Eleven Hundred Sand Dunes

by Helena Phillips

  Then, after three weeks of being bed-ridden, he was moved to an ordinary room in a two bed ward and began rehabilitation. It involved the usual sessions with a physio and also included some attention from a speech pathologist. This was stretching his tolerance when it came to interference. People were complaining about his grumpiness.

  He knew it was serious when his ever tolerant mother gave him a serve. It followed his first physio session. The therapist was a young girl fresh from university who, he decided, needed to push her weight around to show how much she knew. Her directions, one tiny step at a time, were intolerable. “Now Sandro, we’re going to get you out of bed. I’ve been getting to the bathroom for two days now. “Can you sit up for me please?” What does she think I’ve been doing? “Now we’re going to get you to lean forward Wow and I want you to tell me if you feel dizzy” No. Just nauseated. “We’re going to get you to stand up” Who’s this we? “One, two, three....” It was like he’d aged sixty years and been trapped in another zone. Silly girls being over nice were one of many pet hates. When he attempted to rise before she was ready, she gave him a disapproving look, and when he wouldn’t do it on her cue, she said, “Now then, Mr. Minke. You must wait until you are told.” After fifteen minutes of this, he lost it.

  “Will you get the fuck off me and let me try it first before you start telling me what I can and can’t do?”

  Ignoring the dark look from his mother, he began to stand up also ignoring the instructions. He grabbed hold of the walking frame just in time to prevent himself from toppling over. Sometimes, he managed to do this easily. How did balance suddenly disappear? The walking frame had the brakes on, so he sat down on it to get his bearings. Determined to try the crutches today, he tucked one under his arm while the physio attempted to tell him how to do it and was ignored. She returned to her spiel, but his was more powerful, and in the end she walked out of the room in a huff. The crutches were still there. He was attempting to place one under his good arm and was wondering how to make it work with his broken one when his Mum spoke her mind.

  “Sit down, Sandro. You’re making a fool of yourself and behaving badly.” Her voice was stern and allowed for no resistance. “That was a disgraceful performance,” she declared. “The poor, young girl was only doing her job, and now you’ve ruined her day.”

  His glare met her cool stare. Sandro dropped his eyes first, lifting them again to see Bridey standing in the doorway. Oh no. Now there’ll be two of them. It was hard to tell from her expression how much she’d heard, but it was embarrassing. Being told off by your Mum in front of your girlfriend, when you’re already feeling pretty useless, is a recipe for bad temper.

  “Don’t you even think about it,” he told her before she had taken two steps. Startled and mute, she stared at Gabriella who raised her eyebrows at Bridey, and the understanding look which passed between them set him off again. “Oh, why don’t you both go away and leave me alone.” He had refrained from swearing with difficulty. Ignoring their reactions, he grabbed the crutches again and pushed past Bridey trying to get a clear space to attempt walking with them. When his legs began to shake, Bridey made the mistake of pushing the walking frame towards him, and it was during the attempt to rid himself of it that his balance went and the fall was heavy. His mother pressed the buzzer, but it wasn’t answered for a while, and he had to sit on the floor in pain, broken leg tucked under him and his good arm trying to keep the weight off it. If I have done myself some more damage, I’ll kill myself. Fortunately, those words were in an inside voice because if they’d come out, he thought his mother might have slapped him, she was so angry.

  It hadn’t occurred to him how the weight of all this had impacted on these two important women in his life, but it was when his mother stepped over him taking her handbag with her, that the idea dawned. As the nurse sorted him out, Bridey went after Gabriella. They were both completely over him.

  It took three staff members to get him up and a lecture from the senior physio about attacking her staff to make him pull his head in, but it wasn’t without resentment. Couldn’t they see how hard this was; what he’d been through? What was wrong with the lot of them? They refused to put him back into bed to sulk. The senior physio insisted all her instructions be obeyed to the letter and had him walking down the corridor and back again, before she would relent. It was on the return journey that he saw his mother sitting in the waiting room, with Bridey patting her shoulder, crying. How many times in his life had he made his mother cry? Too many to count.

  That had been three days ago, and since then he’d been making an effort to behave. The speech work was the worst. It seemed his brain was searching around for how to link phrases together. Sometimes, he would shoot out a phrase like telling them to go away and leave him alone, at odd moments, and then the next time he tried to explain something it came out back to front and didn’t make sense. The frustration was unbearable.

  It had been days since Bridey had attempted to kiss him, or snuggle up, and he was cool with her in return. It seemed she saw it as her duty to come in all the time to visit, and he wished she wouldn’t. Her pity just made it worse. Her affection and attention were vital, but he couldn’t ask. Most of the time, she looked miserable. His mother was coming in less often this, the fourth, week. It felt like a punishment. The only thing to do was to try harder and get well sooner. Physically, that seemed to be working, and fortunately his pre accident fitness helped. Muscles began to respond as they were pushed. It was the mental stuff that didn’t work. You can’t talk something through with anyone if you literally can’t find the words. His mind knew them, but his voice wouldn’t speak them.

  One day, towards the end of week five, his discharge was announced. There was an audible sigh of relief. They had put a boot on the bad foot which meant walking with one crutch. While it was under the wrong arm for maximum support, he’d managed to make it work. Having been unconscious, the leg had continued to heal by itself and was well into the process by the time he left the hospital. The muscles had weakened, but it could bear some weight. Because of the double fracture, it was going to take another few weeks. His arm was also much improved, and fingers moved without pain although there was little strength in it. Balance was the biggest issue.

  Jarrod had been around with a couple of mates of Sandro’s and rearranged the town house to accommodate him on the ground floor. Unfortunately, the bathroom was upstairs, and while he could have cleaned his teeth at the kitchen or laundry sinks, the shower was upstairs. Before that became an issue, his mother and Jarrod and the hospital team all had insisted he go to Nunawading for the first week. Partly he was relieved. Independence battled with the thought of having a fall, or not showering for days, or trying to cook, and it all seemed overwhelming.

  On the night before the sentence was up, he lay in bed going through all this wondering about where things stood. For days, during the bad tempered stomping phase, the unconscious part of the whole experience seemed surreal, and he’d begun to think of it as a dream. None of the Caretakers had been to in to see him lately. If they had, their presence would have jolted him into thinking about all that had happened; but his perpetual tantrum prevented him from to doing anything about it spiritually. That was not his way.

  It was blustery weather, the day he left the hospital. After being interred for nearly five weeks, it hit him like a knife when he struggled out to the street where Jarrod waited with the car. Getting in was difficult. Getting out was much more complicated. And the time in between was spent attempting to acclimatise to noise, traffic racing everywhere, the latter being a surprising problem because he found he was reacting to everything coming anywhere near their car.

  Although it was good to see the girls, when they went home and out, respectively, that was a great relief. It was the first time he’d spent a night in this house since buying his own five years ago. Very strange. The bed was comfortable, and it wasn’t long before he was fast asleep. In the middle of the night, a ni
ghtmare woke him, and his heart was racing. Bridey was in danger. When he tried to call out, his voice wouldn’t work. He watched as a huge truck bore down on her squashing her flat. She was literally flat, like she’d been ironed. When he picked her up, it was like moving a large Real Estate sign. Every movement, with her under his arm, she swung around and hit something. His distress was about not being able to make anyone understand what had happened. They just ignored all efforts to get their attention, and because he couldn’t speak, people walked away. Consciousness returned amidst a huge sweat. Efforts to get out of bed brought back the broken leg and the accident, the hospital, the fact that he’d been a prick. There was nothing he could do about any of it.

  The next two hours were interminable. Thoughts of the future plagued him, circling like an eddy in a river, sucking him down into black helplessness.

  Then Flagran arrived. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Not doing so well, Bro?” His sympathy was undeserved. Choking back emotions, Sandro stared at him, thinking it was unbelievably good to have him there. “Still struggling with speech?”

  His head signalled numbly wondering if any flow might put it into words for him.

  “Time to make some plans, mate.”

  What on earth was the point of making plans? Nothing was clear ahead. How could they even consider working out what to do next?

  Flagran was unfazed. “At the end of next week, after you’ve got your breath back, Torrenclar and I would like to take you away for some rehab.” That didn’t sound like the sort of trip to anticipate with delight. There’d been plenty of experiences where being rehabilitated, by Torrenclar in particular, had left him smarting. He was such a supercilious bastard. Knew everything. Thought he was king pin. But of course Flagran thought otherwise. “The Source has decided we can transport, since we have no drivers in the party.” What did he mean the party?

  “Bridey needs to come too. We’re also going to bring Josh; if we can tear him away from the luscious Ruby.” He grinned. “So, it’s all sorted. In about ten days, after you get your balance around the house. We’ll be camping.”

  “What!”

  “All part of the rehab, Caretaker style.”

  “What’ll we do for equipment?” The words flowed for a change. Must have been the shock!

  “There’s a great camping shop where we’re going. You’re rich. You can buy everything you need there. Anyway, you’ll need most of it for the Simpson.”

  Sandro stared at him gob smacked. How did he think they were going to get all that stuff back to Melbourne? Surely he can’t be serious about them still doing the desert trip. But there was one part which drew him in. If Bridey came, maybe it would give them a chance to sort stuff out. Maybe camping, even with a cripple, might put her mind at rest that he was getting better.

  “What’s the rehab bit?”

  Flagran grinned again, his hair standing on end. “That’s going to be the fun bit, Sandro. You’ll love it.”

  The whole idea, alarming and stupid as it sounded, had his heart racing with excitement. It sounded better than hanging around here. “Where are we going Flagran?”

  “Mallacoota.”

  ***

  But when the idea was put to Bridey, she had a number of serious and sound objections.

  “Flagran, it’s the middle of winter! You can’t go camping in the middle of winter to a beach. It’ll be freezing. Sandro will be struggling to walk. What’s the point of going to a beach when he’s got plaster all over him? It’s not as though he can swim.”

  “He’ll have his arm free by next week. We’ll have a continuous fire. We’ll make shelter. We’ll be right.” The Caretaker was quite serious, and this confirmed Bridey’s suspicions that he was mad.

  “I have to work.”

  “You have time to give them notice you won’t be around for a week. See if you can pick up some extra shifts over the next three days. You’ll sort it out. When’s your next set of interviews?”

  Bridey considered all this. There was something appealing about it. In fact, there were lots of things about it that appealed. She wasn’t sure it was sane behaviour, but then the Caretakers were always stepping over obstacles and around normal boundaries. The idea of spending some time with both Torrenclar and Flagran without all the hassle of hospital visits really appealed.

  The light in Josh’s eyes made it clear to everyone he was in. But first he had to okay it with Sandro to miss some school. Bridey and Josh made their way to Nunawading station together to sort out some details. Jarrod picked them up. Clearly, he thought the whole idea mad and made every attempt to get them to see reason. They had to tell him that friends were taking them up and would be looking after Sandro. This of course was true, but only in essence, because Jarrod definitely gained the idea that friends of Sandro’s were driving them up and camping with them.

  “In the middle of winter, Bridey? You’re mad. You’ll freeze. It’ll rain, and you’ll be stuck in a tent with a grumpy old bastard who can hardly walk, for days. You’ll hate it.”

  Josh sitting in the back of the car kept his thoughts to himself.

  ***

  Sandro

  Left alone with them out in the back room with a gas outdoor heater filling the area with a warm, cosy glow, Sandro tried to wrap his mind around the picture Jarrod had painted for Bridey. The obvious. His eager enthusiasm for the project overrode all objections. There had to be a way through this. At least there would be time together to sort out what was happening between them. Bridey was sitting over there, cool and calm and distant. He wanted her to come to him, but she didn’t.

  Sandro and Josh had agreed to spend time together on class work the boy would be missing; had already missed. Josh coming along was an important, in fact vital part of the plan. It would take the pressure off Bridey to do all the human stuff by herself, and it would give Sandro the opportunity to nut out what might be going on in the boy’s head. He seemed quieter, less bounce. Hopefully, he wouldn’t just decide his teacher wasn’t tough enough, limping along and not putting two words together without them falling apart.

  They began to sort out how to transport the essentials. The humans would wear layers of warm clothes and carry large packs because the weight wouldn’t be an issue. Their biggest challenge was how to look normal on their arrival with the owners of the caravan park. It became clear they had to have a vehicle, and neither Josh nor Bridey could drive.

  “You got your learner’s Josh?”

  “As if.”

  “Well, you’ll need it for the Simpson trip. There’s mostly long roads, to say nothing of eleven hundred sand dunes. We’ll need some other drivers.” Josh hugged himself. This was going in the right direction.

  “I’ll book you in for when we get back from Mallacoota. Thousands of k’s will do your log book for you. You’ll have to focus on driving in traffic around Melbourne after the Simpson. When’s your birthday?”

  “May next year.” Josh was almost speechless with happiness.

  “It’ll be all cool for your eighteenth then.”

  Josh’s driving career settled, he turned to Bridey. “How come you’ve never got your license, Bridey?” She considered this. “Living in Melbourne, I haven’t needed it. Have never had either the money or anyone to teach me, or any possibility of anything to drive.” She looked agitated, and he guessed she wouldn’t want him to start taking over her life again. They’d only just got that sorted before the accident and now, because of the need to get back on top of life, there was a danger he might slip into bossy mode.

  Treading carefully, he asked, “Could you afford to buy a learner’s permit? That is if you wanted one.” The danger here was she might misinterpret this. But she didn’t seem to be thrown by that.

  “I’ve got no idea how much they cost?”

  “Would you like to learn to drive?”

  “I’ve been thinking about how useful it would have been, still would be, for weeks now.” She smiled at him. “Would you like to te
ach me?’

  “Bridey, I would love to do lots of things with you.”

  Josh groaned. “Can we get back to the trip?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “How to…” Oh God no. It’s happening again. “How to…drive stuff…get it there…” They were staring at him willing the words out. Shutting his eyes, he focussed on what he wanted to say until he had a sentence worked out. Then he practiced it inside. It came out like this: “Place to bus. Hire drive.” There was nothing they could do. Bridey was determined not to attempt to help, and Josh was curious rather than anxious. Bridey left the room. It was mortifying.

  She returned about five minutes later to announce she was staying the night and Josh had been invited to sleep there too. “Then we can make plans tomorrow when you’re less tired.” She attempted to gauge how he was taking this. Inside him, two things were wrestling with each other. Perhaps she might share my bed. And. Hopefully, I won’t have to perform.

  Josh was keen. A moment later Jarrod appeared to invite him for a game of pool, and they went off together. “What would you like, Sandro?” Bridey asked shyly.

  He said, “You.”

  Gabriella knocked on the door before entering saying “I imagine you would like to be in the same room so I’ve put a towel on Sandro’s bed for you, Bridey. How about we get you both into it? If that’s the plan?” His mother had been quite distant with him since his homecoming. Now, she avoided eye contact while she was organising things. If they could have had a talk, it might have helped. But she came over to him, bent down and kissed him saying “Tired sweetheart?” He squeezed her hand feeling very choked.

  By the time they’d made it into bed, Sandro was exhausted. Bridey tentatively moved in close, and he stiffened. But, as she stroked him gently and lay with her body against his side for about five minutes, her warmth settled him. Then she kissed him on the cheek and rolled over leaving him with his thoughts which probably lasted about three minutes.