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  Numb

  Tanya Paterson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Tanya Paterson

  ISBN 978-0-9925157-0-6

  First Edition

  PROLOGUE

  The pain should have been excruciating, but I felt nothing.

  “It’s ok. We’re getting you out.” The voice came from above. It was calm and business-like. “He’s conscious,” she shouted to someone.

  Get me out? Of where?

  I could hardly make out anything. I was lying awkwardly on my side with my arm pinned beneath me and it was dark and so very cold; snowing I think. Piercing the black night, lights were strobing: blue, blue, blue.

  Where am I?

  I blinked and willed my eyes to focus but something hot and sticky was smeared across my face and dripping into my eyes, blurring my vision. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, shapes started to take form as muffled voices moved around me. I could make out twisted metal and millions of tiny blue twinkling stars from the shattered glass. There was blood. A lot of blood. My blood.

  Shouldn’t this hurt?

  “Can you move?” the woman from above asked.

  “I can’t feel…anything.”

  “You’ve been in a car accident but its going to be ok.”

  Car accident?

  Everything came back to me in a rush.

  “I’m dead,” I whispered.

  “You’re going to be fine. We’re getting you out now.”

  No, I’m dead.

  The last thing I remember was the wail of an ambulance.

  CHAPTER 1

  HAYLEY

  February in the Whitsundays was a scorcher of a month. Hot. And wet. And sticky. The kind of weather that made the air so thick with moisture the entire district felt like one great big outdoor steam room. Of course the best way to deal with the blistering heat and oppressive humidity was to never be more than a meter away from an airconditioning unit set to arctic. Most people spent the entire summer surrounded by artificial air – only leaving their airconditioned houses for their airconditioned cars to drive to their airconditioned offices, and then back again. My family were a bunch of greenies so I had to make do with an ice-cold fruit smoothie as both home and work were air-con free zones.

  I’d driven to work straight after the final bell rang at school. I was a month into my senior year at high school and like most of my classmates I was already counting the long days to graduation. Unlike most of my classmates I was also working several jobs to help fund the next four years at uni, and I was pulling as many shifts as I could at Juicy Bits, the Whitsunday’s only juice bar because once the bell rang at 3pm, the end of the school year didn’t seem as far away.

  Juicy Bits was a family business and the brainchild of my brother Sean. Our mum owned a tropical fruit farm which produced tonnes of excess fruit that tasted just fine in a blindfold test, but which we couldn’t sell because it was ‘visually imperfect’ – oddly shaped, slight discolouration, that sort of thing. Sean had been making smoothies for years and after our Dad passed away five years ago, Sean took over the running of the farm with Mum before he decided to open ‘Juicy Bits…delicious fruit smoothies that tantalise the taste buds.’ The slogan was a bit cringe-tastic but eighteen months after launching the first store in Airlie Beach – the Whitsunday’s main tourist town as it was hopping distance to the islands and reef – Sean was about to open a second site on one of the island resorts and had plans for two more stores.

  My big brother, the hippy turned entrepreneur. Who would have thought?

  I actually really liked working at the bar. We had lots of cool smoothies on the menu with names like “Sweet Love”, “It’s Just a Crush”, and “Shake It Baby”. They were delicious, and I’m not just saying that because I was paid to – even the locals were buying smoothies and it was usually pretty difficult to get a local to part with their cash. Most people didn’t have enough spare and what they did have was gambled on an entirely different kind of fruit in the poker machines at the local leagues club.

  Juicy Bits wasn’t a big bar but it did occupy a choice spot at the top of Main Street which was the long straight road that ran parallel to the beach where many of the restaurants, bars, surf shops and tour operators were located. Most customers grabbed a takeaway, but some – tourists mainly – would take a break from the heat and linger around the few tables out front or on the high stools next to the window, hoping to catch the breeze. It was a good spot for people watching which I was doing as it was a slow afternoon.

  Sweaty bodies were ambling up and down the length of Main Street. The summer holiday tourist season had past its peak so the few people I could see outside were foreign tourists who weren’t limited to the usual Australian holiday periods. During the day Airlie was a picture perfect holiday town, with families and backpackers strolling around in sandals and sarongs. After dark, the nightclubs opened their doors and the seedier side appeared. I didn’t work nights unless I had to.

  After about 15 minutes of staring at the traffic along the street and no new customers I started to close early. I rinsed the blenders under the tap and stacked them in the dishwasher, put the uncut fruit that would keep into the fridge, unpacked fresh stacks of plastic cups for the morning and lined them up behind the counter and started to wipe down the surfaces. I was miles away in my head when a deep voice startled me.

  “Any chance of a long sweet kiss?”

  I jerked upright, drawing in a sharp breath as I turned around to face the man behind me. The friendly smile that had been on his face moments before was immediately replaced with uncomfortable, apologetic look when he noticed my surprise.

  “Ah, sorry Hayley. Can’t you have to ask Sean to change the names of these smoothies? Every time I come in here I feel like I’m going to be done for sexual harassment.”

  I rolled my eyes at Charles Sheppington who was my other boss and who owned a small law firm across the road. “It’s ok Charles, you just surprised me. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  I opened the fridge and found the ingredients for a Sweet Kiss. Long meant a large size, Soft was regular, and a Quickie was small. My mother and brother invented the names, giggling over the kitchen table one evening. They were so embarrassing sometimes. Two big kids. How did I end up being the adult in the family?

  “I’m not too late am I?” Charles asked, his gaze skimming the freshly washed blenders drying on the counter. “You look like you’re in already closed.”

  I had hoped to close early. The sun was behind the hills, a soft shadow cast over the street outside, and the air was cooler, more bearable as the heavy weight of the heat and humidity was fading like the end of a headache.

  “I’ll always make an exception for you Charles,” I answered as I found pawpaw and guava in the fridge and grabbed a clean blender off the counter. I’d never turn away a paying customer, and especially not Charles.

  Besides working at Juicy Bits, I also worked one or two afternoons a week at Charles’ law offices just across the street. Apparently Charles used to be a hot shot Queens Council in Melbourne, but a few years ago his son Matthew died and Charles and his wife Maria sold up and moved to a house on a huge plot of land with its own stretch of beach outside Airlie. He was technically retired but still worked three days a week on pro bono cases for people who couldn’t afford a lawyer.

  “Hey, I have news,” he said above the whirring of the blender. “My nephew is arriving from the UK next week He’s on exchange at the high school this year. You’ll probably have some classes together.”


  “Really?” I said, feigning interest as I poured the smoothie into a cup, popped the top on and put it on the counter. I hoped he didn’t want me to introduce him to people. With the exception of two people, I didn’t have any friends at school. Most people looked at me as if I was the last person they’d want to speak to. I kinda wanted to keep it that way.

  “He was delayed in London so he’s starting a late,” he said, dropping a handful of coins on the counter.

  “London? He’s going to find it a huge culture shock coming here then,” I said sorting through the coins and leaving Charles’ change on the counter.

  “That’s exactly what I’m counting on,” he smiled wryly, holding up his smoothie in a farewell gesture as he walked out of the bar shouting “keep the change” over his shoulder.

  I tossed the coins in the tip jar, popped the blender back in the dishwasher and didn’t have another thought about Charles’ nephew until he arrived a week later after which I found it hard to think about anything else.

  CHAPTER 2

  ALEX

  They opened the aircraft door and it was like opening the door of a furnace or the gates to hell. The tropical heat rushed into the cool cabin bringing with it a thick layer of red dust which lingered in the air, catching the sunlight.

  I watched the specks of dust slowly settle onto the seats next to me, those closest to the exit, and squinted into the morning sun. The sunlight was too bright: it was as if the world outside was on fire. Flames of heat licked at the cool air-conditioned interior of the plane. It was late early March, an Australian autumn, and it must have been at least 40 degrees.

  Definitely hell.

  The other passengers were queuing to exit but I stayed slouched in my seat. I was in no hurry and they were eager to make the onward journey to the nearby islands and their week’s holiday in paradise. Almost certainly that meant a luxury resort room with balcony overlooking a perfect white sandy beach, a spot of snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, a day’s sailing tour around the uninhabited bays. The Whitsunday Islands were the ultimate holiday destination for people all over the world thanks to their picture-postcard beauty.

  But not for me. For me the destination was Broadmere, Sing Sing and Alcatraz rolled into one.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  Stupid question because I new exactly why I was there. All it took was one little mistake….

  They were arguing in the soft stern voices they always used when they spoke to each other. Voices full of bitterness and resentment, made more vicious when spoken quietly. One didn’t shout, especially in public, but I was too familiar with the tone and it was the low threats vibrating in the air what woke me. Like Pavlov’s dog salivating at the chiming of a bell, the sound of my parents sent dread coursing through my body.

  “How could you let this happen?” As usual, Dad was laying the blame at my mother’s feet.

  “How could I let this happen?!” As usual, Mum was furious. “He’s not an infant, Simon, he’s 18. I can’t watch him 24 hours a day when he’s home from school. How would I know he’d steal Jeremy’s car? It’s completely written off by the way.”

  “I don’t care about the bloody car even if it is a bloody limited edition! There are far worse things to come out of this Elizabeth. Cocaine. Ecstasy. Ketamine!” his voice growing a little louder with each illegal substance. “Don’t you know what this will do to his future if it gets out?”

  I’d really screwed up this time.

  The funny thing was, no matter how much trouble I was in, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was too far past the point of return, even though the fact that my father was there meant that things were serious. Very, very serious. My parents divorced when I was eight and the only times I seen much of either of them in the ten years since was when they needed to parade me around some function as an accessory. I’d be summoned from boarding school, dressed in a new tie and made to perform like a good little monkey while my parents cranked the handle of a barrel organ to impress the crowds.

  Both of my parents were public figures. My father might not have featured much in my life but he was an almost daily presence on a plasma screen. Wherever there was a war, humanitarian crisis or major international incident you’d find my dad: Simon Williamson, chief political correspondent for a major British broadcaster. A day wouldn’t go by when I didn’t see his face on television. He was a household name.

  We didn’t know each other very well.

  My mother was a London socialite and society figure. She lived with Jeremy, uptight step-father and until recently the owner of a rare and very expensive Mercedes Supercar. The last I remember, it was wrapped around a tree somewhere in Berkshire.

  I imagined I’d really screwed up this time and not just because my father was there or my parents knew about my extra-curricular proclivities. I’d really screwed up because my mother was correct – Jeremy was going to go ballistic about the car. Nobody was allowed to put a finger on his Mercedes unless they were wielding a polishing cloth and even then they’d better not leave a smudge. That car was more valuable than I was. My parents probably knew it was missing before they noticed I was.

  “Keep your voice down Simon,” my mother hissed. “Of course I know what a scandal will do to his future. To all of us. Jeremy’s looking after it. He’s had to pull in a lot of favours to keep this quiet. If it wasn’t for him, Alex would have been charged. How would you like to see that splashed across the tabloids?”

  The very possible reality of a tabloid expose hung oppressively in the air. Of course my parents would be mostly concerned with any danger to their reputations: how they would be affected, what their friends would think. My father was probably imagining the headlines – Simon Williamson’s son charged with theft, possession and dangerous driving. He wouldn’t like to see his perfect image tarnished, especially in the – gasp – red tops. Lucky they didn’t know the full story or they would definitely hide me away for a very long time.

  I knew I’d messed up big time but I was still surprised my dad was there. I thought he was supposed to be in China or Russia or some other country far away. He travelled so often he needed a new passport every six months and that’s about as often as I saw him – every six months – and a visit usually coincided with a stern lecture and a school report.

  I’m pretty certain I saw my mother more often than my father – we occasionally lived in the same house after all. That house belonged to her and Jeremy, merchant banker and city high flyer. Jeremy had a lot of possessions, like the house in Chelsea, and the one in Berkshire, and the villa in France – and my mother for that matter. The Honourable Elizabeth Sheppington was just another acquisition or status symbol to Jeremy but one that unfortunately came with one far less desirable asset – me.

  We weren’t the wealthiest people we knew but we were better off than most. Jeremy was some big wig in hedge funds but my mother came from a class that didn’t have to get their hands dirty with work. Jeremy didn’t need to work either but why retire when there was more money to be made? And as long as Jeremy was making money, my mother was spending it. It was like she was trying to fulfil a life of conspicuous consumption with perfectly packaged meaning from Harrods. Shopping was her religion. I imagined she’d have a look of reverence on her face whenever she passed over her platinum card and received her purchases as if she was receiving sacrament.

  Unlike my parents, I didn’t believe happiness came from making money, or spending money, or having my face on the tv. But at the same time I didn’t know what made me happy. For too long my life had been filled with misery that it became easier and safer to not feel anything at all. It didn’t matter anyway because it didn’t matter what I wanted. Only what my parents wanted. And they had big plans for me. Plans that involved money and power and had no room for mistakes. And this little slip up, well that would a problem.

  “I don’t know where he has gone wrong,” Mum murmured. “He was doing well at school. He’s popular. He has e
verything he could possibly want.”

  “We need to contain this now. Before everything is ruined. Have you considered an institution?”

  “No! What will people say?”

  “Then what do you suggest Elizabeth?”

  I heard her sigh heavily. “Cambridge will still accept him as long as he graduates. He just needs to finish this year somewhere and now that he’s been expelled….”

  What?!

  I tuned out of their conversation. What the hell was my mother talking about? I’d been expelled? No! If there was one thing I excelled at it was school. I was the perfect student. I was in the top ten in my class (although my mother and Jeremy would have liked me in first place), a school prefect (although not head boy), and vice-captain of the rugby team (although not captain).

  Well I was almost perfect.

  They couldn’t expel me.

  “They had no choice. There were a lot of drugs in his room Elizabeth,” my father hissed the words in frustration. “Several grams of cocaine, a bag of pills – don’t you understand? He’s either high every day or he’s dealing.”

  Shit.

  They know everything.

  That would be the end of school then. Unless they found another boarding school to take me in this late in the year. No doubt another generous donation would be necessary.

  “Well he can’t be selling drugs,” she said, genuine shock in her voice for the first time. “It’s not like he needs the money. But that would mean…. Why?”

  Because I need them to feel.

  Some people took drugs to escape or numb the senses. Not me. I was already numb. Even the dull ache which had possessed me for years was hardly present anymore. Inside I was empty. A void.

  My mother sighed in resignation. “You’re right. Alex needs help and supervision. I called Charles, and he’s agreed to take him.”

  Whoa. What?

  “And Charles thinks he can sort him out?”