A New Kind of Dreaming

by Anthony Eaton

  ‘You all right, mate?’

  Jamie tried to stand but his body wouldn’t let him and he slumped unsteadily back onto the dirt.

  ‘Shit! My head.’ It was spinning and aching all at once.

  ‘Had a couple, did you?’

  ‘Eh?’ It took a moment or two for Jamie to work out what the stranger meant. ‘Nah, nothin’ like that. Just . . .’ He wasn’t sure what had happened.

  ‘Here, give us a hand will you?’

  An outstretched hand grabbed his and yanked him easily to his feet, where he tottered unsteadily.

  Jamie shook his head in an effort to clear his vision. His ‘rescuer’ said nothing, simply watched in silence. Finally Jamie’s mind started to function properly again and he looked at the other man with a flash of recognition.

  ‘You’re Cameron.’

  ‘Yeah. Jamie isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Another silence.

  ‘I was out for my morning run when I noticed you lying here. You sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Really, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Well we’d better get a move on then. Gotta get ready for school.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  Cameron glanced at the silver sports watch on his wrist.

  ‘Just short of seven-thirty.’

  ‘Oh man!’

  ‘Yeah, I need to get home and shower. You look like you could do with one yourself.’

  The two of them started to walk towards town. Jamie cast a sideways glance at his companion. Cameron was a big guy. Not fat, muscular. He had the look of someone who did a lot of exercise – fit and in control. His sandy blond hair was messy and there were sweat stains down the back and sides of the tight blue running singlet that he wore.

  After a couple of minutes Jamie stopped and looked back along the beach at the derelict boat. In the bright morning sunlight it seemed much smaller. Cameron also stopped.

  ‘What’s up? You still okay?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s nothin’.’

  They continued in silence until Jamie spoke.

  ‘Listen, don’t feel like you have to walk with me or anythin’. I’ll be fine. Serious.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. You finish your run. Might see you at school, eh?’

  ‘All right.’ Cameron looked doubtful, but started a slow trot ahead of Jamie. He glanced back again, checking to see if Jamie was still on his feet, and then increased his pace and disappeared rapidly into the distance.

  seven

  It was another ten minutes before Jamie reached the outskirts of the township. He drew level with the first of the fibro bungalows and climbed up over the rocks and off the beach. It was almost eight, and the town was coming to life. A few cars whipped past, kicking up small clouds of dust as he trudged towards Archie’s. It didn’t matter to Jamie though, as his night on the sand had left him filthy.

  He tried to remember what had happened. He’d reached out and touched the boat, then there’d been a huge flash of light and everything went black. That was all he could recall. He had a vague recollection of some strange dreams, screams and shouts and gunshots, but no matter how hard he tried to get the images to crystallise in his mind, they remained elusive.

  While Jamie was lost in thought, another car cruised slowly past and pulled over to the curb ahead. He looked up – the police truck. It wasn’t Butcher who climbed out of the driver’s seat, though, but the young bloke, Robb.

  The cop retrieved his hat from the shelf behind the driver’s seat, placing it carefully on his head. Then without hurrying he walked across to Jamie. As usual, his uniform was immaculate. On the thick leather belt, his pistol was buttoned firmly into its holster, alongside a pair of handcuffs. He was chewing gum and wearing his mirrored glasses, hiding his eyes.

  ‘Been looking for you.’ His voice was soft. Much quieter than any cop Jamie had ever dealt with.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll see. Sarge wants a word.’

  ‘Why didn’t the Sarge find me himself, then?’

  ‘He’s busy. Get in.’ Robb gestured towards the truck.

  There wasn’t a lot Jamie could do. The last thing he needed was to get the police further offside. He shrugged and walked over to the passenger’s seat. Robb followed.

  Neither said a word in the truck. They were heading towards admin. Jamie tried to get a closer look at his companion, without making it too obvious. He threw a quick glance sideways but all he saw was the same expressionless face staring straight ahead through the windscreen. Before they rounded the last corner Robb slowed and wound down the window, admitting a blast of warm, dusty air into the air-conditioned cabin. He spat his gum into the dirt, then raised the window again, catching Jamie’s questioning expression as he did so.

  ‘Sarge doesn’t like chewing.’

  A small crowd of people were standing on the verandah. One was Butcher, obvious among the others because of his bulk. Jamie recognised a couple of faces from his meetings with Lorraine – people who worked in admin. The large cop detached himself from the group and strolled across to where Robb had parked.

  ‘Jesus, Robb! What’s he doing in the front? You think we put that cage on the back for the hell of it?’

  The constable said nothing, his face betraying no emotion.

  ‘What did I tell you before you left? Don’t trust the little bugger. Those were my exact words. Don’t trust him a bit, and what do you do? You let him ride up front where he could create all sorts of havoc. What if he’d made a grab for your gun? Eh?’

  ‘Hang on . . .’ Jamie started to protest, but Butcher cut him off, poking him hard in the chest with a single finger.

  ‘You shut your mouth. I’ll get to you in a second.’ He turned back to the young cop. ‘You’re an idiot sometimes, Robb. You know that? A total, bloody idiot.’

  ‘Sorry, Sarge.’

  ‘Sorry won’t cut it when I’m hosing your brains out of the inside of the truck son. Don’t let it happen again.’

  ‘Okay, Sarge.’

  That seemed to be the end for Robb, at least for the moment. Butcher turned his attention to Jamie.

  ‘Where were you last night?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Bullshit. I went round there as soon as I found out what had happened here. Archie reckons you wandered off ’bout two this morning. Where’d you find him, Robb?’

  The constable’s voice was level and emotionless, not like someone who’d just been given a public dressing down.

  ‘On Michaelson Street. Over near the beach.’

  ‘Long way from Archie’s. What were you up to over there?’

  ‘Nothin’. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Butcher didn’t comment. He gave Jamie a long, slow look up and down.

  ‘How’d you get so dirty?’

  ‘Fell asleep on the sand.’ There was no point lying, and besides, Jamie couldn’t think of a better excuse.

  ‘On the sand? Why not at home in your own bed, eh?’

  Jamie stayed mute. He wasn’t happy with the direction that this conversation was heading. Butcher grabbed his arm.

  ‘Come here.’

  He turned abruptly and walked across to the verandah, dragging Jamie in his wake. Jamie had only a second to cast a quick glance towards Robb, who was staring at something further up the highway. As he climbed the steps he could feel the eyes of the ten or fifteen people standing there following his every move. He smiled at the ones he knew, but no one smiled back.

  ‘What do you say to that, then?’ Butcher shoved him forward along the verandah a little.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t be cleve
r with me, son. The windows.’ There was menace in Butcher’s voice.

  Every window in both the admin building and the mining company office was smashed. There were shards of glass all over the place. Someone had swept out an area in front of the door, which was where everyone had gathered, but the rest of the verandah was covered with broken slivers glinting like diamonds in the morning sun.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘So where’d you get to last night? And don’t give me that bullshit about going for a walk.’

  His mind went blank. He could see exactly what Butcher was suggesting. Could feel the animosity radiating towards him from the crowd of people listening to every word. He wanted to protest, to defend himself, but he couldn’t come up with a coherent thought. In the end he simply told the truth.

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  Someone in the crowd gave a brief snort and there was murmuring. Jamie heard one voice swear. Butcher smiled – a glittering snake smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth. One eyebrow climbed almost imperceptibly above the other. He reached out and Jamie readied himself for a blow, but to his surprise the long, slender fingers simply came to rest lightly on his shoulder. Even through his tee-shirt, Jamie could feel the clamminess of the policeman’s hand.

  ‘Listen son, we all know you’ve had a hard time settling in and everything. Everyone here has heard about your little adventures back in the city. How about you just own up and we’ll get all this settled, eh? Don’t make any more trouble. How about it?’

  Jamie knew what he was being asked to do.

  ‘But . . .’

  Both the smile and the friendly hand vanished. Now Butcher gripped his shoulder, his fingers digging hard into the soft flesh. He turned his head slightly.

  ‘Robb!’

  The constable, who’d moved up onto the verandah, stepped forward.

  ‘Yeah, Sarge?’

  ‘Put him in the truck. The back this time.’

  Robb didn’t reply. Jamie started to protest.

  ‘Hang on . . .’

  ‘No, you hang on, son,’ interrupted Butcher. ‘I warned you when you got here to stay out of trouble. Not to piss anyone off. I thought I made my message pretty clear. Seems you’re a bit too thick to understand a friendly warning, though. You’re going back to the city and off to remand. God help me, I’ll see that happen even if I have to drive you to the prison gates myself. Put him in the truck, Robb.’

  Robb took Jamie’s arm.

  ‘Come on.’

  Deciding that for now he’d better just stay quiet and do as he was told, Jamie followed. Pulling a set of keys from his pocket, Robb unlocked the mesh gate of the lock-up cage.

  ‘Mind your head.’

  The cage was bare and dirty. There was nothing to sit on, just the steel floor. The door swung closed behind him with a solid clunk as the lock was driven home, and Jamie sank into a blue gloom as the morning sunlight penetrated the dirty tarpaulin cover. It was roasting hot. The truck was parked in direct sunlight and the covers kept any fresh air or breeze out of the cage; it was like being in an oven. Within seconds he was sweating rivers. Wide corrugated ridges ran the length of the metal floor, making it even less comfortable to sit on.

  It must have been at least fifteen minutes before Jamie heard voices coming towards him, and the front doors being opened and slammed. The engine started and the truck got under way. In the back, Jamie bounced around. There were no decent handholds and everything was slippery with dust. Each time the truck rounded a corner he tried to brace himself, but there was usually no warning, no way to tell which direction they were going to turn. Whoever was driving was taking the corners late and fast. The suspension was hard and Jamie felt every bump and corrugation in the road through the steel floor.

  It should have been only about two or three minutes to the police station, but they seemed to drive around for ages. The only relief was that the movement of the vehicle caused the tarpaulin covers to flap, moving some of the hot air around inside the cage.

  When they eventually pulled up, Jamie breathed a sigh of relief and readied himself to climb out. The cage didn’t open. Nobody came around to the back of the vehicle. Instead, Butcher’s disembodied voice floated in through the canvas.

  ‘Afraid we’ve only got the one lock-up cell here, and Constable McPherson’s sleeping off a hangover in there at the moment. Wouldn’t want to wake up a member of the force now, would we? You’ll have to wait out here for a bit. If you want anything, just give us a shout.’

  He laughed, and Jamie heard the crunch of footsteps retreating across gravel.

  ‘Hey!’ He yelled a couple of times, but Butcher and Robb had disappeared.

  The temperature climbed steadily. The rising sun heated the steel of the chassis, and in the cage Jamie cooked. His mouth was dry and he could feel his lips cracking. After an hour the first pangs of hunger gripped his stomach. Calling did no good – there was no response. Eventually, he stretched out on the hot, uneven steel floor.

  He began to drift in and out of consciousness as his thirst became more and more intense. He closed his eyes, tried to retreat into darkness, but found himself swimming in a blur of movement. A sudden, overpowering presence invaded him, swamping his mind with panic and fear. It was the feeling of Port Barren amplified a thousand times. He thought he heard a girl’s voice. It seemed to be coming from somewhere outside, but then as he sat up and looked around something seemed to shift, the air itself moved about him and the voice was inside the cage. He tried to reply, tried to speak back, but his voice refused to work. He didn’t understand what she was saying. He thought that his mind was playing tricks on him, and he concentrated on the words, but they remained elusive. Strange words in another language.

  A minute seemed like an hour, and an hour like a second. Without his watch Jamie had no way of knowing exactly how long he had been trapped, but the longer he was locked up the more insistent became the feeling that someone was in there with him. At one point, waking from a spell of thirst-induced unconsciousness, he was convinced that he’d felt a hand touch his cheek. But as his vision cleared there was no one there – nothing but dim, blue light seeping through the tarpaulin.

  Eventually he couldn’t take it any more. Jamie began to yell and scream, striking at the steel mesh of the cage with his fist again and again until a trickle of blood ran from his knuckles. He sucked at it, the salt taste running down the back of his throat, making his thirst even more fierce. Finally, mercifully, he passed out once more, this time into a deep sleep.

  ‘Get him out of there!’

  ‘Hurry up, Robb.’

  ‘I can’t believe you, Butcher! How could you do this to him? Don’t you ever learn?’

  ‘Calm down, Lorraine, he’ll live.’

  ‘He’d better. I’m telling you, if anything happens to this one . . .’

  ‘Are you threatening me, Lorraine?’

  ‘No. Not at all. It’s just not like last time. Remember that.’

  ‘I’d say you’re the one who needs to do some remembering . . .’

  Voices. Like sounds from a great distance away, floating down to where Jamie slept. Then a coolness, trickling against his skin, over his eyes. A sensation of being lifted, carried, then finally, total sleep.

  eight

  Jamie woke. The first thing he became aware of was the smell, clean and antiseptic. The light was blinding – a harsh, fluorescent white glare that seared the backs of his eyes. Slowly the brightness resolved itself into a white ceiling. It was cool – air-conditioned. He tried to sit up.

  ‘Steady.’ Lorraine was sitting a metre away on a tallbacked nursing chair.

  ‘What hap—’

  The bile rose in his throat, and Jamie rolled himself sidways, vomiting onto the floor next to the bed.


  ‘Shit!’

  The doctor, who’d been standing in the shadows, stepped forward.

  ‘It’s okay. Just lie down and relax.’

  He rested his hand briefly on Jamie’s forehead, then looked at Lorraine.

  ‘Still a little high. Not to worry though, it’s coming down.’ Glancing at the mess on the floor his nose wrinkled in distaste. ‘I’ll find a mop and a bucket and clean this up.’

  Lorraine stood up.

  ‘No, you’d better stay here with him. I’ll do it. Where do I look?’

  The doctor shrugged.

  ‘Try the utility cupboard at the end of the hall. I think that’s where they keep the cleaning gear.’

  Lorraine walked from the room, and the doctor, taking no further interest in his patient, sat down in the chair she’d just vacated, pulled a novel from his pocket, and started leafing through the pages. Jamie used the opportunity to try to work out where he was.

  It was sort of like a hospital room, but not really. He was lying in the only bed, made up with striped blue and white sheets, the initials GNMC stitched into the top corner near his shoulder. A drip ran into his arm, with a clear solution trickling slowly from the bag down the feeder tube.

  Lorraine returned, mop and bucket in hand, and busied herself alongside the bed.

  ‘Where am I?’ His voice sounded gravelly and scratchy. Strange, even to his own ears. Lorraine put the mop down and fetched him a glass of water from a sink over near the wall.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He sipped at it, the coppery taste tricking slowly down the back of his throat and settling in his stomach. It felt like there was sand under his eyelids.

  ‘You’re in the mining company nursing station. You know, the small prefab behind admin?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six-thirty in the evening. You’ve been asleep all afternoon.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I went around to the school to see you. Mr Scott told me you weren’t there, so I went to let Sergeant Butcher know. He told me about the windows.’