Pig Boy (24 page)

‘Why you go?' Miro says in a baby voice. He staggers over to the sink and drops the empty bottle in there. ‘You no my friend any more?'

‘No, Miro,' I say. ‘It's just time for me to go. Okay? It's all good.'

‘You no like me because I tell truths.'

‘Miro. Everything's fine. I just need to get home. Check on Mum.'

I'm standing up now, lifting the wet t-shirt away from my skin, trying hard to only breathe from my mouth.

‘We make salami, Demon?' His hands are clasped in front of him and he leans into the shelves, peering up at me like a little boy. I'm smiling hard, trying to let Miro know that nothing's changed between us. It would only take two steps and I could put my arms around him, tell him it's okay. But I don't because I'm afraid.

‘I'll see you tomorrow,' I say. ‘Salami day.'

Miro turns his back like he can't stomach the sight of me. He leans his torso over the sink and I wonder if he's about to be sick. ‘Before you go, get bottle from under bed,' Miro mumbles. ‘Thank you.'

I step out of the kitchen and into the night. A fine rain spits down on me like pins dropping from the sky. But I stand here a while because now, out of the kitchen, there's space to breathe.

Sara trots up to me and nuzzles his wet nose against my palm. ‘Yeah, mate, I want to get out of here too,' I tell him. ‘I'll get the old man some more
rakija
and then I promise we are gone.'

Miro came back to the caravan for the second bottle of brandy, which must be the reason the clean piles of washing are scattered all over the bed. But that's not it – why does this room feel completely different to how it felt a couple of hours ago? Is it because when I came into the caravan earlier tonight I thought I knew him, this person whose clothes were neatly folded?

For a while I sit on the bed among the socks and jeans. I'm looking around at the other things in the room, trying to know this man. But the place is almost bare. There's a brass clock sitting on a shelf; the old wind-up variety, the hands frozen on five-thirty. Stuck on a mirror is a postcard of rolling green hills dotted with terracotta rooftops. There's no sign of his family. No photo frames sitting on the dresser. No sou venirs of his past. Just the Rolling Stones t-shirt, and it's still perfectly folded the way it was before.

I peel off my wet shirt and put it on. Then I squeeze into the gap between the wall and the bed and pull out another bottle of
rakija
.

‘Here we go,' I say, walking into the kitchen and putting the third bottle on the table. Sara sits in the doorway, waiting for me. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.'

Miro still leans over the sink. His shoulders seem to rise and stay there a full minute before they fall and his breath escapes in a long sigh.

‘Are you okay?'

Miro turns around slowly, like an old man, gripping onto the counter to keep his balance. But when he sees me his forehead collapses into his face, dragging down his brows, a map of lines cutting across his skin.

The realisation comes so suddenly it's like I've just been slapped across the face. The Rolling Stones t-shirt. The guy who Miro was with, the guy who took up so much space in the photo that I nearly didn't see the AK-47s, was wearing this exact t-shirt except that in the picture it was black and new.

I freeze as Miro walks towards me in measured steps. His breath is thick with brandy and tobacco; I can feel it blowing into the hollow of my throat. Softly his fingertips brush across my face and I stop breathing. But his arm drops and he walks to the table.

‘There one story I not tell.' His voice is soft, distant like he's lost it somewhere inside of him. ‘And maybe, maybe we cannot really know each other until I tell you this. Sit. Please.'

He eases himself into the chair. ‘I know boy like you.
Ti si isti kao on
,' he says again. ‘Just like you.' On each finger he starts to list the similarities. ‘He fat. He young. He love dog. He scared of gun. He no like to kill. Just like you, Demon. But he like Bon Jovi and he like Rolling Stones.'

I tell him, ‘I've seen his photo.'

‘Ah yes. Photo in wallet.'

I nod.

‘I like Irham very much,' Miro says. ‘I no happy when he die. But I go to Hague to get revenge on Dejan for much more than killing Irham and making me dig his grave.'

‘Was that Irham in the photo?'

‘No. It Pavle, boy I meet in war. Boy like you,' says Miro. ‘
Ti si isti kao on
. Just like you.'

‘Is he the one that used to get the stomach-ache, from the beans?'

Miro chuckles. He sits back in the chair, folding his arms. His eyes are fixed not on me but on something just behind me. I'm not sure he sees me at all.

‘One day, it great day,' Miro begins. ‘Pavle and me find pig. Can you believe, in middle of war, no food, no nothing, but we find pig and I shoot of course. Pavle won't. No!' Miro has found his voice. His words are falling out, toppling on each other like he's been storing up this tale, patiently waiting for the right time to tell it. ‘We have few days off in village like holiday. No fighting, no hiding in hills like sniper or up all of night waiting for enemy. It like before war. We trade for some herbs and for using smoke house and Pavle and me, we make salami. Best salami ever. The first mouthful I taste was like melting but bit of spice. It very very good,' Miro says. ‘You will see, Demon. You will like too.' Then Miro asks me. ‘How much you think one packet of American cigarette cost on black market?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘You guess.'

‘I really have no idea.'

‘Fifty dollars. Not Ozzie, American dollar and this long, long time ago. We sell all salami we make for ten Marlboro cigarettes,' he says.

I'm nodding but I'm not sure if it's a good or bad trade.

Miro starts laughing. He throws his head back and claps his hands. ‘You know what Pavle say to me? He take one drag of smoke and he look at me and say, “Niko, we rip Bosniaks off. American cigarette taste much better than salami.”'

‘So what happened after that?' I've lost interest in going home. I'm back settled in the chair waiting for the story to go on. ‘Did you and Pavle go back to the war?'

Suddenly it's like a curtain goes down on Miro's face, like the blue's draining out of his eyes and he's gone. ‘We return to Dejan and war.' His voice is lost again, as if the sound is coming from the soles of his feet. I have to lean over the table to hear what he's saying. ‘Two day later, Pavle die.'

‘I'm sorry,' I whisper.

‘Dejan play veeery loud techno music and we do what they say “cleaning up”.' I quickly look down at the table so Miro doesn't see me swallow. ‘It very bad. Very bad. So many men and boy. So many –' Miro pauses. One hand is out in front of him as if he's trying to find his balance. ‘Pavle, Pavle say he no shoot gun any more. He say to Dejan, enough. He even have blisters. He put down gun and go and sit under tree. I think he is crying. So I go to Pavle. I say to him we have to keep going or Dejan will kill us too. Then Dejan put down gun too and he tell Pavle, “Come with me.” They gone long time. Dejan come back but Pavle no come back.'

‘What? Are – are you saying?' My mouth is dry, parched like I haven't had a sip in days. It's hard to form the words. ‘Are you saying Dejan – killed – him?'

My hands wrap around the sides of the chair. I can feel my heart beating, pounding against my ribcage.

‘Dejan no kill him. He beat Pavle. Beat him very bad. But he no finish job. I go looking for Pavle and I find him. He suffering, suffering so much. It terrible to see him like this. I kill Pavle. I give him peace.'

Miro sits there. His lips are pressed against his hands like he's kissing them.

‘You tell me, moment before you die, that what make you most afraid,' he whispers to me. ‘And I say to you, it darkest moment for everyone.' His hands fall onto the table. ‘Now go home to your mother, Demon.'

THE KETTLE'S ALMOST BOILED. BUT I'm not getting up. Not yet. I'm sitting at the kitchen table fumbling with the pieces of Mum's glass cat that broke when I slammed the front door.

Maybe Miro can help me fix it. He's good with his hands. I saw the way he delicately stitched up Sara's leg that night. Or should I be calling him Niko?

I slide the broken pieces away and stare outside at the wet concrete. Finally the rain's stopped and the only sound is the hiss of the water heating. There's so much going on in my brain that's it's gone numb. Yet it's not numb enough to let me sleep or stop certain words from lingering. Words like ‘cleaning up' and ‘maybe you won't want to be my friend' and ‘I killed him'.

Since I left Miro's place and drove down the long track back onto the highway, I've been careful not to dwell on such things. As I made the turn into Strathven and lightning flashed across the sleeping town, I promised myself that what Miro told me tonight would not change anything between us. Why should it? He has told me his secret like I told him mine.

The early birds have started up their morning song. It must be time to close my eyes and drift away from this world, if only for a little while. But will I sleep or will I just float in the space between?

Last night Miro said the words again: ‘It's the darkest moment for everyone.' Now I know what he really means and he's right. The man that Steven and Billy Marshall shot, the man looking at me a split second before he died – that was my darkest moment.

When Miro sits by the water tank and stares out at the hills, when he kneels by the fire trying to stifle his screams – that's who he must be thinking about. Pavle. Pavle and his darkest moment.

Miro said the dead are not forgotten; the dead follow, and he's right about that too. The man they found floating down the Clancy River, I think he's with me all the time. Sometimes he's not so obvious. There may be a few hours or an afternoon when I don't think of him or see his face. But he's still there a few steps behind.

I remember Mrs Fryes calling for Princess Anne the First that night. She stood on the verandah calling and calling, banging the tin of cat food with a spoon.

People don't just drop off the earth without anybody noticing. I'm sure of that now. We're not forgettable. So who has reported this man missing? Is it his wife? His mother? They must wonder where he's gone, wonder if it's something they did to make him slip away like that.

It's very clear what I have to do. Miro says be patient. He says we'll know when it's time. Tomorrow after we make salami, I'll tell Miro it's time. I'll say to him that I want to go to the police and tell them what I saw.

MUM'S VACUUMING, WHICH IS VERY unusual. I pull the doona over my head, wondering if she's expecting visitors, and if she is who on earth would they be. Pat, her hairdresser, is the only alien I've spied in the living room these last two years.

When Archie lived here they had the odd visitor. Mum's sister Yvonne from Adelaide, a few of Archie's hunting mates and I remember Mr Curlewis out in the garage having a beer and talking guns some afternoons.

The sucking sound of the vacuum is coming up the hall. It's nearly 11 am, that's five hours sleep, so I slide out from under the doona and sit on the edge of the bed giving Sara's tummy a scratch. ‘Hey boy, how're you feeling?' I ask him. ‘You were a bit slow getting out of the car last night, weren't you? Were you scared of the storm? It was a big wind, wasn't it? I might leave you at home today. You can guard the house while the visitors are here and I'll go make salami. You can eat my serving.'

I stand in the hallway watching Mum move in and out of her bedroom doorway as she vacuums her way back into the hall.

‘You can do my room now,' I say. ‘I'm up.'

But she doesn't hear so I shout it. ‘Mum! I'm up now. You can do my room.'

‘I'm not doin' ya room,' she calls back.

‘Oh? Okay.'

I step over the vacuum on my way to the kitchen. ‘Any bread?'

She doesn't answer. I pull the cord out of the socket and the house goes quiet. ‘Is there any bread?' I ask.

‘Why'd ya do that?'

‘Because you can't hear me,' I say. ‘Are you having people over or something?'

Mum's wearing the smiling teddy jumper, so there's my answer. ‘Turn it back on, Damon,' she barks. ‘And go and have a shower and put on some of them clean clothes.'

‘Why? Who's coming over?' I ask, plugging the cord back in. Then when I'm standing tall again, I give my underarms a good sniff. ‘I don't smell.'

‘Just have a shower. Please.'

‘I'm having breakfast first,' I tell her. ‘I'm starving.'

‘Didn't ya have dinner?'

I'm searching through the kitchen cupboards trying to find something to eat. There's coffee, sugar, flour, a can of beetroot and a jar with three peanuts left in it.

‘I said, didn't ya ate dinner?' Mum's in the doorway, swinging the vacuum cord around like she's a stripper. ‘Where'd ya go last night?'

‘There's never anything to eat in this house,' I growl. ‘I just went out last night. You were in a mood, remember? Didn't even have an appetite.'

‘Ya always
just
doin' somethink, aren't ya? But it's never somethink ya can tell me.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘Have ya talked to Moe lately?'

‘I saw him yesterday in the mini-mart. Why?'

‘Just askin'.'

‘Okay, Mum,' I say. I step in front of her, folding my arms and trying to catch her eye. But she's still mad. She's staring down at the kitchen floor, swinging the vacuum cord around like she wants to lasso me and tie me up.

I open the fridge then slam it closed. ‘Looks like your appetite returned. I see the pizza's been demolished.'

‘No, it hasn't,' she tells me. ‘It's in the garbage. I told ya I can't eat.'

‘Right.' I take a deep breath, loud enough for her to hear. ‘I can see you're not over it yet. So I'm going out to get myself a decent feed. Hopefully you'll be in a better mood when I get back.'

‘No, ya not! Ya not goin' nowhere!' Mum barks, dropping the vacuum cord and thundering down the hall towards the front door.

‘What! What is your problem?'

Mum is standing in the doorway, blocking my way.

‘Mum, move.'

‘I said ya not goin' nowhere.'

‘Mum, I'm leaving the dog here and going down to the shops to get something to eat because we never have any fucking food here.' I am trying to keep my voice calm. Usually I'd push her out of the way. It's like a reflex: no thought goes into it. But now I can't because I don't understand why she's standing there. ‘Mum, please move.'

‘No.'

‘Mum! Move.'

‘No. You're not goin' out there.'

‘Mum, just bloody
move
!' My arms grab hers; it's hard to get a grip on the sleeves of her teddy jumper and she's wrestling back, giving me everything she's got. ‘Mum, what the hell are you doing? Have you gone mad? Just move, woman! Moooove!'

I hold her shoulders firm and with one almighty push I shove her out of the way. She falls against the glass cabinet and her ornaments topple like skittles on the alleyway.

The path up to Miro's is a bog trap. I'm careful not to steer through the middle of the track, which is sinking with mud. Rivulets of rain are etched into the ground. They weave through the grass like snakes slithering down to the highway.

Up here the storm's whipped through in a hurry. It's like driving through a country the day after the world finished. The washing machine is on its side and strips of old tyres look like black ribbons hanging from the branches of trees.

The pyramid of bottles has washed away as if a steam-roller has driven through the middle of it. A few of them have landed on the track and are floating in the mud.

I stop the car and get out. Carefully I edge my way around the puddle, trying to find a good spot so I can kick the bottles out of the way and still keep my shoe relatively dry. My mobile starts to ring but my arms are stretched out helping me to balance so I ignore it. I swing out my leg and, using the edge of my foot, sweep the bottles, one by one, out of the water and off the path.

I look over to the water tank, half-expecting Miro to be sitting there chuckling as he watches me. But the land is empty. Everything has gone. An oblong of yellow grass marks where Miro's caravan was. Some sheets of tin lean against the pepper tree but the kitchen's gone too.

Suddenly, my hands are out in front of me, flailing like I'm in the dark, like I've suddenly lost my way. I stumble towards what used to be Miro's house, calling his name. ‘Mmmmmmm–' Way above the trees bouncing towards the sky, I hear my voice. ‘–iiiiiirrrro.' But there's no answer. The land is silent. He's left.

‘Miro!' I roar. ‘Miro!' I'm wading through mud. There must be a trace of him somewhere but there's been too much rain and any tyre marks have washed away.

‘Mirrrrr-o! Miii-ro?'

I'm back on dry land, pulling the mobile out of my pocket, but I have no number for him. Miro doesn't have a phone. ‘Who would ring me,' he said. I see there's a missed call from home. Perhaps Miro is there. He must be waiting to take me wherever we're going. He wouldn't just leave. He wouldn't do that.

My mobile rings again. ‘Home,' flashes on the screen.

‘Mum?' I am walking in circles around the water tank, dizzy, losing my footing like a drunk. ‘Mum?' I yell.

‘Damon, ya need to get home. Now …'

‘Is, is Miro …' I'm leaning against the pepper tree, the bark still soft from all the rain. ‘Is he at –'

Mum's talking over me. ‘It's the dog, the dog's sick.'

‘Hey …?'

Call ended.

Within a minute I'm back on the highway. The windscreen wipers smudge the splatters of mud until the glass is crystal clear. I'm telling myself to breathe. I'm telling myself to count. When I get to twenty my mind will be empty and there'll be space to think. Space, so that my thoughts can find order.

But a horrible knowledge dangles in the pit of my guts as though it's hanging from a sinker. Miro has gone. Miro has packed up and left because of what he told me last night.

My hand slams the steering wheel and I feel a shot of pain through my palm. How could he leave me? I have told him everything and now he has too, so doesn't that bind us together in some way? Aren't we a team? Wasn't the plan that we'd both go to the police and tell them what I saw? Miro said he'd stand by me because with Miro I count.

It seems like hours before I see the Strathven sign. Or was it just a minute ago that I stood at the edge of a puddle, skimming the bottles away with my foot? Nothing's clear. Everything's hazy like I'm looking at the world through a long tube of frosted glass.

I hit the brake as a line of children trail across the road. Smiling as they pass the car, as if I'm a wonderful exhibit in the zoo. They're so tiny and I can't remember when I was ever that small. I can't remember what life was like then. I can't remember if I was happy.

Slowly I drive through the main street, past the Clancy Hotel and the mini-mart, checking right then left for a ute and a caravan. Perhaps he's stopped for provisions. Maybe someone's told him that Sara's sick and he's gone to fetch the vet, the Czech woman he likes so much.

My hands guide the wheel around the final corner and my neck cranes, my face leaning towards the windscreen to see if his caravan and ute are parked outside the house. It's like I'm almost choking, my throat's so stuffed with hope. So full that it's hard to swallow. But there's no ute, no caravan. Instead I find two police cars, one pulled up at the kerb, the other in our driveway.