by J. C. Burke
Walking out into the afternoon sun, my hands loose in my pockets, listening to Miro commentating the step-by-step process of paying bail – how he described our relationship to the Bail Officer as like father and son but the Bail Officer wrote ‘friend’ and couldn’t be convinced to change it – makes me want to throw open my arms and shout to the heavens. It’s intoxicating. It’s like the air has a freshness that I never noticed before.
But underneath that, lurking close enough to feel it, is a hate and anger rumbling in my bones. I tell myself to ignore it, to enjoy the freedom, but for me it will never be that simple.
Miro’s ute is parked around the back of the court. Sara and Slatko are up, wagging their tails and smiling for me. ‘Hey boys,’ I say. I wrap my arms around them and bury my face in their fur while they lick and dribble over me.
‘How did you get Sara?’ I ask Miro.
‘It not difficult.’
Miro’s jacket is off and his tie loosened yet he still looks awkward in these clothes. He makes me think of a pimp whose workers are on their last legs, who’ve all seen better days.
‘Has my mother gone away?’
‘Come, we must go home, Demon,’ Miro says. ‘I know you be hungry. I have dinner ready. Burek, your favourite.’
‘Thank you.’
With Miro you eat. Then you talk. I know that’s the way he likes to do it and I don’t have the energy to argue.
But I want to speak. I want to say more than just ‘thank you’. So many other things are hanging off the tip of my tongue, like thank you for paying the bail and fetching Sara and please tell me right now where my mother is. But I swallow them down and keep them for later. The last twenty-four hours have drained every cell of energy. I didn’t realise how hard staying alive could be.
It takes me a while to notice Miro glancing in the rear-vision mirror every few seconds.
‘Do you think we’re being followed?’ I ask. I’m sitting up straight, adjusting the outside mirror on my side of the ute so I can get a better view of what’s behind.
‘I no sure,’ Miro answers. He checks again. ‘First I think a dark car following but now it gone.’
‘One guess who that was,’ I sigh. ‘I had no idea how many people in Strathven hate me. I knew I was an outsider but they hate me – really hate me.’
‘They scared, that why they hate.’
‘But what have they got to be scared of? They don’t even know me.’
‘Of course,’ Miro answers. ‘This how world works for hundreds of years, Demon.’
I wind down the window so that the air blows in my face. It’s a westerly breeze, warm and teasing that the summer may be a scorcher.
‘They want me to be a witness and help with the murder investigation. At least, I think that’s what the lawyer meant.’
‘Yes. We know this.’
‘Do we?’
‘Demon, you always going to speak with police. Remember we discuss this.’
‘Yeah. Yeah,’ I sigh. ‘I don’t know if I thought about it enough. Back then I mean. Not now,’ I explain. ‘I’m freaking out, Miro. I took the AK-47 because I was convinced they’d seen me and would come back for me. And Mum.’ My fingers are pinching the bridge of my nose like it’ll stop the thought from hurting so much. ‘But now, now Steven and Billy Marshall will know anyway. So what was the point? The whole thing’s come full circle and I’m no better off than I was before. In fact, I’m worse off because I’ve been arrested and charged with the possession of an illegal firearm. Let alone everything else.’
‘Yes. It bit of mess.’
‘You say the Marshall brothers are stupid and idiots, but they’re not really. Not to me,’ I say. ‘Do you remember, Miro, that I told you I killed a cat?’
‘Yes.’
‘The cat’s name was Princess Anne, she belonged to the lady who lives across the road from us …’ As always, I remember the sound of Mrs Fryes banging the tin of cat food over and over again and how I lay on the bed, face down, the pillow over my head so that I didn’t have to hear it any more. I wanted to go across the road and tell Mrs Fryes that Princess Anne wasn’t going to appear for dinner but I knew she wouldn’t understand. And more than that, I was afraid of what would happen if the Marshall brothers discovered I’d dobbed them in.
But this time it’s different. I am older and with the loss of youth comes more than just the logical progression of insults and bullying. With it also comes the progression of crimes. This time it was a person the Marshall brothers killed and again I did nothing because I was scared.
‘I keep thinking about the dead man’s family,’ I say to Miro. ‘He must’ve had one. Someone must be wondering where he is. They’d have to be. You believe that no one’s forgettable.’
‘Maybe I tell you this now, Demon.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘Man in river,’ Miro says. ‘Identeefication done.’
‘They know who he is?’ I yell, lurching forward in the seat. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before!’
‘Sometime it better to wait for full stomach.’
‘Oh Jesus, Miro,’ I groan. ‘So, do you know who it is?’
‘No,’ he answers. ‘They say in Clancy pub, young man go to morgue in Mereton and say “yes, I know this person”. But I not hear his name or where he from.’
‘At least his family aren’t looking for him any more. I think not knowing if he was dead or alive would be worse. Much worse.’
Miro doesn’t say anything back. I wonder if deep down he thinks my concerns are that of a soft little white boy. A boy who considers the Marshall brothers to be much more than simply idiots and bullies.
‘You know, Demon, in war, we hide so many body,’ he begins and I realise I will never know what Miro thinks. I will never know how deep his thoughts can go, how far down the black hole goes. ‘Sooo many bodies. On some day we made to dig up body and hide all over again. Sometime, sometime I dream I will go back to my country and point – there, there, there, there, there! Then family can give burial and stop hope that they alive somewhere. It would give all of them peace and me too.’
There’s silence because there is nothing you can say back to that. Miro’s eyes flick back and forth to the rear-vision mirror while I try not to picture him back in his country with a shovel in his hands.
‘It will be okay.’
‘Will it?’ I ask. ‘You know, I want to help the police because it’s the right thing to do, not just because it might help me. I know you don’t get it, Miro, that you see them differently, but the Marshalls scare the living shit out of me. They always have.’
‘Pppffff! Bully go and hide when they smell trouble. We will not see them. They too busy protecting themselfs. You give information then leave it to polices. Trust me.’
We take the road off the highway that leads to Miro’s place. At last I remember to ask. ‘Hey, where are we actually going?’
‘Home. To my home.’ Miro sounds surprised. ‘Where you think we go?
‘But where’s home?’ I say. ‘When I went up to see you – god, it was only yesterday – you were gone. The caravan, the kitchen. Everything.’
‘Ahhhhhh,’ Miro sighs. Then he begins to chuckle. He shakes his head and slaps the steering wheel as if he’s suddenly got the punchline of a joke he heard last week. ‘Thaaat why I no see you for making salami,’ he says. ‘Then I know something wrong.’
‘But I went up to your place and you weren’t there.’
‘Demon, I was round corner.’
‘What!’
‘Round corner,’ he explains. ‘You go back of water tank, down hill and round other side. I make home there. You not know land keeps going?’
‘What?’
‘Yes!’
‘Why on earth did you do that?’
The laugh lines buckled around Miro’s eyes vanish. ‘Bad night,’ he says. ‘Big storm.’
‘Yes. Of course,’ I whisper. ‘I didn’t think of that. I thought, I though
t you’d gone.’
We drive in silence. I wonder what Miro’s seeing in his head? Is he watching himself bury and rebury those bodies? Bodies of people who taunt and follow him through the wind? I can’t look at him in case I see through to his thoughts. So I stare out the window and watch the grey blur of the telegraph poles whiz by.
I’m thinking about the exact second when I looked around to discover Miro and his caravan were gone. How the feeling of panic assaulted me. It reached out its claws and swooped me up just like it had when Mum told me Dad wasn’t coming back and like the afternoon I watched Archie pack up his car and leave.
The hope that sets in afterwards is much worse than the panic. It’s insidious the way it creeps in without you noticing, because the hope is like a balloon that fits perfectly inside your chest. But as each day passes the balloon loses some air, gets a little smaller until all that’s left inside is the emptiness of knowing that they aren’t coming back, that it’s all over. It’s the emptiness that hurts the most – the dead empty space that stays long after they’ve gone.
Miro squeezes my knee.
‘What?’
‘You no look so worried. It all okay now, Demon,’ he says. ‘Soon we be home eating dinner and enjoying glass of rakija. I find bottle from old brew and it very, veery good. My best, I think. You will like.’
‘YOU HAVE BEEN BAKING,’ I say.
Trays and trays of triangular burek are lined up along the table like he’s been cooking for a celebration.
‘You like new kitchen?’ Miro asks, dusting the leftover flour onto the dirt floor. ‘I think much better.’
‘It looks exactly the same as the old one,’ I answer. ‘Except I don’t think inside’s as dark.’
‘No, it face west. Good for afternoon sun.’
‘So you just packed up the old place and moved here?’ I ask. ‘Just like that.’
‘I move many, many time,’ he answers. ‘I no like other home so much because it too close to rubbish everywhere. Except my bottle. They not rubbish. I make them very neat.’
‘You mean all that stuff you see when you drive in, like the bath and the tyres and the burnt motorbike, isn’t actually yours?’
‘No!’ Miro says. ‘Pff.’ His hand sweeps at the air like a broom. ‘I no have such mess in my home. Rubbish belong to Mr Rickard. This his land I rent. Many, many time I tell Mr Rickard, “I take rubbish for you,” but he say, “No, Miro, it no matter.” I want to say it matter because I no like having mess for driving into my home. It no good. What if your mother come one day for visit?’
‘I don’t think that’s likely,’ I mutter.
‘I go to caravan for bottle of rakija,’ Miro says. ‘Demon, you set table. You no forget tablecloth, it there in basket.’
It’s inevitable, another awful conversation is about to take place in these civilised conditions. In a few minutes Miro and I will be sitting around this orange-draped table, sipping brandy and eating home-cooked food, discussing matters that are quite uncivilised. Like how many people he killed in the ‘clean up’ and when it became acceptable to sell your own son to the police.
I need to walk outside and suck in deep lungfuls of air. I didn’t see it coming. How could I? Mum’s suspicious, she snoops; rarely has she given me the benefit of the doubt and I give it all right back and that’s how we live together. Perhaps we got clumsier over time. But those were the terms of us. At least, that’s how I’d always read them.
Miro comes out of the caravan waving a bottle of brandy and watching for the bubbles. ‘Ah, you see,’ he says. ‘Look at bubble. It like big ring. Very very good.’ He takes my arm. ‘Come, we eat.’
I pour the brandy and he serves the burek.
‘Welcome to new home, Demon,’ he says, holding up his glass.
I don’t reciprocate. There’s not much to celebrate, except my freedom and I didn’t deserve to have that taken away.
‘Your mother make you sad?’ asks Miro. ‘That why you no want to make toast with me?’
‘What do you reckon?’ I say.
‘I think you write letter to her.’
I’m trying to keep up my end of the deal, trying to keep the tone civilised. But I can’t. My knife and fork slam onto the table and I push my plate away.
‘Write her a letter?’ I snap. ‘You’re kidding, right? It’s a bit past that, Miro. You do understand what she did, don’t you? She fed me to the cops. She just took it upon herself to come up with the worst possible scenario, which is me, her son, being a homicidal maniac, and then tell the police about it. It’s going to take more than a letter to smooth that one over.’
‘I think she would like one letter.’
‘Well, you don’t know her,’ I spit.
‘Aunty Yvonney, she say it be good.’
‘What!’ I shout. ‘You spoke to my aunty?’
‘Yes,’ Miro replies, gracefully nibbling the corner of a burek. ‘Mmm, very good,’ he says. ‘This morning after truck take you away to Mereton. I go to your home because I think maybe no one sleep. I see light on and I talk with Aunty Yvonney.’
‘No! Why?’
‘She nice lady. Fat. But nice.’
My hands have wrapped themselves around the side of the chair. I’m squeezing so hard my body is nearly lifting out of the seat.
‘Yvonney say to me that your mother very, veery scared people in Strathven will take you away and kill you. You know when you away with me nasty people give her phone calls.’
‘That’s a lie,’ I hiss. ‘She doesn’t answer the phone.’
‘No,’ Miro answers. ‘This what Yvonney tell me. Phone ring and ring and your mother worried you have accident so she pick up telephone. Yes, this is right. Yvonney tell me.’
‘No. No.’
‘She say your mother no want to call police but she think it safer you locked up where nobodies can hurt you.’
I’m not sure what my face is showing but again Miro says, ‘Yes, Demon. This what Yvonney tell me. She say she get on first plane from her home. She say to me, “Demon not bad boy. He has rough time with his life.” I say to Yvonney I know this. Demon good boy. He work for me.’ Miro shakes his finger at me. ‘That when I find out you only just tell your mother about me.’
I mutter, the words stuck behind my teeth, ‘That’s the least of my problems.’
‘Demon?’ Miro’s arm reaches over the table. My eyes close and I count to three before I can uncurl my fingers from one side of the chair. I offer him my hand but only for a second, then I pull away. ‘It will be all right, Demon,’ Miro says. ‘You no in jail. Everybody will know everything soon. Truth will be told. This always best thing.’
‘So my mother didn’t actually speak to you?’
‘No. Moslem boy, his mother, I not remember her name, give her pills to help for sleeping.’
‘Dora,’ I tell him. ‘That’s what Moe’s mother’s called. Dora.’
‘I see her in court today.’
‘Moe had plenty to say to the cops about me.’ I pick up my Donald Duck glass and almost throw the brandy down my throat. It burns and I wait but the sweetness never spreads across my tongue. ‘He sold me too. In some ways that was a bigger shock.’
‘I think maybe it my fault,’ Miro says as he licks the crumbs off his fingertips. ‘I say Moslem boy not happy you work with me. It generation and generation of hate, Demon. So much wasting of time. I get stuck in hate too when war in my country. But my grandmother, remember I tell you she live till one hundred. My grandmother, she used to say, “Niko,” I was her favourite you see, “Niko, you do somethings for me. You not make hate spread to next generation and next generation or when will it be over. You choose no hate.” I not do good job for her. Sometime in wind I think I hear my grandmother shout at me very loudest. I do.’
Miro’s war, Miro’s grandmother, Miro’s ghosts – I don’t care about any of them tonight. There’s a snarl in my voice. I can hear it. I can feel my top lip trembling as it curls upwards in a sneer
. ‘So Moe grasses on me because of some war that I had nothing to do with. That makes sense.’
‘You must close hate little bit, little bit like hole you fill with shovel.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ I stand up. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Miro, I’m really tired and I’m not hungry. I just need to be alone. Thank you for bailing me out. You’ll get the money back, I promise.’
‘You go to bed, Demon,’ Miro says. He also stands up and takes my plate and glass over to the sink. ‘You have bed in caravan. I make for you.’
I keep my breath held until I’m out of the kitchen and on my own.
The bed is made up in the candy-striped sheets. It’s turned down ready for me to fall into. I take off my clothes and snuggle into crisp sheets that smell freshly laundered. I squish up the pillow and roll onto my side and that’s when I see on the dresser a little glass of yellow flowers.
The glare of headlights shining against the frosted glass wakes me. At first I can’t remember where I am but then I hear Miro. His voice is firm, but it sounds like he’s swallowing the ends of his words, as though he’s trying to keep the volume down. ‘Get off my property,’ he’s saying.
The baritone rumbles of Slatko and Sara sound like they’re coming from underneath the caravan. It’s as if I can feel the floor vibrating.
I hear a car door slam, then the voice of Geraghty. ‘Where is he?’
‘I say, get off my property.’
There’s the shudder of another car door opening and then Parker’s voice picks at the air. ‘We just wanna talk with him, Yugo. That’s all. So tell us where he is.’
I’m pulling on my jeans, fumbling with the zip and buttons. For so long, I have been fighting these guys. But not in the real world. I think every time I took a head shot and watched the blood splatter across my computer screen it was Parker and Geraghty, or any of the Marshall boys, that I’d imagined in the crosshairs.
Someone is walking towards the caravan. It’s Miro. His voice is clearer now. ‘You and you, get off my property.’
