by Chris Hammer
Martin gives up, walks over to the office alone, feeling himself swaying a little. In the gloom, he misjudges one of the steps leading up to the office, trips, almost falls. Inside, the office smells of extinguished candle, incense and more earthy odours. Jay Jay is leaning against her desk, drinking.
‘You want a beer?’ she asks. ‘Colder than the ones down there.’
‘Sure,’ says Martin, accepting a bottle. ‘Okay to make that call?’
‘Go for your life. Not international, right?’
‘No. Local. I just need my phone to check the number.’
Jay Jay hands over the phone. Martin finds Montifore’s number, makes the call.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Martin Scarsden.’
‘Martin.’
‘Just a moment.’ Martin turns to Jay Jay, who is putting his phone in the drawer of her desk. ‘I’ll lock up after I’m done, if you like.’
Jay Jay casts a quick eye over her office. Clearly, she doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t blame her. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Slam the door behind you.’ She points up towards one corner of the ceiling. ‘Security camera. It’s recording.’
Martin nods his understanding then turns his attention back to the phone. ‘Morris, you still there?’
‘I am.’
‘I found the witness. I think she’ll talk to you. Can you assure her that she won’t be arrested?’
‘What for?’
‘Visa fraud.’
‘Has she already applied?’
‘No. She has the form signed and ready to go, but she hasn’t submitted it.’
‘In that case, I can assure her she won’t be charged, provided she doesn’t submit the paperwork. But I need to see it.’
‘I understand. I’m going to try to convince her to talk to you on the phone first, anonymously. Are you okay with that?’
‘Anonymously?’
‘As a first step. So you can persuade her to go on the record, hand over the paperwork.’
‘Okay, sure. Failing that, just get the form.’
Martin wonders if the policeman is suggesting he steal it, decides to ignore the idea. ‘I’ll get back to you.’
At the fire, the party has stepped up another notch, the music louder, the flames higher. A few more people have wandered down from their campsites. There’s maybe two dozen now, mainly backpackers, plus a few older couples in their thirties. The same teenage couple Martin recalls from the beach are dancing together, as if trying to meld into each other. Martin is relieved to see he’s not the oldest person there; some hippies in their fifties or sixties are standing in a group, swaying to the music, watching the dancers and passing around a huge reefer. The smell of dope is rich, mixing with the sea air, the music, the noise of laughter and talking. People are entering the moment, letting their worries go and their inhibitions fall. Martin sees it, hears it, wonders if he could ever be so relaxed as to experience it.
Then Topaz is next to him, pulling him over to dance with her. She sways close. He’s about to push away, to withdraw, when he sees Garth McGrath glaring, eyes lit with anger. Martin can’t help himself; he starts dancing.
It leaves him hot, sweating in the still evening. He drinks more beer and some punch. He’s exhausted. Exhilarated.
The swami is sitting cross-legged, lotus-like, with a huge grin on his face, his bare belly shimmering in the firelight. Opposite him, a pretty young girl with blonde hair has replicated the position. She holds her hands out, palms upwards, and the swami is tracing patterns gently across them with the tips of his middle and forefinger. He reaches out, touches her forehead. She opens her eyes, beaming. He has a large Coke bottle by his side. He pours a couple of nips into a plastic cup and hands it to her. She smiles her gratitude and stands, taking the plastic cup with her. She’s replaced by an old hippie woman with pendulous breasts.
‘What’s that?’ Martin asks Topaz.
‘Huh? What?’
‘The swami. He’s dispensing.’ Martin laughs. ‘Let’s get some.’
‘Fuck that,’ says Topaz.
‘Your loss.’
Martin looks into the guru’s eyes. They are like deep pools, profound and inscrutable. He closes his own eyes, feels a surge as if some tide has him, is carrying him with it.
Then he and Topaz are dancing again, and the pretty young blonde and the old hippies and McGrath and the Polynesian girl and the teenage lovers. Later, there’s a memory of swimming, of stars so bright they hurt his eyes, stars so alive they dance in time with the music. And the taste of a kiss, sweet and treacherous.
chapter nineteen
Martin dreams. A bee, buzzing, yellow and black, circling his head. It wants to tell him something; something important. The buzzing is words, but he can’t make them out, it’s the wrong language, he regrets not paying attention in school. Now the bee is growing bigger and bigger, too heavy to fly. It lands, its furry coat turning shiny as it transforms into a car, shimmering gold with black stripes. Jasper’s car. Now he’s inside, Jasper is driving, excited, declaring the car is amphibious. And it is: they’re driving in the water, down the Argyle. They’re laughing. Through the rear window Martin can see Scotty waterskiing, towed by the car, and he wants a turn. Then it’s Mandy behind the wheel, Jasper and Scotty have gone, and the mood changes. They’re heading towards the sandbar, the deadly surf. He tries to warn her, but she’s not listening. Liam is sleeping in the back, buckled into his booster seat. He can’t swim! Martin panics, grabs the wheel, yanking at it, trying to reach the secret beach and safety. The wheel comes off in his hand. Dread washes through him. Now he’s alone in the car, not Jasper’s car, his own. It’s limping along Dunes Road, exhaust scraping on the road. In the rear-view mirror he sees a car approaching, blue and red lights flashing. He pushes on the accelerator as hard as he can, but there is no response. He looks down; the foot pedals have fallen out the bottom of the car onto the road. He looks in the mirror; the approaching vehicle is no longer a police car. It’s going too fast, it’s going to rear end him. He’s helpless. It’s going to kill him.
Martin wakes. A mosquito is buzzing around his ear, but he feels unable to move. His eyes are sticky, his vision blurry. Sunlight is stabbing at him like blades, jabbing him into wakefulness. His mouth is dry, and he feels hot, too hot; he’s slept too long. His limbs are stiff, parts of him ache. Where is he? The bed is unfamiliar, the smells strange, the room unknown. The caravan park? No. What’s that sound, that distant beat? Waves? Shit, he’s at Hummingbird Beach. He eases himself into a sitting position. There’s a glass of water beside the bed; he gulps it down. A wave of nausea catches him unawares, his stomach revolting against the water. It’s all he can do to avoid vomiting. More parts of his far-flung body start reporting for duty. He pulls back the sheet, looks down: his arms and chest are covered in mosquito bites, itching and inflamed the moment he sees them. His legs start complaining. He pulls the sheet away altogether. He’s naked. His knees are grazed, already scabbing with dried blood. How did that happen? Now his head joins the orchestra of complaint, the lead instrument: a pulsating throb consolidating and intensifying, a scalpel inserted behind his left eye, a sickening pain in the back of his neck. He closes his eyes, trying to calm himself, to will away the pain and nausea, but it does nothing to ease his affliction. Instead he starts shaking, trembling involuntarily. He feels like he’s been fed through a machine and extruded.
He tries to stand, can’t maintain the posture, sits back down again. Shit. He can’t stand; he can barely think. What sort of hangover is this? Nothing like he’s ever experienced. He remembers the previous night clearly enough up until a point, dancing on the beach, but then his recollections grow disjointed. Swimming in the ocean. Snogging. Snogging whom? And then no memories at all. Nothing.
He looks down at himself, realises again that he’s naked. Where are his clothes? He looks around. No sign. What does he do now? He needs to move, he knows that, but just the thought of standing sends a new wave
of nausea crashing through him. His left knee is oozing blood. He lifts his arms, exciting his excruciating neck. His elbows are also grazed, but he can’t hear them; the rest of the orchestra is too loud. Christ, the swami and his jungle juice. It started going downhill after that, his memory increasingly frayed and tattered. Shit. Naked. He reaches down, feels his crotch. Sticky. He smells his hand. Christ.
Topaz staggers into the room, light shattering through the doorway, her hair a mess, her face fragmented by emotion, a towel wrapped around her. ‘You,’ she says.
Martin can’t talk, just nods.
‘Move over,’ she says, crawling onto the bed next to him, lying face down. The towel falls from her; she’s also naked, back scraped and bruised.
‘Jesus,’ says Martin, able to articulate at last.
‘Did we?’ asks Topaz.
‘I can’t remember. I think I did with someone, but it’s a black hole. I can’t remember a thing.’
‘You too, then.’ Her voice is a whisper, hoarse and quiet.
Martin tries to ease himself up, feels sick again, stifles a cough.
‘Go and puke,’ says Topaz. ‘Get it out of you. If there’s anything left. Drink water, as much as you can.’
‘Can I borrow your towel?’
‘Goddamn,’ she says, but rolls over, freeing the towel. Martin sees hickies on her neck, touches his own neck, feels something there. He hopes it’s a mosquito bite. He touches his cheek, the top of his jaw, the bruise that Harry the Lad gave him. Compared to the rest of him, it feels fine.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks.
The question triggers tears, washing into her eyes. She shakes her head, no longer able to speak. Martin’s eyes sweep down her naked body, not excited by her nudity or tantalised by her breasts but horrified by the bruises on her thighs. Had he done that? Was he capable of that? Surely not.
He gets upright, still unsteady on his feet, holds her towel unconvincingly over his genitals. He makes the door, but the sunlight ignites the full dynamic range of the orchestra, kettle drums crashing, and he rushes off the steps, just getting clear before vomiting, towel thrown aside, not a thread of clothes, not a fibre of dignity. He throws up over and over, well beyond the point where there is anything left to expel, yet still he retches, until his throat burns with residual acid and his stomach muscles cramp.
Eventually he stands. Topaz is at the door to the cabin. ‘Here.’ She tosses him a plastic bottle of water. He bends to retrieve it, the blood rushing to his head and stepping up the pressure, the orchestra thundering its discordant refrain. He rinses his mouth, gargles, spits the water out, then tries to stomach a few gulps. The water feels wonderful as he swallows, but there is still revolution in his innards.
‘Someone gave you a good work-out,’ says Topaz. ‘Hope it wasn’t me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your arse is red raw.’
Martin looks at her in shock. Tentatively he passes a hand behind him. She’s right, his buttocks are sore to the touch, as if he has been beaten. A nightmare thought comes to mind; he threads his hand through his legs, touches his anus, feels a rush of relief when there is no pain, no blood on his fingers. It didn’t happen, but it could have.
‘Now you know how we feel,’ says Topaz, her eyes full of contempt.
‘What the fuck did they give us?’
‘I thought it was eccies. That’s what the others said.’
‘Not to me.’
‘No one forced you to take it.’
‘No one forced you, either.’
They stare at each other for a moment, but Martin is incapable of confrontation. ‘So what was it then?’ he asks.
Topaz shakes her head. ‘Fuck knows. Eccies for sure. And that other shit. Rohies.’
‘Rohypnol?’ The date rape drug. Known to reduce inhibitions, notorious for blacking out memories. He thinks she’s right. ‘Have you ever had it before?’ he asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘And yeah. Same memory loss.’
‘Shit,’ says Martin. Suddenly, as if self-awareness is coming back in stages, he realises he’s standing there naked. He picks up the towel, wraps it around his waist.
‘Wondered when you’d remember that,’ says Topaz, a faded smile on her lips.
‘What now?’ asks Martin.
‘Can you drive?’
He blinks at the suggestion of re-entering the world. ‘Not yet.’ He takes another tentative swig of water. ‘But soon. If I have to. Why?’
‘We should go to the hospital.’
‘You want to see Royce?’
‘I do,’ she says. She blinks away another tear. ‘And I want to take every antibiotic and antiviral known to man. You should too.’
Martin looks out across the beach. There are a few people about, but the morning is silent, kangaroos grazing, birds quiet, only the metronome of the waves keeping time. So much for paradise.
They don’t leave for another two hours. The first is spent lying on the bed, drinking water, dozing, slowly surfacing. Topaz has painkillers: ibuprofen, paracetamol, codeine, aspirin. Martin swallows two of each, relieved when they stay down. The second hour is lost finding his clothes, scattered down on the beach near the remains of the fire. His wallet—credit cards and cash intact—is miraculously still in his pants pocket. They eat toast and bananas and drink milk in the communal kitchen, and normality starts washing back.
‘I feel like complete shit,’ he says to the room in general, to the other three or four people present. But they just shrug, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Martin recognises some of them from the previous evening, before the blackout. They were there, partying with everyone else. Yet this morning they look fine. He watches as a couple, laughing congenially together, head out down to the beach and into the water. Martin looks at Topaz, wonders if she has noticed: not everyone has been affected the same way. They’re just about to leave when Garth McGrath enters, walking on tiptoes as if the ground is covered in glass shards. One look at his face is enough: it’s saying what they feel. He’s unshaven, eyes red, face pallid under his tan, his t-shirt on back to front.
‘You too?’ asks Martin.
‘What?’
‘Last night. I can’t remember the last part of the night.’
McGrath looks at him, unsteady on his feet, emotions unsteady across his face. He nods. ‘Yeah. Me too.’
‘Has it happened before? You’ve been here a lot longer than us.’
He shakes his head. ‘No. Never like this.’
They sit in momentary silence.
McGrath speaks again. ‘Sometimes it’s just grog and dope. Sometimes something more, in the punch. But it’s always been good. Fun. Not like this. Not losing my memory.’ He looks like he’s about to cry. He runs his hand up through his lustrous TV-star hair, his knuckles bruised and flecked with dried blood. ‘Do you think they did it to me on purpose?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Drugged me. Did you see a photographer?’
Martin and Topaz exchange a look. Neither bothers to respond.
‘I think they set me up,’ mutters the soap star.
Topaz stands, walks slowly up to McGrath. ‘I woke up in your bed,’ she says, voice knife sharp.
‘Right,’ says McGrath, at first confused, then a smile begins breaking across his face. It doesn’t get far. Topaz punches him once in the guts, abruptly. The celebrity doubles over, heaving, only just making it out onto the grass.
‘C’mon,’ says Topaz, ‘let’s go.’
They leave the kitchen, the actor staring after them like a kicked dog.
‘Look,’ says Martin, gesturing with a nod. The swami is sitting in a lotus position, surrounded by a circle of his followers, their eyes closed. He’s solemn and tranquil; the followers seem serene. Topaz looks at them with loathing.
‘His potion. Did you drink any?’
‘No,’ says Topaz. ‘Not that I remember.’
Almost too late Martin remembers his phone. Jay Jay isn’t at the office, but a young man is minding the shop. Martin’s phone is on the desk waiting for him, and his car keys have been handed in. They’re on the desk, next to his phone. What else has he forgotten?
‘Topaz, the paperwork. Can we take it?’
‘You really want to do that now?’
‘I do.’
She responds with an acidic smile. ‘Sure. Let’s get one back on the fuckers.’
The drive towards Port Silver is silent until Martin’s phone starts shaking and chirping as they approach the caravan park, back in mobile range. He pulls off to the left, into the drive to Hartigan’s, not far before the road reaches the bridge. There is a flurry of texts from Mandy. At first, they’re encouraging. Take care. So lucky to have you. And then they’re routine. Cooking. How long? and, Eating now. Will leave some. And then worried: R U OKAY? and, Going to bed. Please tell me u OK. There’s one from Montifore sent that morning: Any progress? And another: Where are you? Need to talk. And finally, from Mandy: WTF? Where r u? Police coming.
‘Shit,’ says Martin. The police. The caravan park’s entry is right there, on the other side of Dunes Road. ‘This won’t take a minute,’ he says to Topaz.
Mandy is waiting, standing on the steps to the cabin, clutching her phone as if she is willing it to communicate with him, to lure him back.
He drives right up, pulls over next to her.
Her face is fragile, a tremor in her voice. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Long story. What’s happened?’
‘The police are coming. They want to interview me again.’ She looks shaken, as if she’s had her own night of excess.
‘Why? What do they want?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Does Winifred know?’
‘No. She’s waiting there for me.’
‘Why didn’t you drive in?’
‘They told me not to. I was waiting for you.’ Her eyes drift to the car, to Topaz in the front seat.