, if he is, I don’t know.’
‘What about his legs, back? Do you know anything?’
‘Look.’ I bent down and flicked on the Zippo at Scotty’s face.
‘FFFFUCK!’ Jim lifted him up under the arms. ‘Take his legs, Kerry, we have to get him to hospital, now.’
I stood rooted to the spot by the shocking sight of Jim trying to drag a limp, lifeless Scotty.
‘TAKE HIS FUCKING LEGS!’
We moved him back to the car. I stayed in the back seat with him. Jim told me to keep Scotty’s head up, then he hit the gas like he did on the dirt track on the way to the waterhole. I would have given anything to be back there now, before it all went wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
I LOOKED IN the mirror above the washbasin in the hospital toilet and surveyed the damage to my face for the first time. My left eye was closing up and my brow swollen and cut, pressing down on it. My top lip was all puffed out like I’d just had plastic surgery, and cut inside from where my tooth went through the gum. I had a tooth mark in my forehead from the headbutt, half a tooth chipped, and my left cheek looked so swollen and felt so big that it didn’t feel as though it belonged to me. Above the bridge of my nose as it met my forehead was an enormous egg, which was bruising already. And my hand was swollen to the point that I couldn’t see my knuckles; my thumb stood out at a right angle, clearly broken or dislocated.
I lifted my top to see if my ribs were bruised; they were OK, but it was hard to breathe in or out without pain down my left side.
I was thirsty and starting to feel nauseous. I should have been repulsed by the sight of my face, I should have felt utter revulsion for myself and the mess I had got us into, but a part of me liked what I saw; it felt and looked like a fitting punishment for all my behaviour, not just that evening, but for ever. I now looked on the outside how I had always felt on the inside. Ugly, and fucked up.
I waited along with an assortment of injured people in a seated area in Coffs Harbour A & E. I waited with Karin, who Jim had organised to sit with me while he registered Scotty himself, in a bid to keep us separate and not attract any police attention, just in case. Jim sat in the next section of seating, staring ahead. People looked at my face whenever they thought I couldn’t see them. I felt hard. I was the only facial injury in the waiting room. Someone had a bloody towel on top of their head, but other than that, it seemed to be mostly relatives of the injured, and a few hand and leg casualties.
While we waited for news of Scotty, I imagined the accidents that had brought those other patients here. Despite how pleasing feeling hard was after my beating, now that I was safe again, I would have traded my disgraceful incident for any of the innocent accidents that sat around me.
‘I just want to ask him how he is,’ I said again, for the fourth time.
Karin shook her head.
‘I don’t know what to say. Is he all right?’
‘Leave him for now, it’s best. We’ll talk later. Let’s just get through this, OK?’
That was it. It was all over with the group and me. I’d fucked that all up, and now Karin was this expert wife of Jim’s, and I was taking polite orders from the Danish.
I focused on a checklist poster for hepatitis on the wall next to the water machine opposite, to distract me from my anxiety. I mentally ticked four out of six of the symptoms, and then decided to bury the information. Next, I tried to piece together what had happened from our arrival in Port Macquarie. Of course, there was the bar down by the harbour that we all went to soon after arriving. I remembered Jim ordering food – I thought they all had prawns – but I was sure Scotty and I had nothing. Small patches of detail were coming through, and I didn’t want to ask Karin quite yet, didn’t want to weaken my position even further.
What fucking position is that, Kerry? I asked myself, in one of my most sober moments of the last few days, as I returned to the hepatitis checklist.
‘Mr Crown. Mr James Crown?’ shouted a doctor with a clipboard. Jim jumped up and disappeared behind a curtain with him. Karin and I both let out a big breath through our noses at the same time. We waited for about five minutes, and then Jim came back out and gestured to Karin to meet him at the end of the corridor.
‘Stay there, I’ll be back soon, OK?’ she said.
Jesus, I felt like a convict and she was my parole officer. It annoyed the hell out of me to have that soapy-clean fuck telling me what to do. My remorse and temporary meekness seemed to be turning into anger and resentment as usual. Then I was disappointed at my knowing that I was angry and resentful but not being able to change it. My head was buzzing and all my thoughts were racy and weird; it made me think of my report card at school, which was the same every year: ‘Kerry is her own worst enemy’.
I needed to get away from my head; I needed to know that Scotty was all right, then get away, face my come-down alone, then start again in a few days. I’d give myself a few days to patch everything up, then I’d make my apologies and leave them, before they asked me to leave. I’d then find my mother and get better.
I got up and headed for Scotty’s cubicle before Jim and Karin came back.
He was conscious, which was an enormous relief, but the sight of his mashed-up face made tears well up in me again.
A nurse swept back the curtain. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked officiously.
I had to stop myself from saying, Yeah, I’m fuckin’ lost, and thought this was the toilet. ‘We were staying in the same backpackers’ a few nights ago, I saw him in here and just wanted to, you know, see he was OK?’
‘It’s a wonder you recognised him, poor guy.’
‘Well, I didn’t.’
She searched my face suspiciously, and then I remembered I’d been beaten up and that’s probably why she was searching my face.
‘I know his friend outside from a’ – I desperately tried to think of a respectable, happy-go-lucky travelling-around-Australia activity – ‘from a parachute jump.’
‘Well, you won’t be doing any of that for a while by the looks of things. What happened?’ She opened some swabs and wiped Scotty’s ear. His eyes were sleepy, fighting against closing.
‘I was really stupid and went surfing at night, when I had too much to drink.’
She raised both her eyebrows.
‘And smashed into the rocks.’
‘Yeah, you won’t be the first pom to do that.’
I tried to smile, a sideways smile from the less swollen side of my face, which immediately felt entirely inappropriate.
‘What rocks are they? The surf’s kinda flat tonight, isn’t it?’
I really couldn’t deal with a Miss Marple at this juncture. ‘Not at Scotty’s Head, it’s not.’
Scotty moved a little in response. The nurse wasn’t to know that I could lie and bullshit my way through anything.
‘Anthony has to rest now, he’s in quite a bit of pain I should imagine, and I’ve given him a shot.’
I stroked his hand, which was puffed out and bleeding across the knuckles, then stroked his forearm instead. ‘Yes, sorry, I’ll just be a second.’
She hurried around, tidying stuff away, and wheeled a trolley back in from outside the curtain before leaving. I bent down close to Scotty’s OK ear. I had to clutch my side to hold the bend.
‘Scotty,’ I whispered. He grunted. ‘Fuck, Scotty, I’m so sorry, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.’
He swallowed and nodded slowly. I kissed him on the side of his face. He was trying to say something. I stood up, looking for his mouth to produce something audible.
‘You fuckin’ …’ He was breathless between each word.
‘Don’t say anything, just get better. Please.’ I moved a piece of hair back off his forehead.
‘Came … back.’
‘What?�
� I didn’t quite understand him.
‘You came back for me, mate.’
They felt like the saddest words I had ever heard. Scotty tried to smile, which broke my heart. My head dropped down, and I sobbed.
‘I’ll see you soon, Scotty,’ I said, grabbing some plasters and disinfectant wipes on the way out.
Karin had her arm round Jim in the hospital corridor as they drank from paper cups, just like in all movie hospital scenes. She rubbed his back as I approached.
‘Where are you going now?’ Jim was near boiling point. He hadn’t looked at me since we got in the car at the roadside. He scared me like this; I didn’t know how he was going to react. I’ve always been afraid of simmerers, you just don’t know where you are with them.
‘To get some air. I had a quick look in.’
‘For fuck’s sake, nobody saw you, did they?’
‘No, don’t worry, I just looked quickly.’
Karin said, ‘It’s just we’ll have to fill in an accident form and we don’t want the police finding out that you’re together. Otherwise, there will be big problems for you both—’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I cut the Danish off; she was annoying me with her new high rank.
‘He’s got, eh, how do you say it? Semi-conscious problem?’ said Karin, struggling with her wording.
‘Concussion,’ said Jim, looking at the ground, swirling the dregs of his coffee round in the cup.
‘Yeah, thought so,’ I said.
‘Broken jaw, broken nose, broken teeth.’ Jim read out his injuries like a shopping list. ‘He’s going to need stitches in his ear, his head, his mouth.’ Karin stroked him again when he boomed out ‘mouth’. ‘And he’s got a small stab wound in his chest, inches from his heart and lungs.’ Then he looked at me for the first time in ages, his suntan completely gone. ‘He was very, very lucky.’
It was only a matter of time before someone mentioned luck. He looked away again, which I was glad of.
‘I’m angry at you both, Kerry.’ He looked up again, and sighed. ‘I can’t very well bollock Scotty, can I? I want to know what happened up there, but I think you should just go and sort yourself out for now.’
‘Sure,’ I said, very much the told-off child.
‘Bloody take a look at yourself, for Christ’s sake.’ Jim looked ashen.
‘You had better go back and see the nurse, otherwise you’ll miss your place,’ said Karin, trying to force a flat-lined smile.
‘I’m not seeing the nurse. I’ll cope – and it’s better anyway, because of the police. What did you say about Scotty?’
‘That he was attacked in Coffs Harbour and mugged.’ Karin was doing all the answering now. ‘You need to see a doctor, Kerry. What about your ribs?’
‘What are they gonna do, anyway, uh?’ I felt like a total delinquent as I walked out of the hospital. Karin ran after me. We pushed open the double swing doors of the entrance. I winced with pain as I pushed into them.
‘Kerry, please stay here with us, no more trouble, please. Jim is like this because he’s very worried, there’s stuff about him I will tell you later, or maybe he will. He’s like this just now because it’s his way of coping.’
I stood listening to her, full of irrational hatred for her and everything she stood for, which so far had only ever been nice and boring; even though I knew what she was saying was right, I just hated it so much that she had jumped in at the waterhole and I hadn’t. That’s why we were both here at this moment.
‘You really need medical attention, please, go back inside.’
‘Where are you staying?’ I asked, like a robot.
‘You don’t remember?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘We were in the backpackers’ in Macksville, but we thought it best if we moved here tonight. Andrea has checked us into the Shore caravan park, she is waiting there.’
I walked away.
‘Where are you going?’ she called after me.
‘Nearest bar. I’ll wait for you there,’ I said, without turning round.
‘Kerry?’ she called. But I just kept on walking.
I went into a small bar I’d found a couple of hundred yards down the road, and walked straight into the toilet, keeping my head down so as not to freak everybody out. I pulled out the medical stuff I’d taken from the nurse’s trolley, and began fixing myself up as best I could. I wiped the cuts above my eye and head with the antiseptic stuff, and used the one plaster for the tiny tooth hole in my head, which I sealed first with strips of ready-made stitches that I didn’t realise I’d taken. I also used them above my eye, which made me feel like a boxer. At least I didn’t have blood all over my face now. I put water on my hair in an attempt to make it look a bit better. I could do nothing about the blood all over my T-shirt, however; I would just have to live with that.
My options were extremely limited and I was always dependent on others due to my lack of money, which made storming out of places for dramatic effect rather pointless. I pulled up my top again to check on my ribs, but there was no change. There was little you could do for cracked or broken ribs, anyhow. I knew that much from a time when I persuaded a nutcase friend of mine to let a couple of Algerian guys buy us dinner, then do a runner when they were paying. My friend got caught and they beat her up and broke her ribs.
I would check my suspected cracked or broken ribs again in the morning. Meanwhile, I could go back to the caravan park and wait with Andrea, or ask Jim where my wallet was. I didn’t want to do either of these, so I had no option but to do the Tampax machine fixed to the wall to the right of the mirror. So I did.
I bought some cigarettes from another machine, put three songs for one dollar on the jukebox and pulled out a stool. There were only a couple of old guys in the bar, and a rough-looking woman drinking alone. But they all looked at me.
‘Car accident,’ I said, looking at the barman.
‘Strewth, you all right?’
In all the time I’d been in Australia, this was my first ‘strewth’.
‘Yeah, but one of my friends is hurt. That’s who I’m waiting for just now. Some of them are back at the hospital with him; they’ll come and get me. I had to get away, hate hospitals.’
‘I’m with you there, love,’ said the barman.
‘Yeah.’ I didn’t want to make small talk for long, I wanted to have a smoke, one drink to straighten myself, and listen to some music, and try and figure out what had happened after the waterhole.
‘Have a drink on the house, love.’ The barman was warm and kind, and I felt guilty for raiding his Tampax machine. I felt guilt piled on top of guilt, and couldn’t afford to sink down any further, so I had a word to myself to justify my actions: after all, it wasn’t his Tampax machine, his Tampax, or his money in it. Just like it was not my fault that the bar we got beat up in was full of a bunch of small-town retards. After all, it’s not the law of the land that if you remove your clothes on a stage to a musical accompaniment, you deserve to get a complete kicking, and your friend has to get battered to within an inch of his life.
I ordered a whisky and Coke just in time for some other shit to finish on the jukebox, to make way for my excellent choices. I dragged slowly on my cigarette, listening to The Moody Blues’ ‘Nights In White Satin’. The music, the drink and the atmosphere of the bar changed me. I began to enjoy the way my wounds felt. I started to feel heroic with them, and almost sexy. Everything felt slow motion as I dragged on, and the song built.
Sitting at the bar, smoking out of my swollen hand and listening to the music, I felt like this was an ending, but of what I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I had just given up. I found it so hard to change. I changed people, houses, jobs and countries but nothing ever changed inside. All I knew was, I could live like that, right here at the bar, living it all out in my head, in this state for ever. Now I realised what it was that had drawn me to Mac – he was how I would turn out. It was like looking into the fucking future. Maybe one day I would live above a small b
ar and own nothing but a pyramid of lighters. Then one night I’d just fall over, fall asleep and never wake up, really easily, like that.
I couldn’t taste the alcohol in the Coke; I had reached new levels of immunity to drunkenness. I wondered what would actually stop me from going the extra mile this time, and decided, if anything, it would definitely be sleep, but I was dreading what would come after sleep. I ordered another whisky and Coke but made it a double, which was just about all I could afford, and could only stretch to that because the barman had given me a free one. My second song came on; I turned around to make sure that no one else was infecting the jukebox. Santana’s ‘Samba Pati’ began and I raised my glass to the fucked-up woman at the opposite side of the bar, because she’d been grinning at me like a loon the whole time. I felt unreachable and untouchable again. If I ever woke up after this, I would get my things from the van, take a portfolio, and hitch to Brisbane and find my mother. She would be like Joyce Cane, and I’d live there with her, and start again, the madness finally leaving me.
Some car keys landed on the bar next to me.
‘Let’s have a look at you, then,’ said a Germanic voice behind me. I turned round slowly, taking the room with me. It was Anaya.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
‘WOW, WHAT A mess, uh?’ she said, taking her time, enjoying the shocked look on my face.
‘What’s going on, why are you here?’ I raised my hand for a moment to fix my hair, but dropped it again, deciding that in the circumstances it would be ridiculous.
She clicked her fingers, got the barman’s attention, ordered herself a beer and helped herself to one of my cigarettes. She lit up, sucked in on it for ages before exhaling, then rested it between her fingers and looked all over my face.
‘I didn’t order you a drink because I think I have a lot of catching up to do.’ She gulped her VB as soon as it arrived, drinking half of it. ‘I drove so fucking fast.’
The Naked Drinking Club Page 25