Deep Water

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I woke up in an intensive care unit in San Diego, California. It was a beautiful day-the blue sky San Diego was famous for filled the window. But any day would have been beautiful because I was alive.

‘Mr Hardy,’ the tall, tanned man in the white coat said, ‘how do you feel?’

‘As if I’ve been hit by a truck. What happened?’

He reached for my hand and shook it in a firm but cautious grip. ‘I’m Doctor Henry Pierce. I’m a cardiac surgeon.’

‘Yes?’

He flipped through some notes in a ring-bind folder. ‘It seems you were walking along our pier-’ he said it the way a Sydneysider might say our harbour bridge-‘and you bent to pick something up, or move it aside.’

‘I remember. A box of bait,’ I said, ‘heavier than I expected.’

‘You stood, shouted and then fell headlong. You suffered a head wound but, more importantly, a massive coronary occlusion.’

I heard what he said, but I was groggy, with some pain and discomfort in my upper body, and I had trouble taking it in. ‘I was looking for Frankie Machine,’ I said.

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