7. THE REUNION

Harry’s assumption had been accurate on at least one item. Cameron was not a pretty sight.
Bandages covered most of his body. His head was wrapped and he had a couple bruises and marks on his face, including at least one black eye. His left arm was in plaster and being suspended above his bed. His shoulder was also heavily bandaged. Tubes and wires lead off to different machines, all of which hummed or beeped in time with Cameron’s body. A UV drip to one side slowly fed its medicine into a long tube that fed into the back of Cameron’s hand.
When they first entered the room, Cameron seemed to be asleep. As they approached the bed, Cameron stirred. He opened his good eye and, seeing who it was, smiled.

“So for my next day off, can we just hire a movie and stay in?” He asked, smirking at his own joke.

Without thinking, Tory leapt onto the bed and wrapped her arms around him.

“OW!” He cried hoarsely, wincing in pain.

Tory immediately pulled back.

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s OK.” Cameron said, still smiling. “Just take it easy. Damaged goods.”

Tory nestled in next to Cameron, her arms wrapped tightly around him. Cameron looked over the top of her head to where his parents stood.

“Hi Mum. Hi Dad.”

Ellen walked up to the side of the bed and bent over to kiss her son’s forehead.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine mum. Really, I’m OK.” Cam looked over at his father. “Hey Dad.”

“How you doing?” Harry asked, briefly gripping his son’s wrist. It was a small gesture of affection, but for Cameron, it was enough.

“I feel like I fell off a building. How you doing?”

“I feel like my son just fell off a building.”

“Oh yeah? You should get em to give you some of this stuff.” Cameron raised his arm with the drip in it and pointed at the needle. “I dunno what it is, but it’s great!”

“I’ll ask for a doggy bag.”

“What the hell were you thinking!” Ellen suddenly exploded out with, cutting of her husbands retort. “You could have been killed!”

Tory flinched a little in Cameron’s arms at Ellen’s sudden snap. Cameron squeezed her a little tighter to reassure her. This was not an uncommon trait of Ellen’s and Cameron knew it. Ellen had a nasty habit of hiding emotions with anger. It was a cause of many of her and Cameron’s fights when he was a teenager. Instead of talking to Cam, or Harry for that matter, about what ever was frustrating her, she would just let it fester until it boiled over. Sudden outbursts like this were a common feature in their household. Harry had grown so used to it that whenever she had one of her rants, he would start teasing and mocking Ellen, in a bid to point out her overly dramatic way of dealing with things. Cameron had also learned ways of dealing with his mother’s rants. His tactics were a bit more subtle than his fathers, usually talking very softly in response, forcing Ellen to lower her voice. But as both men knew, sometimes the best way to deal with it was to just let her go.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t, Mum.

“But you could have! You could have been lying in the morgue now, and I could have had to come in here and pick up your dead body!”

Logic wasn’t really a big thing in these types of conversations.

“Mum, see me here, talking to you?” Cameron waved his hands slightly to emphasise his point. “I’m not dead! I survived. Yeah, I’m banged up, but I survived.”

"Well, why couldn’t you have let someone else take care of things? Why did you have to go and be the damn hero again? That worked out so well for you last time!”

The ‘last time’ Ellen spoke about had happened when Cameron was about 24 or so. At the time, Cameron had been spending a lot of time with his friends Josh and Miranda and his Girlfriend at the time, Kat. The three of them all lived in one of those designed suburbs you see all over the place, called Bligh Park, near Windsor in Sydney’s far west. ‘Overnight Suburbs’ Cameron usually referred to them as. You would find yourself driving past an empty field one day, then 6 months later, you’d return to find an entire community has just suddenly appeared, complete with schools, supermarkets and a community centre. Josh and Miranda rented a 3-bedroom place out on the area’s fringes. They were close enough to the edge that the bushland that used to occupy the area could be seen just over the roofs. Josh and Miranda shared one room, Kat had another and another roommate, Alex, took the third. Alex had originally lived there with his on again, off again girlfriend, who had since moved out.

For Josh’s birthday that year, Miranda had prepared a surprise Costume Birthday party. Elaborate steps had been taken to get Josh out of the house and away long enough for them to set up, which included a pre-arranged ‘domestic’ between Cameron and Kat. The ruse had worked, and Josh was completely bewildered by the final result. However, since it was a costume party, Miranda had one last surprise for him, as she revealed Josh’s costume for the evening. It consisted of a black mini skirt, red halter-top, fish net stockings and a blonde wig. A highlight of the party was when Josh stepped out of the bedroom in full drag, complete with make-up, courtesy of his ever loving and mischievous girlfriend.

Later in the night, the party was beginning to run low on a few items. Mostly drink and alcohol. Being one of the few who owned a car, Cameron had elected not to drink that night. When he suggested taking the car into Richmond to pick up a few items, an improvised road trip was suddenly organised. More people than he had ever thought possible has suddenly crammed into his four-door sedan, heading off for ‘Emergency provisions’

That was their first bad idea.