Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook Page A

in his head.The pain in his eyes. It was the fear more than anything. He was going to be killed and there was nothing he could do about it. The explosion. The flash.
    And he was dead.
    Pause.
    Oblivion.
    When he opened his eyes the light was unbearable and he shut them. But he had to open them again to see where he was.
    He was lying on a stretcher. His clothes were saturated with sweat. Thirst was ploughing furrows in his throat. His head hurt and hurt and hurt.
    Where the devil was he?
    He stood up and swayed as pain swilled around inside his skull.
    There was a door over there, and there was someone beyond that door. He could hear plates being moved.
    Grant walked over and pulled open the door. It led to a sort of kitchen, and a man with his back to him was cooking something on a Primus stove.
    The man turned around, sparse and little, with a moustache.
    ‘G’day,’ he said.
    Grant had to try three times before he could form the greeting ‘G’day’.
    ‘I suppose you feel lousy?’ said the man.
    ‘Yes,’ said Grant, who thought he was going to faint, or die.
    ‘Like a drink?’ said the man.
    ‘Water,’ said Grant.
    ‘Beer,’ said the man.
    ‘Just water, thanks,’ said Grant, who felt that he would scream if he had to speak again without drinking something.
    ‘Yabba water’s only good for cooking,’ said the man. He went to a small kerosene refrigerator and took out a glass of beer.
    ‘I let it go flat,’ he said, ‘it’s better that way when you feel the way you do.’
    Grant took the glass and thought he would vomit again when the sour smell of flat beer reached his nostrils. But he had to drink something and it wasn’t bad once he was halfway through.
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, ‘but could you tell me who you are?’
    ‘Tydon,’ said the man,’Doc Tydon—you met me last night at Hynes’s place.’
    Grant let that sink in. Hynes’s place last night. Memory hit him a treacherous blow. He looked down at his clothes.They were unmistakably stained. O God, but at least the thought about that could wait until the pain had gone.
    ‘You’d better sit down,’ said Tydon, pushing a fruit box across.
    Grant sat on it. Tydon took his glass and filled it from another one out of the refrigerator.
    ‘I don’t think I want another one, thanks,’ said Grant.
    ‘Two is what you want when you look like that. Then you’d better eat.’
    Grant drank half the beer submissively.
    ‘What am I doing here?’
    ‘I brought you here last night. You were stung.’
    ‘Stung?’
    ‘Hit. Blotto, blind, inebriated—call it what you like.’
    ‘Sorry. I’m not too clear about things yet.What happened?’
    ‘You just drank yourself under the table after your little episode with Janette.’
    Grant felt his face sagging at that.
    ‘Don’t get upset. We’ve all had little episodes with Janette.’
    This would all take a great deal of thinking about when he felt better, but at the moment thinking was not a very practical proposition.
    ‘Eat some of this,’ said Tydon, pointing at a plate he had laid out heaped with a mash of meat and vegetables.
    ‘Thanks very much, but I don’t feel particularly like eating.’
    ‘No, but you’d better eat just the same—come on.’
    Grant could not argue. He pulled the box over to the table and began to eat the food with a spoon Tydon gave him. Infact, it did make him feel better. He ate it all.
    Memory struck at him again—his suitcases, where were they?
    He’d left them in a hotel.Which hotel? Dear God! He had no chance of finding them again. He felt tears in his eyes and fought them back. He’d lost money, honour, virtue and now his suitcases, and the suitcases seemed the most grievous loss of all.
    But damn it! He couldn’t break down and weep in front of this man Tydon.
    ‘That must have been quite a party last night,’ he said.
    ‘It’s always like that at Hynes’s on the weekend.’
    ‘What time did we finish?’
    ‘About dawn.’
    ‘What’s