Free Smashed by Mandy Hager Page A

grab him by the throat and shake the crap out of him until he tells her what’s going on, but outwardly she’s playing it cool. Ever since her uni days, when sheprotested against the Springbok rugby tour and got locked up for sitting in the middle of the motorway, she’s had a kind of love–hate relationship with the police. It’s like she wants us to know that the police are there to help us but she’s never quite forgiven them for what they did. ‘Well, he is there now. We’ve been to an appointment together. I just dropped him back.’
    ‘That’s fine then. We’ll pop back down.’
    He rises, about to leave, but Mum’s not going to have a bar of that. She’s told him what he wanted and now she wants info in return. ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘It’s Don,’ I blurt. ‘Someone’s beaten him up real bad.’ The whole thing is totally surreal. Here I am acting like I haven’t just got home from a night I can’t remember, washing the blood of someone I may or may not know off my hands. Yet these stupid cops here seem to think there’s some connection to my dad.
    Mum’s hand flies to her mouth. ‘Oh my god. Poor Carol … Is Don alright?’
    Sergeant DeVinnie answers. ‘It’s early days. He’s still in a coma, and that’s probably the best thing for him at this point. His head is swollen to the size of a football and there’s an enormous amount of bleeding in his brain.’
    A picture, stark and real as a lightning bolt, flashes through my mind. I can see Don lying there, in the darkestcorner of the parking lot, blood pouring from his mouth and nose. He’s squinting up at me with the most pathetic, pleading eyes. It’s such a terrible image — so clear — that my breakfast just presses the eject button and starts to fly. All I can do is run, hand across my mouth, before I lose it in the kitchen sink. It’s as if my gut’s chosen puking as default mode, and any little thing (okay, quite big thing) can set it off.
    Constable Gordon is up and at my side. I’m splashing my face with water as I hear Mum’s rising panic. ‘What’s this got to do with Paul?’ She’s standing in the middle of the room, stuck between wanting to help me and baling up Sergeant DeVinnie.
    ‘The boy’s father indicated that your husband recently made some threats …’
    ‘Oh, for god’s sake!’ All Mum’s calm has disappeared. ‘Show me a father who wouldn’t say something like that in the heat of the moment when his daughter’s just been raped.’ She spits the word out like a curse, and Sergeant DeVinnie reels backwards like she’s slapped him.
    I’m still over by the sink, shaking like a leaf, when Constable Gordon starts showing an uncomfortable amount of interest in the blood-speckled bench. No way. I twist the cold tap full on and sweep my puke straight down the plughole, taking the dishcloth and scrubbing allthe surfaces before he thinks to make me stop.
    Meanwhile, Sergeant DeVinnie is working hard at calming Mum. ‘Hang on a mo — let’s go back a step. What do you mean?’
    At this very moment, as if things couldn’t get any crazier, Dad bursts in. ‘My god, Toby, are you alright?’ He’s scanning the room, taking in the cops and Mum while he speaks. ‘Shirley said some police had been. I tried to ring …’ His gaze rests on the phone that’s lying on the floor where I knocked it over.
    Everyone freezes, staring at the stupid phone like it’s a criminal offence or something. ‘It was me! I did it!’ They all spin towards me and I realise how I’ve made it sound. ‘The phone. I mean I knocked the phone.’ I can’t help but start giggling — a nervous, freaked-out little sound that’s more like squeezing air through the neck of a balloon. And that’s kind of what it is, I guess — a release of all the tension that’s bouncing around between us.
    Dad is the first to switch back on. ‘I think we’d better all sit down.’ He puts a protective arm around my shoulders and steers me