by J. C. Burke
‘He’s in there, isn’t he? In the caravan?’ It’s Parker again. I hear the dogs snarl and I count three steps sliding across the ground, edging closer. ‘We want to see him. Come on, Pigman, this is the way it works.’
I pull my jumper over my head.
Geraghty’s getting impatient. ‘Just fuckin’ hand him over. This isn’t your business, Yugo. You’re not from here so move out of the way and let us have him.’
Silence.
I’m walking towards the door but then Parker starts to squeal and I paste myself against the wall. ‘Damoink oink oink oink. Oink oink oink oink. Come out, little pig, or I’ll blow your house down.’
Geraghty’s laughing. My hand’s reaching out to the doorknob. It’s time to face them in the real world. Otherwise they have taken too much from me.
‘Get out here, you filthy little prick!’ Then he calls, ‘Or we’ll have to mess up your Yugo mate and I don’t reckon that’s fair considering he put up your bail.’
I pull open the door of the caravan. Miro is standing in front, blocking the doorway. In the headlights I can clearly see Parker and Geraghty, yet they haven’t seen me. Parker’s holding a cricket bat. He’s hitting the end into the dirt like he’s waiting for a ball.
Miro’s hand is up, warning me to stay where I am but I step out into their view. Straight away Parker spots me. ‘Hey, there he is! There’s the psycho pussy chicken. Hiding in big Yugo’s caravan.’
‘Demon, go inside!’
‘No.’
‘Demon!’
I push my way past Miro and take a step towards them. Sara comes to my side. His hot breath pants against my hand. ‘What do you want?’ I say.
Geraghty’s elbow leans on Parker’s shoulder. His boot taps the ground. It’s an act, this relaxed look of theirs, feigning calm – almost boredom. But the light shines towards them and I can see their eyes, their wide, dark pupils, and Geraghty’s other hand that hangs by his side. I can see his fingers twitch like mine, like he has a tic he can’t control.
‘I said, what do you want?’
‘You know what we want.’ Parker draws the cricket bat behind his back. ‘We want you.’
‘Go inside,’ Miro growls at me. ‘Now.’
‘He’s ours,’ Parker tells him. ‘This is how it works, Pigman.’
‘How about a deal,’ I tell them. ‘You can have me if you promise to leave my mother alone.’
‘Now why would we hurt the poor old soppy sow?’ says Parker. Geraghty is laughing hard now. ‘The very thought of it.’
‘Yeah,’ Geraghty squawks. ‘She’s on our side. She called the cops, remember.’
‘I tell you one more time,’ Miro shouts. ‘Get off my property!’
‘Or what? You’ll call the cops too?’ Parker’s also laughing. Then he stops, dead in his tracks. ‘Hand him over, Pigman,’ he spits. ‘Now.’
‘Inside, Demon. Please.’
‘Miro, they’re –’
‘Inside!’ Miro’s voice drops to a mumble. But I hear exactly what he’s telling me to do. ‘Lock door. Put on music. Loud.’
‘Miro, I have to …?’
‘You do this for me, boy. I ask you just for this. Just for this one thing.’
As I take a step back up into the doorway, Geraghty lunges forward and Parker swings the bat towards Miro. That’s the last thing I see.
I shut the door of the caravan. Turn the music on and roll the volume dial as far as it’ll go. One of Miro’s folk songs explodes into the night.
I sit on the bed, twisting the sheets around my wrists while the piano accordion plays faster and faster. Occasionally I hear a dog’s bark or the thud of something landing against the walls. So my fingers grind themselves into my ears. My eyes are shut. The caravan rocks, once then twice. I start to count – one, two, three, four – it’s the only way I can keep myself seated on the bed, stop myself from running out there.
But then the caravan door flies open, the music’s off and far away is the screech of tyres skidding along the dirt.
‘My hand, bloody stupid hand.’ Miro is coughing and panting. His back is to me but I know what he’s doing. I can hear the bones in his fingers snapping back into place.
Miro washes his face. He’s gargling and spitting, running the water into his palms, through his hair and across his face like he hasn’t washed in days. Then he turns off the tap and leans against the sink. ‘They won’t be back’, he says to me. ‘I promise.’
The bottle of rakija sits in the centre of the table. There are no glasses. Instead we take turns drinking from the bottle. At last my hands have stopped shaking but the remnants of a frenzied piano accordion still play somewhere in my head.
‘You should’ve let me fight them.’
‘Why?’ Miro says. ‘So you can find yourself more trouble? No, they little boy idiots. They not worth trouble.’
Miro’s concentrating on re-rolling the same cigarette for a third time. He seems to be having trouble with his hand. The joint at the top of his middle finger is bobbing around like it’s free-floating in the skin. It nags me, the thought that I should be suggesting he see a doctor. It’s the right thing to say but I’m terrified of where the conversation could lead. I think I counted two car doors slamming shut. I definitely heard the car drive away.
‘Here,’ I offer. ‘I’ll roll it for you.’
Miro seems to flinch as he leans over and passes the pouch of tobacco to me. He begins to cough and I wonder if he’s taken one of Geraghty’s thick knees in his chest.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course,’ he answers.
‘What are you thinking about?’ I ask. ‘You seem distracted.’
When Miro answers again I realise it will always be a risk, asking Miro what he thinks about. ‘I think it funny we always know our torturers,’ he says. ‘That what I think.’ The fingers of his good hand are wrapped around the bottle. He stares at the brown glass as he speaks. ‘We all live next door to each other. It so crazy.’
‘You mean tonight?’
‘Tonight,’ he says. ‘War. Life.’
Miro raises the bottle to his lips. I watch him drink, his eyes closed, his head tilted back. When he’s finished he slides his hand across his mouth, mopping up any mess he’s made.
‘Good and evil, Demon, it live together. Side by side,’ he says. ‘Just little bit of space between. Sometime we get stuck on one side and sometime we get stuck on other side.’
‘What do you do if you’re standing in the middle?’ I ask. ‘Right in the space between?’
Miro looks at me and smiles. I’ve seen that face; it’s dreamy, soft, and tonight he is looking right at me, for here and now. Not for a part of his life that he still aches for.
‘Well, then you lucky if you standing in middle, Demon,’ he grins. ‘For you can choose which way you go.’
THE BOTTLES ARE STACKED UP again. The pyramid I’ve built is not as symmetrical as Miro’s but it’s not bad either. I stand back and admire my work.
Miro assures me I’m safe here on my own with Sara. That no unwanted visitors will pass through. The confidence with which he says it worries me.
The only thing to do is to keep myself busy while he’s out. That’s why I’m attempting to clean up the rubbish near his old place, or at least make it more presentable.
I’m collecting the sheets of rubber that still hang like flags from the trees. Sara’s down on his haunches barking while I hold the handle of a broom up between the branches and bash away until the bits fall out. Then I chuck it into a bin and start on the next tree.
It’s a task that requires no thought. There’s only one aim to the game and it’s surprisingly satisfying when the strips of tyre finally fall to the ground.
Perhaps it’s because of the brainlessness of it that I find myself composing a letter to Mum in my head. Again this morning Miro has reminded me that I should write one.
Dear Mum – or perhaps I would just start with ‘Mum’. The ‘d
ear’ could be misinterpreted. This is not a letter I intended to write. It’s been suggested to me that it may be the right thing to do and as I have no idea what the right thing to do is, I may as well give it a try.
It’s an understatement to say I was shocked when I walked in to find the police in my room. It’s an understatement to say I was shocked when it occurred to me what you thought I was capable of.
Shock is the word I use now, however it’s not an accurate way to describe how I felt. Perhaps I will never find one word that can say it all. But, so that you know, here are some words to describe how I felt: stunned, confused, betrayed.
This job of knocking the rubber out of the trees has me puffing and glistening in a layer of sweat. I sit down on a patch of dirt that’s drained and dry and wait for my breathing to calm down. Then aloud, I begin to list the words on each finger. ‘Stunned,’ I say, almost snapping my little finger in half. ‘Confused. Betrayed.’
Angry? It’s another one to consider adding to the list but it’s not enough. Anger is too straightforward for a situation such as this. What I experienced was much more than anger.
Our relationship has been a difficult one. Maybe that’s the line that should follow the ‘Dear Mum’ or the straight-out ‘Mum’. Maybe I need to outline where I believed we stood with each other before I get to the really sordid bit about what she evidently believed me capable of.
Our relationship has been a difficult one. I take my share of responsibility, because I know I’ve been difficult and sometimes I wonder if I’ve given you any joy. But what you did will be hard to move on from. I don’t know where we go from here and I’m reluctant to use all the clichés about time but that’s probably the only factor we have in our favour.
There’s one lone ant wandering across my ankle, so why does it feel like an army of them crawling all over my skin? ‘I don’t know nothink about ya,’ she said. What did she think I was? I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to protect her. I jump up, get the broom and start bashing away at the trees again.
‘Dear Mum!’ I’m yelling now. ‘It’s been no bloody holiday living with you just like I’m sure it’s been no bloody holiday living with me. But I thought that through all that screwed-up mess that is us, there was an understanding that we didn’t intend to hurt each other.’ There’s a crack as I slam the broom’s handle across a branch, bringing it and the shreds of tyre toppling to the ground.
I march to the next tree, dragging the broom behind me, still shouting as loud as I ever have. ‘But we really managed to outdo ourselves this time. Why couldn’t we be content with being just the regular outcasts instead of the monumentally psychotic, dysfunctional, fucked in the head outcasts we are now?’
I hold the broom behind my shoulder like a baseball bat and swing it across the trunk. Sara howls as pieces of bark go flying. ‘My suggestion is that we get as far away from Strathven as is humanly possible – Afghanistan sounds nice – and do our best at starting our lives all over again. Because I can tell you that no one wants me here.’ The wooden handle snaps in two just as my roar crashes into the hill. ‘Lovvvve, your son Daaaamon.’
It was a relief to hear the sound of Miro’s ute grumbling down the hill tonight. I know Miro will protect me, enforce his own type of witness protection. But that’s not the reason I want to be around him. It’s because I don’t want to be alone any more.
For so long, I think I’ve just been dabbling in the real world. Sticking my toe in, testing it out then retreating back to the one I preferred. The one that allowed me to be a different person, that didn’t ask too much of me. Probably a world I was more comfortable in. The world of Cleopatra666, Mad Bull, and a life that wasn’t real.
But with Miro, life is real. When I’m around him I feel like I want to live in this world, not just drift in the space between. Maybe that’s what I felt with Archie, some kind of connection. Maybe it’s not the world, maybe it’s the connection with a person who makes me feel like I count, like it actually matters to someone that I’m around. If asked, I never would’ve said that I was like that, the kind of person who needed people or wanted to be needed. I always thought myself exempt.
We are up at the water tank; sitting on our chairs, drinking brandy and eating triangles of burek. Sara and Slatko watch our food and chewing mouths, but keep perfectly still, hopelessly resigned that none will come their way.
Near my feet a new patch of yellow flowers sprouts. It seems we have been sitting here for a long time without speaking, simply enjoying the view out to the hills. Listening to the day slip away into the quietness of night.
Miro went back to my house to collect clean clothes for me. He took them some burek and had a cup of tea with Aunty Yvonne. Mum wouldn’t come out of her room.
When he told me this, it felt like a fine needle passing through my skin. I wonder if Aunty Yvonne knows to count my mother’s breaths when she sleeps. If she knows that the dark chocolate Tim Tams give her a stomach-ache.
Miro reaches over to fill my glass. ‘What you want, Demon?’ he asks in his gentle voice. ‘What can I do to make you happy, boy?’
‘Why are you so good to me?’
‘Demon, I am your friend.’ It’s the simplest of answers.
‘I want to go away,’ I tell him. ‘I want to get in the ute with the dogs and drive away. I want to sleep under the stars and drink sweet tea in the morning and rakija at night with the fire crackling and hear stories about your village and your life before the war. That’s what I want.’
‘Then we go.’
‘We can’t. I have to report to the police every two days. I’m stuck here.’
‘So we go tomorrow after police,’ he says. Miro has a way of making everything sound so easy. ‘We camp for two day and then we come back to Strathven for you to report and then we go again for two more day. I know many, many places to make good camp that not so far.’
‘Do you think we can do that?’
‘Yes. Yes.’ He nods. ‘Sometime we maybe have to shoot thee pig for some money.’
‘You don’t need to use “the” in that sentence,’ I correct him. ‘You say, “We might have to shoot pigs.” I know it’s confusing.’
‘Pff.’ Miro shoos the idea away. ‘It make no difference. Pig, thee pig – it not make pig run any slower.’
Miro tells me he rang a lawyer friend of his. A lady called Barbara. I remember seeing her card in his wallet that day.
‘What did she think?’ I ask.
‘Barbaara, she say you telling polices what you saw will help you. She say she make phone calls around to ask what people know. She very, veeery high up, my friend Barbaara. She has many people owe her favour.’
Miro tells me that Barbara suggests I write down every detail of the crime. Every tiny thing I remember. A complete account of what I saw that morning.
I will mention Billy Marshall’s brown boots. The scuff and scratch marks on the toes of his boot, the one that drags behind the other. Perhaps the police will take the boot as evidence.
Miro says it’s important that I note the man they murdered was bald and had a bandaged arm but I imagine the police know all that by now.
Miro’s bought me an exercise book so I can write all of that down. He tells me it’s in the ute. Then he says that if I get the whole scene down in words, maybe I won’t have to see it in my head quite as much.
I wonder if he did this before he went to The Hague. I wonder if this is how he manages not to lose his mind. Was keeping my books of lists how I managed not to lose mine?
The exercise book will probably have the same striped cover as my ones. Miro doesn’t know about my lists. I don’t think I’ll ever tell him because maybe it’s too hard for people to believe that they were just a personal record. That I meant nothing by them.
The reason I kept those lists was to try and shift all the hate out of my head and onto paper. It was probably this preventative measure that stopped me from turning into exactly what everyone in Strathven alrea
dy thought I was.
Miro lights a candle then fills my glass again.
‘Do you think I’m a bad person?’ I ask him.
‘Do I think you bad person?’ he says. ‘No. But I think you must give more respect to your mother, Demon. And I also think you must forgive. Oh,’ he adds, ‘and be patient.’
Miro takes a sip of rakija. His eyes are closed and his lips fold together as he savours the flavour of his brew. Then a smile so tiny twitches at the corners of his mouth. But what really tells me he’s happy at this moment are the lines on his face draining away.
I look up into the darkness. Tonight the sky is from heaven. The last curve of the sun slides behind the hills. Across layers and layers of purple and gold a channel of clouds floats high in the sky like it’s a corridor to somewhere.
J.C. Burke was born in Sydney in 1965, the fourth of five daughters. With writers for parents, she grew up in a world full of noise, drama and books, and the many colourful characters who came to visit provided her with an endless supply of stories and impersonations.
Burke decided to become a nurse after her mother lost a long battle with cancer. She specialised in the field of Oncology, working in Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Units in Australia and the UK.
A creative writing course at Sydney University led to an ASA mentorship with Gary Crew and the publication of Children’s Book Council Notable of Australia Book White Lies (Lothian) in 2002. Burke has since written The Red Cardigan, also a CBCA Notable Book, and its sequel Nine Letters Long. The Story of Tom Brennan won the 2006 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year: Older Readers award and also the Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature 2006. J.C. Burke’s latest books are Faking Sweet, Starfish Sisters and Ocean Pearl.
J.C. Burke lives in Sydney. For more information about her and her books, visit www.jcburke.com.au or go to her page on Facebook.
The author would like to thank: Shakti Burke, Kim O’Neil, Trangie, NSW; The McKinnon Family, Dandeloo Station, Trangie, NSW; Mitch and Ally Newbury, St Mary’s Indoor Shooting Centre, NSW; Vince Danilo, translator; Miles Wright; Michael Shehadie; Laraine, Greg and Leigh Smith, Bowen, QLD; Alex Shehadie; Meredith Phelps; Sophie Toomey; Kelly Hargreaves; Philip O’Keefe; Hamish Sutherland; Manning Begg; Stuart Lewis, Finley, NSW; Eric and Ray Boittier; Glen Thomas and Cathy Charnley; Craig and James, EB Games, Warriewood, NSW; Col’s Meats, Avalon, NSW; Tony Cleaver, Brisbane, QLD; Kellie Nash, Mary Doolan and all at Coonabarabran High; Tara Wynne, Curtis Brown Australia; Zoe Walton, publisher, Random House Australia; Kimberley Bennett, editor, Random House Australia.
