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Homer and Robyn had Lee’s dressing off and were inspecting his wound, Robyn with her newfound fascination for blood. I peered over their shoulders. I’d never seen a bullet wound in a human before. It didn’t look too bad though. Mr Clement had done a good job, for a dentist. There were only a few stitches, but there was heavy bruising all around it, lots of interesting blue and black and purple colours. Some fresh blood had seeped out from the bottom of the row of stitches; that was obviously the blood I’d seen on his bandage.
‘It looks swollen,’ I said.
‘You should have seen it yesterday,’ Lee said. ‘It’s improved a lot.’
‘Must have been the physio I gave it in the shovel.’
‘What’s it feel like to get shot?’ Chris asked.
Lee put his head on one side, and thought for a moment. ‘Like someone’s stabbed a big hot piece of barbed wire through your leg. But I didn’t realise it was a bullet. I thought something in the shop had fallen and hit me.’
‘Did it hurt?’ I asked.
‘Not at first. But suddenly I couldn’t walk on it. That’s when Robyn grabbed me. It didn’t hurt till we got inside the restaurant and I lay down. Then it felt like it was on fire. Really killed me.’
Homer had washed the whole wound site down with Dettol and now started putting the bandage back on. Robyn inspected my face and found a gash above my hairline that she Band-aided. Seemed like they were our only wounds. When she finished I went looking for the Landrover, and found it, neatly packed and hidden where we’d agreed, about half a k from the house, in the old orchard where my grandparents had built their first home on this land.
We had the whole day to waste before we went on up into the mountains to join the others. Sleep was everybody’s first priority, except for Chris, who’d had quite a lot of it compared to us. He got dumped with the first sentry duty. And the second, third and fourth. It was too dangerous to sleep in the house, so we got blankets and set up in the oldest, furthest away haystack. I made everyone nervous by going and getting the firearms from the Landrover, but always in my thoughts now was what had happened at Corrie’s and how Homer said we had to learn from that; we had to learn new ways.
Then we slept and slept and slept.
They say teenagers can sleep all day. I often used to look at dogs and be amazed by the way they seemed happy to sleep for twenty hours a day. But I envied them too. It was the kind of lifestyle I could relate to.
We didn’t sleep for twenty hours, but we gave it our best shot. I stirred a couple of times during the morning, turned over, had a look at Lee, who seemed restless, glanced at Robyn beside me, who was sleeping like an angel, and dropped back into my heavy sleep. For once, I can recall my dreams vividly. I didn’t dream of gunshots and smashing into vehicles, and people screaming and dying, although I know I’ve dreamt of those things often enough since. That morning I dreamt of Dad barbecuing for a whole lot of visitors, at home. I couldn’t see what he was cooking, but he was working away busily with his fork, pricking sausages or something. It seemed like all the town was there, wandering through the house and garden. I said hello to Father Cronin, who was standing by the barbecue, but he didn’t answer. I went into the kitchen but it was too crowded with people. Then Corrie was there, asking me to come and play, which was fine except that she was eight years old again. I followed her and we went down to a river and got in a boat. It turned out most of the townspeople were there, and Dad and Mum were captaining the boat, so as soon as Corrie and I were aboard they cast off and we sailed away. I don’t know where we were going, but it was hot, everyone was sweating, people were taking off clothing. I looked back at the shore and there was Father Cronin waving goodbye – or was he shaking his fist angrily because we were all stripping off? And I didn’t know now if we were stripping because we were hot, or for other reasons. Corrie was there still, but we weren’t eight-year-olds any more, and then she had to go somewhere, with someone, and in her place Lee was standing. He was undressing too, very seriously, as though it were some holy ritual. We lay down together, still being very serious, and began touching each other, gently and lovingly. We were still doing that when I woke up, sweating, and found that I was now in full sun. The day was getting really hot. I turned and looked at the others, and the first person I saw was Lee, watching me with his dark eyes. I was so embarrassed after the dream that I blushed and began talking quickly.
‘Oh, it’s gone up about ten degrees. I’m baking away here. I’ll have to move. I must have been asleep longer than I thought.’ I picked up my blanket and moved to the other side of Lee, but about the same distance away. I kept gabbling. ‘Do you want anything? Can I get you anything? Did you sleep much? Is your leg hurting a lot?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
I calmed down a bit now that I was out of the sun. From my new position I could see right across the paddocks to the bush, and on up into the mountains. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Living here all my life, some days I don’t even notice how beautiful it is. I still can’t believe we might be about to lose it. But it’s made me notice it all now. I notice every tree, every rock, every paddock, every sheep. I want to photograph it in my memory, in case ... well, in case.’
‘It is beautiful,’ Lee said. ‘You’re lucky. There’s nothing beautiful about the restaurant. And yet, I feel the same way about it as you do about your property. I think it’s because we did it all ourselves. If someone smashes a window they’re smashing glass that Dad cut, glass that I polished a thousand times, and they’re tearing curtains that Mum made. You get an attachment to the place, and it becomes special to you. I guess maybe it does take on a kind of beauty.’
I wriggled a bit closer to him. ‘Did you feel awful when you found it all wrecked?’
‘There was so much to feel awful about I didn’t know where to start. I don’t think it’s hit me even yet.’
‘No, me neither. When we got here this morning and I found they’d been here ... I don’t know. I’d expected it, but I still felt awful, but I didn’t feel awful enough Then I felt guilty about not feeling worse. I think it’s like you said, too many things. Too much has happened.’
‘Yes.’ Only one word, but I’ll always remember the way he said it, like he was really involved with everything I’d been saying. I rolled around a bit so I was even closer to him, and kept talking.
‘And then I think about Corrie and how it must be terrible for her, much worse than for me. For all you guys with little brothers and sisters. That must be terrible. And imagine how Chris’s parents would feel, being overseas, probably not being able to get back into the country, not having a clue what’s happened to Chris.’
‘We don’t know how widespread this thing is. It could involve a lot of countries. Remember that joke we made, up in Hell, about World War Three? We could have been right onto it.’
He put his arm around me and we lay there looking up at the old wooden rafters of the hayshed.
‘I dreamed about you,’ I said presently.
‘When?’
‘Just now, this morning, here on the haystack.’
‘Did you? What did you dream?’
‘Oh ... that we were doing something like what we’re doing now.’
‘Really? I’m glad it came true.’
‘So am I.’
I was too, but I was confused between my feelings for him and my feelings for Homer. Last night I’d been holding hands with Homer, and feeling so warm and good about it, and now here I was with Lee. He kissed me lightly on my nose, then less lightly on the mouth, then several more times, and passionately. I was kissing him back, but then I stopped. I didn’t have any plans to become the local slut and I didn’t think it was a good idea to get involved with two guys at once. I sighed and shrugged myself free.