Star Struck

by Ryn Shell

  “Fifty tons,” Linton muttered. His nostrils twitched. Arid! Rubber, dust. Ammonia! “Hell!” He struggled with his seatbelt. Someone’s screaming—it is me. Get a grip… Get out. Fifty effin’ tons of the shit.

  The belt came apart. Trevor was unconscious. Oblivious to his pain, Linton extracted his brother from his seatbelt and hoisted him up and over his shoulder. He sought a foothold in an attempt to thrust Trevor out the window. The acrid air burned his lungs—he slipped back with his brother on top of him.

  His breath rasped. Could he smell it? The shit they carried? No, just rubber. He willed that the odour was just burnt tyre rubber. Imagination, stay calm. Linton positioned a foot on the side of the seat and grasped the steering wheel to haul himself up while balancing Trevor. Trevor slipping. Hallucinating.

  Not imagination. Smell it! Lungs hurt. She’s going to blow. Warn others.

  “Help! Help! Here! No! Go away! Get away—she’ll blow.”

  With a massive effort, Linton pushed Trevor through the window. Arms on the other side of the window grabbed and hauled Trevor away.

  “Fifty tons,” Linton yelled. “Gunna blow.”

  Someone dragged him clear. He was temporarily blinded by the ammonia fumes, although he could feel the hands over hands hauling him out, then rushing, dragging him away.

  “Ammonium nitrate!” Linton continued to yell.

  A voice boomed near his ear. “Your load?”

  “Fifty tons!”

  Light spread around him. Fire? Just headlights. Made it to safety. “Drop me and run like hell—get as far away as you can.”

  Linton sank to the ground as arms released him. He heard the sound of feet racing away as he pressed his face into the earth. His arms wrapped around his head as he braced for—.

  BOOM! The truck exploded.

  Linton smelt blood and chemical fumes. He was wet with a hot sticky mess—his sweat and Trevor’s blood. In a blind panic, he groped and patted his body, trying to find leaks. There were none. He patted along the blood trail and found Trevor.

  The rescuers placed seriously injured Trevor in Linton’s arms. He held him tight and sang an Irish ditty because those had been the songs their father sang when they were both boys. It was the only thing he could think to do. His head rang from the blast, and he couldn’t remember anything. He sat on the dry sandstone plain surrounded by stunned onlookers, and with his bloodied and bruised brother in his burnt arms he sang.

  Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

  Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don’t you cry!

  Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

  Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that’s an Irish lullaby.

  12

  Despite his confusion, Linton knew that there had been a massive explosion on an outback highway involving his truck. His possessions had been destroyed or removed from him during or after the blast, so he had no records.

  The police searched for and obtained his registration papers and licence records for him and filled in his insurance claim forms on his behalf.

  As soon as Linton could sit out of bed for a short time, he asked to be wheeled in to sit beside Trevor. Linton waited by Trevor’s bed for him to wake.

  “Paper?”

  Linton glanced up at the lean boy standing in the doorway, wordlessly extending the newspaper, waiting to be invited to approach.

  “Got no money.” With bandaged upper extremities, Linton stood and fumbled through the top drawer of Trevor’s locker. “Hang on a tick.” He found and awkwardly opened his brother’s wallet. “I’ll have The Age.”

  Linton was usually a serene and reasonable man, but struggling to do the things that had previously been easy (such as withdrawing a bank note and grasping the paper) brought a surge of impatience. The boy took rapid steps towards him and helped. When Linton reached to get the change from the boy, the photographs fell from the wallet to the floor.

  The boy dived to grab the photos. Avoiding looking at Linton’s partly bandaged face, he placed them into the man’s wrapped hands.

  “Thanks.”

  The boy hesitated, and then turning the photos image right side up—and dissolved into laughter. “They look like old-fashioned flower people?” he spluttered.

  Linton studied the photos for a minute. The woman had the wavy, layered hair with up-flip bangs. The boy was about the age of the paperboy. The woman and boy wore matching tie-dyed shirts and bell-bottom trousers.

  “Probably are,” Linton said. “I think they grew flowers. Hard to remember things.”

  “They probably smoke flowers too.” The boy giggled.

  Linton had a slight memory that there was something close between him and the woman in the photo. Linton was concerned that it might be sexual. Or, he questioned, was it just a sexual fantasy? Either way it felt wrong if she was his brother’s wife. Linton shuddered. He felt strange and sat down fast, flinching in pain.

  “You okay?” The paperboy shifted his feet from left to right. “Want me to call a nurse?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you want to buy a Skylab souvenir?” The boy dove his hand into the printed calico bag he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out a metal shard embedded in what appeared to be black shiny rock about the same size as Linton’s bandaged fist.

  Linton observed that the boy had outgrown his shirt; it was too tight, and his oversized pants were worn at the cuffs. “Is it authentic?” Linton wanted to help the boy.

  “This one is.” The boy grinned. “Most of the ones the kids are selling are junk. I got this at the truck crash site.”

  “My truck?” He decided to buy the rock, even though he believed it was fake.

  “They said you were one of the truck drivers. My dad took me out to take a look. The road was all blocked off with orange plastic nets. Men were everywhere stopping sightseers from having a peek.”

  “So, how did you get this?” Linton turned the thing over; it appeared like hardened melted metal, lumpy with smooth edges like the naturally formed gold nuggets he’d seen in the Kalgoorlie Goldfields.

  “I’m fast. I won the one hundred metres sprint at the school carnival. Getting it was easy. Especially when the men huddled around a bigger chunk right in front of the big hole the truck made when she blew up.” The boy flung his hands above his head. “Ker-Pow! That must have been a beauty.”

  “It was.” Linton nodded. “My head is still ringing.”

  “I tried to sell this at school, but all the boys had bits. One show-off said that his father is the ground keeper at the Albany Golf Course, and he found a piece of Skylab as long as your leg and too heavy for him to carry back to the clubhouse. No one was interested in my chunk after he told his story. My dad thought you should have this since it caused your truck to crash.”

  “They are sure this caused the accident?”

  “That’s what I heard the men at the crash site say.”

  “Then, I’d like to keep it, if I may.”

  “Will you give me cash for it? I’m saving for a bike.”

  “I’ve got nothing, kid. My things got burnt. This is my brother’s money.” He turned his head slowly to look at the wallet. “I guess he won’t mind me borrowing. When my truck insurance comes through, I’ll buy you a bike.”

  “Yeah! Sure you will. Here, have it. It’s just a stupid bit of Skylab. The older kids have made all the loot to be had from it because they could drive and get to the newspaper offices with their chunks. Mum said it was a seven-day wonder and the market value on Skylab memorabilia is zilch now because of all the fakes.”

  “Well, I’m going to treasure it. Thank you.” Linton held up his swaddled hands. “You get the money from the wallet; I made a mess last time.”

  “Thanks.” The boy’s expression brightened as he took a note from Trevor’s wallet.

  Linton longed to keep the photo of the boy and the woman for no other reason that he could understand other than an urge to have them close to him. Still, he
held his hands out to the paperboy. “Will you put these photos back for me too. Thank you.”

  “You don’t look so good, Mister.” The boy put the rock on the bedside table and the photos carefully in the wallet. “Want anything brought in tomorrow? I do errands for money.”

  “Can you ask the nurse to bring me a phone and dial my brother’s wife’s number for me? I need to talk to my family. As you can see, Trevor is a bit of a party-pooper at the moment.”

  “Sure, Mister.” The boy took a twenty cent coin from the Linton’s newspaper change and ran out of the single-bed ward.

  13

  The nurse arrived with a phone in cling wrap for Linton. “Some government official has been in touch with your doctors, and apparently they have speeded up the payout for the accident claim the police submitted on your behalf. You and your brother have been upgraded to private patients.”

  Linton frowned. “We can’t afford that.”

  “A benefactor is picking up the tab for private specialist treatment, and you are being transferred to Perth.” The nurse dialled the number for Rose Fife that they’d obtained on admission from Trevor’s wallet. She placed the phone in Linton’s open hand and left the room.

  Linton held the plastic-wrapped phone in his least burnt hand, well away from the burnt flesh on his face.

  “Misty Hill Plants. Rose speaking.”

  Rose’s voice jolted Linton; he experienced confusing waves of joy, shock, horror. Something wasn’t right. He knew he needed her—but she wasn’t his. Linton forced himself to keep breathing through the pain he endured, the pain medication, and the confusion caused by the swelling in his brain. He wanted to sit here listening to her voice, but he needed to lie down, close his eyes and surrender to a cloud of morphine. He hoped they would give him enough for some relief.

  “Hello.” A pause followed. “Did you want Trevor? I’m looking after his business until he gets back.”

  Linton listened to the voice of someone he instinctively knew he loved.

  “Hello.” There was a long pause and then Rose suddenly cried out into the receiver, “Linton?”

  Linton dropped the phone.

  The feelings associated with that voice were strong—too strong. He stood and passed out on the floor. Nursing staff called a porter, and they raced him to a surgically sanitised room. When he regained consciousness, he was reprimanded for exposing his burnt skin to excessive movement and bacteria.

  He waited in the isolation unit, thinking of Trevor’s wife’s voice and crying for reasons he could not understand. He didn’t realise what lay ahead for him. With severe burns, the torture does not lessen—at least not for a long time—it just gets worse, even with increasing-strength pain medication.

  Sedated, Linton arrived by road ambulance at the Perth hospital. A government agency pressured the hospital to give them Linton’s expected chances of survival. They explained that despite Linton having survived the initial trauma and burns, death might still occur from infection.

  It was at that stage records for Linton’s whereabouts became scrambled. The Perth hospital was ordered to immediately prepare Linton for transfer to Sydney by air ambulance. This was organised via diplomatic services and was outside of the hospital’s control.

  By the time Linton arrived in eastern Australia, he was in critical condition. They heavily sedated him and tube-assisted his breathing. Burnt skin swells, and Linton’s swelling was so intense his chest could not expand. The doctors rushed to slit the sides of his burned chest and arms to relieve the pressure.

  There was a race to remove the layers of charred and dead skin. Then temporary coverings were applied, and the doctors proceeded to graft sections of his unburnt skin on to those areas cleaned of his third-degree burns.

  Burns are the ultimate trauma, and every system of Linton’s body was affected. His doctors worked a delicate balancing act that was as much art as science. Because of the nature of the explosion, Linton also had broken bones.

  As Linton’s body reacted to the burns, and doctors removed ever more dying skin, he was placed in a medically induced coma. Aggressive antibiotics and IV-fluids treatment were given in a constant battle to maintain hydration, to replace fluids lost through the burn-damaged skin. Meanwhile, Linton’s metabolism turned on himself and in his body’s attempt to heal his skin, it cannibalised much of his lean muscle tissue for protein. The protein overload then placed an added burden on his kidneys.

  Without full skin covering, Linton’s body could not regulate his temperature, and his metabolism fired at three times its normal rate. The longer the doctors operated, repairing Linton’s skin, the faster his body wasted away—so they worked fast.

  The more intravenous fluids they pumped into him, the quicker they leaked out through every pore. It was a vicious cycle. The fluid leaking out of his vessels, because his skin could not regulate his temperature, caused his blood pressure to drop, and not enough blood and oxygen reached his kidneys. For anxious hours, doctors feared Linton’s kidneys were shutting down—which was a sign of the end of the battle for many burn victims.

  Then Linton’s body came through the crisis.

  

  Seven months after the truck accident Trevor was discharged from the Esperance Hospital and returned home in time for the birth of his brother’s baby, Helen.

  Trevor, Carl, and Alvin visited Rose in the maternity ward.

  “She’s beautiful.” Rose held out the pink bundle containing baby Helen.

  Carl tentatively held Helen and nuzzled close. “She smells yummy.”

  “I don’t think yummy is a good word for a baby.” Trevor laughed.

  “She does smell incredible…” Alvin said, “…at the moment.”

  “And how are you feeling, Rose?” Trevor asked.

  “I’m well. It’s been an easy pregnancy. Everything has been easier than it was having Carl, and I’ll be home soon. And you, Trevor?”

  “I’m glad to be home, getting back into the swing of things.”

  A bell chimed to indicate the end of the visiting hour.

  “Don’t go yet.” Rose reached out and put a hand on Carl’s shoulder.

  The two men and the boy stood awkwardly beside Rose’s bed, waiting for her to voice words they were unable to frame with their lips, questions about where Linton was and if he been in touch with any of them. The clock on the wall ticked, and the bell rang a second time. “All visitors must leave” was spoken with a metallic echo from a speaker box mounted near the ceiling in the hallway.

  “Goodbye.” Trevor bent to kiss Rose’s cheek, and Helen’s forehead.

  A hug came from Carl. “Goodbye, Mum. I love you.”

  “Love you too.” She looked forlornly at the three of them. “I love you all, but I thought…”

  “We know—” Trevor blinked to hold back tears, but his quivering mouth and drawn-in cheeks told of his personal grief. “I can’t believe he’s not here for you.”

  Rose’s faked calm exterior began to crumble. “Take Carl home. It’s late.” She managed a smile. “Goodbye. See you tomorrow.” She blew a kiss.

  “Try not to get upset, Rose,” Alvin said. “You’re feeding the baby.”

  Rose’s mouth trembled. She whispered, “I’m angry, and I’m scared.”

  The nurses passing her door overheard and entered the ward. “The hard part is over, Mrs Fife. You have a healthy baby, and your vital signs are stable. There’s nothing to be concerned about.” She extended her arms. “Visitors must leave.” Her face showed she’d accept no nonsense. Trevor, Alvin, and Carl hurriedly left.

  Alone with Helen, Rose wept and spoke to the sweet rose-pink face peaking from the bunny rug. “He doesn’t know what a beautiful joy he is missing. I don’t know why he left us.”

  The nurse spoke to the sister in charge about Mrs Fife’s emotional state, and the senior nurse watched and listened from the doorway.

  “Didn’t he love me enough?” Rose peeled back the baby blanket and exam
ined ten perfect fingers and toes. Tears flooded her eyes. “He left the first time he found out I was having a baby. I was so certain that he wanted you.” Rose spoke through sobs. “But he left me again. You are safe here with me, Helen. Trust me.”

  The charge nurse hesitated on the verge of entering the room to remove Helen when Rose dropped the side of her nightgown, and with the precision and confidence of an experienced mother slipped her nipple into Helen’s mouth.

  Witnessing the transformation on Rose’s face, the charge nurse relaxed her stance.

  Rose spoke low, “I cannot accept your choosing to leave me.”

  Soft sucking sounds and the rhythmic movement of the infant’s lips and cheek muscles had a soothing effect on Rose, and she looked with adoration at her daughter. Rose continued to strive to speak to Linton through Helen.

  “I know that you would never leave me of your free will. If you chose not to come back to me, then something big happened to stop you. I know that you and Trevor saw Skylab. I know it caused the crash—Trevor told me. Then you just disappeared without any explanation.” Rose shook with grief; Helen kept sucking as Rose cried.

  The charge nurse put through a call to the psychiatrist, Doctor Marinovich, to voice her concern about a Rose Fife’s combined symptoms of postpartum depression and delusion.

  14

  Late in 1979, the year Skylab fell to earth, Linton emerged from a drug-induced coma they had kept him in following his initial skin grafts. He found himself in a small, exclusive and very hush-hush private hospital in the north of Sydney. It specialised in the rehabilitation of one regular client, a famous anchorman of a current affairs programme, and the wives of a few wealthy physicians who had found it easier to give their spouses pills rather than attention, until they realised they’d turned them into addicts.

  Rather than hospital beds there were luxurious suite. The examination rooms were more like an entertainment theatre, and there was a gym. Instead of a medicine trolley there was cocktail hour every two hours by carefully measured-out nips offered by young attractive nurses whose uniform rules included short skirts, glamour makeup and hair styling. The nurses were also chosen for their security clearance and pledge to be secretive about the client list. There were more staff than patients.