‘Yeah?’
‘I have to get out of this uniform.’ His eyes roam around the camp and he rubs his palm over the stubble on his scalp. ‘You got any spare clothes?’
Between Max, Noll and I we manage to pull together enough clothes to keep him warm. Max has a spare beanie that he gives Matt, the red and white Swannies one. Lucy is the first to get an almost-smile out of him when she jokes she has some woolly tights he can wear too if he wants.
Matt strips off his uniform and pulls on the clothes we have given him. He carries his uniform over to the fire.
‘Wait!’
He visibly jumps at my voice.
‘Don’t burn it. Give it here, I’ll keep it.’
There is an afternoon soccer match. Matt doesn’t play but sits with Alan, watching from the sidelines. The rest of the people in the car park are noticeably wary of him and the rest of us. But no one says he has to leave. Maybe they all want him where they can see him.
Afterwards we sit around, waiting out the time before the evening meal. Lucy asks Matt if he knows where his family is. Matt just shakes his head.
‘We’ve been trying to find Fin’s mother,’ she tells him. ‘We think she might be able to help us, she works for the government. Disaster response management, isn’t it, Fin?’
Matt’s face changes. It’s a look of subdued anguish. He swallows, glances at me. ‘You want to find her?’
It’s a strange question.
‘Yeah, of course.’
He nods that absent sort of head bob of his, like a nervous tic.
‘I think she’s at Town Hall. But I can’t get in,’ I tell him.
‘Knew a guy who was workin’ in there. Good guy, my corporal. He was a good guy, yeah. A real good guy.’ Matt’s eyes are far away. He draws his knees to his chin. ‘But workin’ in there? It screwed him up. Me, I just follow orders, don’t have to make decisions… the really shitty decisions. That’s what screws you up.’
That night I am shocked from my sleep by a yell. I sit up and, for a moment, I think I am at home in my bedroom, until the cold finds my cheeks and arms. There is another yell and in the smoulder of the fire I can make out the scrambling shadow of two figures entangled.
‘Get your hands behind your head!’ It’s Matt. He’s kneeling on someone’s back as they flail against the concrete.
‘Matt? What the hell?’
He doesn’t answer me.
‘Get off me ya psycho!’ the pinned man yells.
‘Matt! What are you doing?’
He looks at me and there is a blankness in his face – a vacancy – almost as if he is actually asleep. The guy beneath him takes the opportunity to scramble to his feet, but Matt snaps back into action and grabs him by the back of his hair.
‘Matt, I know that guy, he’s from here. He’s one of us.’
Matt looks at me, then back to the guy.
‘Let him go, man.’
Matt’s eyes go from unfocused to panicked and he releases his grip, jumping back from the guy. I try to help the guy to his feet, but he shrugs me away.
‘I’m sorry, mate, it was a mistake, he didn’t mean it.’ It’s like I’m apologising for my disobedient rottweiler.
The guy points at Matt. ‘You… you’re a bloody psycho.’
Matt doesn’t speak. The guy gives him a final glare and lopes away, rubbing at the back of his head.
‘What the hell was that about?’
Matt raises his eyes to mine and he looks confused, dumbfounded. He shakes his head. Alan is now beside us.
‘You need to go to sleep, mate.’ He speaks to Matt gently as if he is a startled horse.
‘I can’t.’
‘Well, sit down. Sit here next to Fin.’ Alan guides him to the mattress. ‘I’ve got something that will help you.’
‘No, no. I don’t want drugs.’
‘Now you listen to me, son,’ Alan says. ‘You need to get some sleep otherwise you’re going to lose your mind. Got it? Sit down here, next to Fin. You’re okay, you’re safe. No one’s gonna hurt you, mate.’
Alan goes to his things and rummages around. He comes back with a small plastic bottle. He shakes some pills into his palm and hands them to Matt.
I sit with Alan, neither of us is able to get back to sleep. Alan polishes his boots on a sheet of newspaper, says he may as well make use of the time. He has a flat round tin of Dubbin and he works the oily cream into the leather with a grey rag. I can see in his face that he has lost weight.
‘Smell that?’ he says, pointing to the boot polish. ‘I smell that and I’m home. Lived out on the land my whole life, used to avoid the city like the plague. Now look at me.’ He shakes his head. ‘You know, it’s funny because back in the fifties and sixties everyone worried about this business, about nuclear war. The Russians were going to nuke us at any minute. And then it all went away. I wonder if we got complacent. My mother was a wise old stick. You know what she used to say to me? She used to say, Alan, never underestimate the human race’s ability to bugger things up… Much like your mate Noll was saying.’ He nods toward Matt, asleep, curled into a tight ball. ‘Don’t reckon I slept for a month after I got back from Vietnam.’
‘You were in the war?’
‘Oh, yeah. Seen things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And I was barely eighteen, just a lad, like this fella. I hate to say it, but if you make it out of this, you’ll never be the same.’
Thirty-seven
Lucy has scissors. She stands behind me and cuts my hair as short as she can, then she takes Alan’s razor to it and shaves the rest. Side by side, Matt and I don’t look all that different. I pull on his uniform, tie the laces of his big black boots. He gives me his ID badge and I put it in my pocket.
‘What do I say to them?’ I ask.
‘Yer walk up, stand to attention.’ He does it and I copy him. ‘Yer salute.’ He salutes and I notice as he stares into the middle-distance beyond me that his eyes are watery. I copy his salute. ‘Yer say “Permission to enter, sir.” And he will open the gates for yer.’
‘Do I salute everyone I come to?’ I ask him. He says nothing, still at attention, staring into the distance. ‘Matt? Do I salute everyone?’
‘Don’t salute yer own rank.’
‘What’s my rank?’
‘Private. Yer the lowest, yer nuthin’.’
I hug Lucy before I leave. I hold her close and breathe in her scent.
‘If I don’t come back, look after Max, yeah?’
‘You’ll come back. I like you in uniform by the way.’
‘Thanks. I concocted this whole thing to impress you.’
She grips my hand. ‘You will come back.’
I go to the car, open the door and reach under the driver’s seat. I feel around until my fingers find the handgun, Starvos’ gun. I am about to tuck it under my uniform when I turn around to see Noll standing behind me, watching.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m bringing the gun.’
‘That’s a really stupid idea.’
‘No, going there with nothing is a stupid idea.’
‘At least give it to me.’
‘What?’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘You don’t have to. You don’t have a uniform.’
‘Do you even know how to shoot that thing?’
‘Well…’
‘I’m coming with you. You’ll get yourself shot on your own.’ He takes the gun from me and tucks it away in his coat. ‘Come on.’
‘I’ve only got one pushie.’
‘Then we’ll find another one. What? Did you think I wouldn’t want to steal a bike because it’s against the Ten Commandments?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘That is so Old Testament.’