by Jock Serong
The doctor had another man helping him: a younger man who came in after him, who Roya thought might be his son because he spoke to him with a tone that fathers use, telling him to hold this and pass him that. Then the doctor spoke to Tim, counted to three and rolled him onto his side. He took a pair of scissors and cut a line up the leg of Tim’s shorts so that his bottom appeared. Quickly he produced a small syringe and stuck the needle into the big muscle. The man didn’t flinch at all. He must be in a lot of pain if that didn’t hurt, thought Roya.
‘Tetanus booster,’ said the doctor to Tim. ‘We’re nearly ready to go now.’
She found herself squeezing Hamid’s hand as she worried for Tim.
‘Did you get his weight?’ he asked his son.
‘Eighty,’ he replied.
‘Is that right Tim, eighty?’
‘Yep,’ came the answer, clipped. Roya could hear the pain in it.
The doctor had a pen and he jotted down some numbers on the back of his other hand. Next, he found a larger syringe in the big plastic tub, and a little glass jar. He was reading the label on the tiny jar when Isi came into the tent. Her eyes immediately darted to Roya.
‘Neil, there’s people outside who want to see you.’
‘What do they want?’ He was fighting to keep his concentration.
‘They’ve got a boy who’s been stung by something. Wasp, probably.’
‘Look, tell them to fuck off, will you? For Christ’s sake…’
‘Just passing it on.’
He sighed, rubbed his eyes. ‘Where on the boat did you keep the surgical box?’ he asked her abruptly.
‘In a cupboard in my cabin,’ said Isi, puzzled.
‘Locked?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Who has the key?’
‘Just me and Joel. Why?’
‘Because your ten mils of ketamine is down to six mils.’ He held the little jar up to her eyes. ‘Good times, huh?’
She sighed. ‘Can I do anything?’
‘Not unless you’ve got some more IV fluids hiding somewhere. I used your supply on the two old blokes with dysentery, and the coconut routine’s not exactly gold standard.’ He paused. ‘Actually, you can do something. Find me some music. An MP3 player or whatever, and some headphones.’
While she was gone, Roya watched him unwrap the syringe and spike its needle into the top of the miniature jar. Clear fluid filled the syringe as he drew back the plunger. Twice he held it up and studied the fine black lines marked across it, until he was happy that he had the right amount. By then, the little jar was empty. He laid the syringe on the cling film and busied himself checking the coconut and its plastic tube.
‘Is the water boiled?’ he said to his son. The son peeled back a flap of the tent and looked out.
‘I think so.’
‘Don’t think. Go and check. Bring it in here if it’s boiled.’
He was moving faster now. He was talking faster. The minutes were rushing inwards. Roya squeezed Hamid’s hand again. She knew it was good that they were helping the man with the terrible leg, but she wished they would help Hamid. He was not all right. The sweating had made his hair limp and heavy. It fell back from his forehead, framing his face. He lifted one hand to his head and ran the fingers lightly over the swelling, his eyes searching for hers, fixing, detaching.
Isi returned with the headphones. They were the ones she’d seen on Carl, before when he was angry. She also had a small shiny object that Roya guessed was the MP3 player. The doctor didn’t look up.
‘Why the music?’ she asked.
‘Ketamine causes nasty hallucinations. There’s a theory that familiar music helps moderate the effect. Put the headphones on him and find him something he likes that’s going to last about forty minutes.’
Isi darted around to Tim’s head and carefully placed the cups over his ears. She scrolled through the player, reading names to him until he picked one he liked. Roya heard the music leaking faintly from the headphones. The doctor was rubbing his gloved hand over the surface of the shattered foot, frowning as he did so.
‘Have a look at this,’ the surgeon said quietly to Isi. She joined him, hovering over the foot. He ran his hand over the flesh again, and Roya could hear it was making a strange crackling sound, a sound she’d never heard human skin make.
‘What’s that?’ asked Isi.
‘Clostridium. Gas gangrene. You could go your whole life in city practice and not see it. Breakdown of tissues under the skin releases gases. Can you smell it?’
Roya could smell it. That was the sick-making smell.
‘Why are you showing me this?’ asked Isi.
‘I want you to understand’—he shot a look at Tim, who had the headphones over his ears and was staring straight upwards—‘how serious this is.’ Finley was sweating. Roya watched him quietly and saw the fear in his eyes, the struggle to contain it.
Now the son came back with the pot of boiling water. Roya didn’t dare move, sitting behind the doctor’s back, unnoticed. She watched as he tore open some little paper squares and took out what looked to Roya like tiny tissues. He rubbed these all over the foot and up the leg. He pulled disposable gloves onto his hands. She knew these from the clinic at home. He pressed a button on his watch and it beeped. Then he took up the syringe and slid the needle into the crook of Tim’s elbow, taped it in position and slowly pressed the plunger.
‘Grab that tequila and pour it over my hands,’ he said to his son. The golden fluid splashed from the gloves to the floor of the tent. Roya felt even sicker as the chemical smell wafted over her.
‘Now go round to his head and hold his jaw forward. It’ll go slack in a sec, and I want you to support it. Use a pistol grip and you’ll find his pulse under your fingers. Tell me if the pulse changes. You understand?’
The son said something Roya didn’t catch. The mingling smells of the alcohol and the sick leg were making her dizzy.
Hamid was still breathing softly beside them, his eyes fixed on the far wall of the tent. Roya was always in trouble for being unable to sit still. Now she would sit still. Now she would stay and wait for as long as it took.
MIDDAY, WEDNESDAY
Canberra
Cassius exploded like some sort of missile, out of his office and along a known trajectory towards his chief of staff’s. People scuttled out of the way as he went.
‘Kevin you fuc—’
He was most of the way into the office before he realised Kevin Waldron was on the phone. Waldron held up a hand, sober as a Methodist, to silence his boss while he finished the conversation: a succession of abrupt yes and no replies. In the handful of months they’d been paired to each other, this empty man had deployed an arsenal of physical gestures to keep Cassius at bay, and it infuriated him.
Unhurried, Waldron replaced the receiver when he was done. Touched a finger to the bridge of his glasses. ‘Minister.’
‘Kevin, who the hell runs this office? Me or you?’
Waldron looked momentarily nonplussed, then recovered. ‘It’s a technical distinction, but I do. You run the ministry and I run the office that runs the ministry.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Why?’
‘Because someone’s changed all the social media passwords.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I did.’
Cassius raised his hands impotently. ‘Why?’
‘We want everyone on message. I can have all the comms co-ordinated for you so you don’t need to worry about “is this today’s talking points?” and so on.’
‘Who’s “we” Kevin?’
‘The PMO, delegating to me. Relax, Cassius, it’s only until Saturday, then the pressure’s off.’
Cassius turned to leave, turned back and tried to stare through the light reflected on Waldron’s glasses. ‘I’m not going to have my independence compromised…’
‘You’re as independent as you’ve ever been.’
Cassius searched the face, its vestiges of an extinct smile. How the hell would he kn
ow if this man was mocking him? He pointed a finger between those steady eyes. ‘Don’t fuck with me Kevin. I’m not in the mood.’
There was no response. As if on cue, Waldron’s phone rang again and he picked it up, still locked on Cassius’s stare. Cassius had begun to wonder if he had a button under the desk that did that.
He reappeared an hour later, hovering spectrally in Cassius’s doorway. Head down at his desk, Cassius didn’t notice him at first, so Waldron cleared his throat.
And there he was, arms folded, the wings of his suit jacket flaring wide of his hips. ‘The PM wants you to give me your mobile.’
‘No.’
Waldron sighed. ‘He’s not picking on you exclusively, Minister. It’s standard practice now across the Cabinet. We hold your phone for you, take your messages and filter your crap so you can concentrate on…governing.’
‘Tell him I can multi-task.’
Another sigh, and Waldron gave up. Too easily: Cassius could tell he had a backup plan, and as he turned to leave Cassius called him into the room again.
‘Hey, why can’t we check with passports to work out what’s happening with that boat?’
‘Boat?’ Waldron’s face creased. ‘Oh. Why passports? It’s an Indonesian boat.’
‘We’re assuming it’s an Indonesian boat, because it’s in Indonesian waters. It could be anyone. Could be Australians.’
‘It came from the north. It’s an Indonesian design. It appears to have asylum seekers on it, or maybe fishermen. No one’s coming to us to say their family members are missing. So on what basis would we be going through passports?’
‘Kevin, do you spend much time around boats? That thing had a Zodiac on it. An expensive, motorised rubber boat. And it had tents. And we’re expected to believe that it flipped over inside the lagoon, after it was anchored in there. How could that happen? It doesn’t add up.’
Waldron took a chair at the desk, slumped into it and let his exasperation show. ‘So, what, we just start looking for missing Australians in Indonesia? Do you have any idea how many of our kids are incarcerated, overstaying—Christ, hospitalised—in Indonesia at any given time? We’re talking thousands. We can’t even keep track of pissed teenagers in Kuta.’
‘Yeah, but we’re not doing anything. We’re papering over it. It might save the election but if something comes out afterwards we’re fucked.’
‘You want to talk politically? Politically, we have to let it die off. Every single word you add to the pile—and it’s a relatively small pile at this stage—every word gives life to the idea that there’s something to worry about. The PM made the right move by slapping it down. You can’t just stand up in the public square and start wondering.’
He was earnest now. Cassius felt satisfied that he’d finally found a way under his guard. Waldron hitched the chair forward and put both hands on the desk.
‘This election is going to be fearfully close. You, the PM, all of us are within a bee’s dick of losing our jobs. We need to keep it very tight: the economy, jobs, future tech. Hell, we can even talk climate if it keeps us away from anyone suggesting a boat got through. The one thing that is going to save us is discipline: staying on message with the electorate. Boring, Minister. But it works.’
After Waldron had drifted back to his office, Stella appeared in the doorway.
‘What’s the go with mobile phones?’
‘Nothing, Stell. Kevin said the chiefs have to take the phones off all the ministers and I told him to fuck off.’
‘Yeah, well he’s just told me to divert yours to his number, so…’
MIDDAY, WEDNESDAY
Pulau Dana
Isi had been helping with the loading onto the Java Ridge. Sanusi and Radja were hauling crates of gear off the sand, Sanusi’s bad hand wrapped in a new plastic bag, a ciggie hanging from one corner of his mouth. Whenever either of them finished one, the other would offer the deck, and they’d light a new one. They’d smoke their way through the apocalypse, Isi was thinking as Finley shouted her name from the medical tent.
The moment she swept the doorway open, she knew the situation had deteriorated. Finley had laid open the foot and it hung like a wilted flower, the vivid interior splayed and dripping.
He was stirring a scalpel through the pot of hot water, and he looked up as Isi entered. Luke Finley was at Tim’s head, both his hands occupied under Tim’s jaw.
‘Get that fucking kid out of here.’
Isi hesitated; Roya clearly didn’t want to leave her friend’s side. She bent down and picked the girl up in her strong arms. As she did so, her face came near to Hamid’s, and she saw he’d vomited. His pleading eyes roved over her face, searching for reassurance. She knew Finley had more pressing matters on his mind.
‘Neil, Hamid’s been sick.’
He shot her a look. ‘Is he hot?’
She let go of Roya, laid a hand over Hamid’s forehead. ‘No.’
‘Then just leave him, will you. Get rid of the kid.’
As she carried Roya backwards out of the tent, Isi saw Finley holding Tim’s knee in one hand, drawing a dotted line around his calf with a pen held in the other.
‘Come back when you’re done,’ Finley called to Isi. ‘And you,’ he was speaking to his son now, ‘check that legrope and make sure it’s tight.’
Luke tugged at the red plastic cord that was wrapped tightly around Tim’s leg, below his knee.
Roya protested mildly as Isi carried her to her mother. She was worried for Hamid, and the atmosphere in the tent seemed to have unsettled her. Isi silently cursed herself for letting her remain in there as long as she had. But there was a secret kind of pleasure for both of them in carrying, and being carried. Isi’s feet dug slightly deeper into the sand with the extra burden; she felt Roya tap her lightly on the shoulder, and she turned her head to find the girl pointing at the sky, where a single vapour trail sharpened into a moving point: a shining, faraway aircraft.
‘Australians, coming home from Bali,’ Isi said to her. Roya appeared not to understand, and merely nestled her head back into Isi’s shoulder.
When they reached the shelter, Isi waited patiently while Roya arranged herself under the crook of her mother’s arm, one of her hands placed delicately on the distended belly. It was hot but a breeze was moving under the tarp, affording a little respite. Isi watched the girl settle. Moments later, Roya had closed her eyes and was sleeping alongside her mother.
Isi did the rounds of all the communications again. It felt like the outside world had to intervene somehow, that all this was too much for them alone. She tried the HF, the VHF: blanketed in static. She tried as many different mobile phones as she could find, hoping for differences in signal strength. Fraggle had been back up the hill, trying to find the window of reception they’d used the previous day, but had come back disappointed. She resigned herself to the idea that until they physically moved they were alone.
She didn’t know what she’d expected to find when she re-entered the tent. Exhaustion was starting to dull her wits. Her eyes took a second to adjust from the tropical light to the interior gloom.
Finley, crouched low over Tim’s leg. A leg without a foot.
The exposed bone was pointed straight at her, yellowy-white.
Luke had pulled back, compressed against the side of the tent, a hand to his head, his teeth clenched. Finley was working fast with a needle and thread, somewhere in an indistinct territory between bone and skin.
Her panicked eyes roved over the scene. The foot lay separately on the cling wrap among a scatter of bloodied tools. She recognised a large serrated fish knife from the boat.
Tim was moving, twitching and uttering strange sounds.
‘God, what’s happening to him?’
‘Dystonic muscle activity,’ replied Finley without looking up. ‘It’s just the ketamine. He’s not feeling it…’
The hands reached out at the air, pawing at nothing.
‘The foot…’
‘Had to go. Five or six minutes before he starts to come round. Make yourself useful. Check the boy.’
Isi knelt over Hamid. His chest rose and fell slightly, but otherwise he was completely still, eyes open, staring straight back at her. She jumped in fright. The grazed area over his temple had now swollen into a large dome that spread forward to his eye.
‘He’s breathing but he doesn’t look right.’
Finley continued working. Isi watched him pulling a flap of skin over the end of the bone, racing the needle through the flesh in extravagant loops.
‘Take a pen or something and press one of his fingernails. Hard.’
She did as he asked. The pressure of the pen raised a livid red spot in the white bed of Hamid’s nail, but he didn’t move. She stared at his knuckles for a moment.
‘What happened?’ Finley was working frantically on Tim but half-looking at her.
‘Nothing. I think you need to look at him,’ Isi said quietly.
‘I need to do this,’ Finley hissed. ‘If I don’t make a decent stump here, he’ll never walk on a prosthesis. Think perhaps you could do it?’ He returned to the thread work, his fingers darting about in search of information among the sinews. But his eyes kept wandering to Hamid, and presently his frustration overcame him.
‘What did you mean, he doesn’t look right?’
‘I—I don’t know,’ Isi stammered, ‘but he’s making a groaning sound.’
Finley kept sewing, watching Tim’s movements, studying the limb. ‘Eyes open or closed?’
‘Open.’
‘Are his pupils the same size?’ He flicked a small torch at her, and she shone it into each of Hamid’s eyes.
‘No. The one on the injury side is big, and the other one’s small.’