The windows. He’d forgotten about them. The memory of the shattered shards glinting in the morning sunlight came back to Jamie like a sick weight in the pit of his guts.
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘We’ll talk about it later. When you’re feeling better.’
Jamie grabbed her arm.
‘I didn’t do it.’
Silence hung between them for a couple of seconds. The doctor coughed. Eventually Lorraine answered.
‘That’s not what the Sergeant said.’
‘He’s full of it. I told him where I was last night.’
‘He doesn’t believe you.’
‘Do you?’
Again, silence was her answer. It was obvious what she thought.
‘If I’m so guilty, then why am I here and not in the lockup?’
‘The state you were in when I found you, Jamie, this was the only place for you. Besides, I don’t care what Sergeant Butcher thinks of you; there’s no excuse for treating anyone the way he treated you this morning.’
‘I could do him for that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, report him. Officially.’
‘You could try.’ There was skepticism in her voice.
‘You don’t reckon I’d get him?’
‘With your history? No, I don’t. Anyway, he’s got an excuse. That drunk McPherson was already locked up. The Sergeant will just say that he made a mistake and didn’t realise what condition you were in. No one will take your word over his, Jamie.’
‘That’s crap.’
‘It’s the way things are.’
‘What happens now then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know. ’Bout the windows and that.’
Lorraine sat forward on her chair. An expression of surprise flickered across her face.
‘Are you admitting that you did it?’
‘No. But it looks like Butcher’s pretty much got it in for me, and there’s not much I can do about it, is there? I’m stuffed.’
‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’
‘Eh?’
Lorraine was quiet again. When she spoke again, her voice was different – careful, more cautious.
‘Jamie, when we hauled you out of the truck, do you remember what you were saying?’
Jamie’s brow furrowed with concentration. A few shadowy recollections formed in his head – the heat and the thirst, and some vague idea of a girl speaking to him – but he couldn’t form any clear pictures or memories.
‘Nah. It’s all a blur.’
‘You kept talking about a boat. And a girl.’
‘Did I?’ He strained again to remember, but the memories still refused to reveal themselves.
‘I can’t remember anythin’ about that.’
‘Well you were. You were saying all sorts of strange things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Nothing that made any sense – just bits and pieces. About being trapped and locked up, about hiding, bullets, darkness.’
‘What’s that got to do with the windows?’
The question caught her by surprise. She answered quickly. Too quickly.
‘Nothing. It was just strange, that’s all.’ She stopped, aware of how lame her response was. ‘I thought you might have been remembering something from one of your foster homes. It sounded pretty nasty, and I was worried. That’s all.’
Jamie wondered why Lorraine was going on about it.
‘You still haven’t told me why they let you get me out.’
‘You’ve got an alibi.’
‘Eh?’
‘Not a very strong one, but enough to give me a bit of leverage with Sergeant Butcher on your behalf.’
‘Who?’
‘Cameron.’
‘Cameron?’ It took a few seconds for the name to register. ‘The big kid from school?’
‘That’s the one. News travels fast around here. When you didn’t show up for school and he heard that you’d been arrested, he came down to the station and told us how and where he’d found you this morning. Said you looked pretty messed up.’
‘So?’
‘Well at least it tied in with your story about going for a walk. I managed to convince Sergeant Butcher that if you were passed out so far away from the town, then it was possible that you hadn’t been responsible for the vandalism. Added to that was the way he treated you this morning. If there’s a chance that you were already ill – and from what Cameron told us you weren’t in very good nick – then he had no right to act the way he did.’
‘You scared him?’ Jamie looked at Lorraine with a sort of respect.
‘Let’s just say I pointed out a couple of truths to him. I don’t think he’ll want to risk making a fuss about this. It mightn’t look too good on his career record.’
Jamie took another sip of his water. Suddenly he felt tired. Very tired. All he wanted to do was sleep for about three weeks.
‘But Jamie, this doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods, not by a long shot. The Sergeant is still firmly convinced that you’re the culprit and he’s going to move heaven and hell to get you out of Port Barren. You can’t afford even the slightest slip-up. Right now, he’d probably try to get you put into remand for littering.’
Lorraine’s words barely registered. As Jamie battled the sudden waves of fatigue that swept over him, her voice seemed to come from far away.
‘I’ll be careful.’
‘You’d better be, because you were lucky this time. Very lucky. You owe Cameron a big thank you.’
‘Yeah.’ Even his own voice sounded detached.
Lorraine noticed how tired he was getting.
‘I’ll let you sleep. The doctor will be nearby if you need anything.’
She got up to leave but turned back at the door.
‘Jamie?’
‘Yeah?’ He could feel his last grip on consciousness fading.
‘Be very careful.’
‘I will.’
He fell asleep, dropping into unconsciousness as though into a thick and comfortable mattress.
In his dreams the walls of the nursing station seemed to be closing in. Slowly, inexorably. The harsh white light of the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling grew brighter and brighter – invading, penetrating his thoughts, washing away his being in a sea of white coolness. There was a sound – a gentle, quiet, desperate whimpering. There were voices, male, deep and harsh, arguing and shouting, floating in and out of his hearing, as though washed by an invisible tide. Then there were hands – lifting, pulling, grabbing. Dragging him from the soft coolness out into the night. Into the heat and dust. Into a steel cage. Into darkness.
Jamie woke with a scream. The blue and white blankets and sheets of the bed were soaked through with the sweat that poured off him. The blankets were wrapped around his arms and legs. Tangling, suffocating. He struggled to free himself, caught in the netherworld between consciousness and sleep. The nightmare still had a hold on him, but the reality of where he actually was slowly seeped into his understanding.
A sharp pain at his elbow snapped him fully into wakefulness. The doctor was standing over his bed.
‘Are you all right? You pulled your drip out.’
He adjusted the small tappet on the plastic hose, and the clear fluid began to flow again.
‘Would you like a sedative? You must have been dreaming.’
Jamie shook his head, sinking back against the pillow, rearranging the sheets. The doctor took his temperature again.
‘It’s still coming down. You’ll feel better in the morning.’ As the man left the room, he flicked the lights off. Lying awake in the sudden darkness, the shapes of the fluorescent tubes burne
d an imprint into Jamie’s eyes.
nine
‘Hey!’
Cameron stopped at the shout, glancing back to where Jamie approached from the other side of the playground. He said something to the two year-ten girls he’d been walking with. One threw him a strange look, then the two of them continued on their own towards the classroom, chatting as they went. Cameron waited as Jamie walked gingerly across the dirt schoolyard. Even now, three days after his night in the nursing station, he still felt a little light-headed.
‘Uhm, thanks for the other day and everything.’
Jamie kept his eyes on the ground and tried to look as bored and disinterested as possible. The other kids were watching them from the school verandah. He knew they’d heard stories about him, and he’d deliberately stayed away from them. Still, after what Cameron had done for him, he knew he at least had to say thanks.
‘That’s okay. How’re you feeling?’ There was something a little distant about the other boy’s manner.
‘All right.’
The conversation lapsed into awkward silence, Jamie staring intently at something in the dirt and Cameron shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the other. They were saved from their discomfort by the school bell. As its raucous jangle faded, Cameron spoke.
‘We’d better get inside.’
‘Yeah.’
Cameron started towards the verandah. He’d only managed a step or two when Jamie grabbed his arm, his grip strong and insistent. Turning, Cameron found himself staring directly into Jamie’s eyes. For a couple of seconds they stood motionless, their stares locked. It was Jamie who finally spoke.
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘The windows?’
Jamie nodded. Cameron raised an eyebrow.
‘Then who did?’ Shaking his arm free of Jamie’s grip, Cameron walked up the stairs into the classroom.
Alone in the dusty playground, Jamie watched Cameron’s receding figure, trying to work out why it was so important that Cameron believe him. No answer presented itself and in the end all he could do was go to class.
‘Stuff it!’ He grabbed his schoolbag and followed the last of the younger kids inside.
All day Jamie felt unfocussed. Sitting in his usual seat at the back, he copied notes off the board and opened his books up on all the right pages, but his gaze kept drifting to where Cameron sat, his large frame crammed behind a desk a couple of rows up ahead. At one point Mr Scott wandered over.
‘Jamie, everything okay?’
Jamie nodded. The teacher lowered his voice and crouched, balancing on his haunches.
‘Lorraine told me about the other day. Don’t look angry, she has to – it’s her job. If there’s any problems, any worries, you let me know, okay?’
Jamie grunted a reply that might have been an affirmative.
‘Now, you sure you’re all right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, tell me if you start feeling off-colour. You can take the afternoon to rest if you need to. You’ve been through a bit of an ordeal and I’d hate to see it get in the way of your schoolwork. I need you back on task, mate.’
The teacher stood and moved down the row. Jamie tried to start his maths but the numbers refused to go together. Again and again his thoughts returned to the old wreck on the beach, to the heat and the thirst in the cage of the police truck. Always in the background was the voice. Soft, feminine and undecipherable. First in the truck, and then later, whimpering, in the hospital. Eventually he gave up trying to do geometry and let his mind wander.
By lunchtime Jamie hadn’t done any more work. Packing up, he was surprised to find his page covered with scribble. Doodles and drawings – he must have been doing them while he daydreamed. Not surprisingly, the boat was there in the middle of the page, propped on its old tractor tyres. In one corner was the police truck, a hand poking out from between the bars. There were other things too – patterns and pictures he couldn’t identify. A lot of them were nothing more than strange swirls on the stark white paper, curves of pencil bisecting the rigid lines of the exercise book.
There was a buzzing in his head and his vision was blurring. Gathering his books, he walked up to Mr Scott’s desk at the front of the classroom.
‘Jamie?’
‘I’m not feelin’ too flash. I might take the afternoon off to sleep if that’s okay?’
The teacher sat back in his chair and surveyed Jamie thoughtfully, chewing on the end of a pencil.
‘No worries. The other seniors are all home this afternoon anyway for correspondence classes, so it won’t be a problem. You go and rest and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
As Jamie turned, the teacher’s voice stopped him;
‘Jamie—’
Jamie glanced back.
‘I’m pretty impressed with the way you’ve applied yourself so far. I just thought you should know that.’
Jamie nodded and left the classroom.
Outside, with the hot desert wind blowing dry, red dust into his face, Jamie turned towards Archie’s. He couldn’t get rid of the thickness that seemed to be enveloping his thoughts, as though his head had somehow become detached from the rest of him. He caught himself staggering slightly, and leaned against a low wall to catch his breath.
‘Shit. What’s goin’ on?’
He slumped against the wall and something grabbed at him, pulling him back along the road, away from Archie’s place. It took a few seconds to work out what was happening. Like the other evening, his feet had taken on a life of their own, drawing him back past the school. Through a bewildered haze he realised that he was going back to the beach, returning to the boat.
The further he walked the less intense the fog in his head became. By the time he reached the beach and climbed down the rocks he felt almost like his old self again, only the familiar tightness in the pit of his belly to remind him that he was still in Port Barren.
In daylight, the wrecked boat didn’t appear nearly as large or foreboding. It was nothing more than a decaying hulk, dumped on some old tyres on the sand. As he came nearer Jamie felt some of the tension lift from his shoulders and neck and he began to experience a sense of calm detachment. Walking along the beach, watching the black shape shimmer in the heat haze, an inexplicable sense of relief washed over him.
The harsh elements of the north-west had bleached and pitted the wood of the vessel, leaving it pale and fragile. It reminded Jamie of the skeleton of a decaying beast – a beached whale perhaps, delicate and yet still suggesting the power of its former self. A strange and frightening beauty.
Reaching out to touch the wooden hull, Jamie hesitated, remembering the burst of light and pain he’d experienced when his fingertips last made contact with the boat. Taking a deep breath, he rested the palm of his hand gently against the wood. This time there was no flash, no unconsciousness. The wood felt rough and strangely cool in the midday sun. Trailing his hand gently across the surface, wary of splinters, he made a slow circuit.
On the far side a section of the railing around the deck had crumbled and a couple of exposed planks made it possible to climb up and get on board. Carefully, Jamie eased his weight onto one of the ribs, unsure whether it would support him. It creaked a little but it held and Jamie swung himself up onto the deck.
It was rotten and treacherous. Planks were missing, with splinters driving up here and there. There were sections where the timber had decayed completely and fallen down into the hold. Slowly Jamie picked his way towards the wheelhouse, stepping only on the places where he could see the planks firmly attached to the support beams beneath, places where the decking was properly nailed down. The whole structure felt as though it might fall apart beneath him at any second. In front of the wheelhouse gaped a hatchway, the remains of a wooden ladder leading down into darkness. Without stopping to consider h
is actions, Jamie swung his legs over and eased himself gently into the hold, using the edges of the hatch for support.
He had to walk crouched over, as the roof was too low for him to stand up straight. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the hull, lancing the gloomy air with laser-like intensity. The places where the upper deck had fallen through were silver slits in the roof, the bright midday sun throwing small, intense, uneven patches of light onto the wooden floor. In the light beams, Jamie could see dust particles drifting lazily in the still air.
Inside, the timbers weren’t quite so badly decayed, perhaps thanks to the protection of the hull. Even so there were still holes underfoot, some of them large, so Jamie explored cautiously.
He listened with cat-like concentration, expecting at any time to hear the creak of the deck giving way beneath his weight. Once, as he crept onto a new section of decking, he froze as the planks beneath him flexed and moaned a quiet protest at the unexpected load. As he crouched, dead still, barely daring to breathe, he thought he heard a noise from outside. A couple of seconds convinced him that his ears were playing tricks. He eased himself onto all fours – it would be easier to crawl. His stomach filled with an empty hollow feeling and his head spun. He stopped still.
As he waited for the dizziness to pass, a sound reverberated ominously through the dusty interior of the boat. It set Jamie’s heart hammering against the inside of his chest, so that he could hear it pounding in his ears. The faint scrape of a boot against the hull. The noise seemed to echo through the long silence that followed it. Someone was coming aboard.
the boat
ten
Panicked, Jamie looked around. There was no way to get off the boat. For a second or two he toyed with the idea of trying to smash his way out through the rotting planks on the side of the hull, but there was no point. Even if he managed it, he’d be heard, spotted and caught before he could set foot on the beach. He had no cover and no options. All he could do was hide.
Footsteps echoed on the deck above. Whoever it was, they weren’t walking carefully. Either they knew their way around the boat or didn’t realise how badly the timbers had decayed. Jamie’s mind raced. His breathing floated back to him, as though it was being broadcast through an amplifier. Crawling quietly forward, he approached a large gap in the floorboards. The deck had crumbled, leaving an opening straight down into the dark bilges. Easing himself into the blackness, Jamie tried to ignore the fact that the hole looked like a gaping mouth. The hull was too deep for him to reach the bottom with his feet. He paused for a second, unsure whether or not to risk dropping into the unknown. In the end the choice was made for him. The footsteps above stopped. His pursuer had reached the upper hatchway. A pair of legs appeared in the puddle of light at the far end of the deck.
A New Kind of Dreaming Page 6
