The Worm King (14 page)

He felt the sofa move as she shifted uncomfortably.
For a long time she didn’t say anything and he thought she might’ve gone to
sleep, or was ignoring him. ‘I . . . I went in to ask for
water, and saw this couple through the window. They were in their fifties I
suppose, and were standing around a table. All dressed up, like they were about
to go out somewhere. The man had a carving knife and the women, I guess it was
his wife, was holding a white plate out. It was a big table with lots of chairs
but just those two in the room.’

She didn’t say anything for ages and
eventually the Hat asked quietly, ‘What was on the table?’

‘A leg.’

Chapter NinEteen

Grange

T
he Hyatt Hotel was an elegant, low slung colonial building in the
Yarralumla district of Canberra, not far from Lake Burley-Griffith. It’d been erected
as a hostel for politicians in 1924, and in 1987, the year of the massive
stockmarket collapse, the Hyatt conglomerate converted it into three hundred
rooms of opulent five-star luxury.

Winston studied the imposing fence
surrounding the hotel. It appeared to be constructed of heavy cross-hatched wire,
at least three meters tall with an evil coil of barbed laced along the top. Two
hotel staff manned the shonky looking gate, which seemed the only section of
fence not topped with barbed wire. The pair on the gate had turned off their
torches but whenever they moved it was easy to spot them against the twinkling hotel
lights. Astrid had already been ushered inside to see Dick Snow and Winston was
instructed to wait in the truck with Francesco.

‘You drink the wine? I have surprise,’ announced
Francesco. It’d taken more than twenty hours to get here from Griffith: mostly travelling
very slowly but in a few brief scary patches, extremely fast. ‘Is had time to sit
now.’ He opened the truck door, climbed from the Ford’s cab and disappeared
towards the rear, leaving the door irritatingly open. Cold air flooded in. Their
supplies were stacked neatly on the tray under a tarpaulin. Winston heard the
clink of bottles then Francesco reappeared, sliding a crate onto the seat then
pushing it into the middle before getting back inside and slamming the door
shut. Swirls of his warm garlicky breath spun around the interior. A rich
aroma, thought Winston, but not rich in a pleasing, wealthy way.
The gamey
tang of corpulence lies rich about you?
Yeah.

At least four other vehicles were parked around
them, one in front and three behind, maybe more. All were older cars containing
an unknown number of people who occasionally turned on torches for a second or
two to get out for a leak or take a stretch. The only steady lights came from
the hotel itself and three or four tents visible inside the fence between the
gate and the front entrance of the hotel. Winston was pretty certain that the
fence, and tents, were not part of the normal hotel architecture. A stand of
burnt eucalyptus lined the immediate roadside where they waited, and past these,
they could only see charred scrub. Neither man felt much like exploring.

Francesco balanced his torch on the dash. It
contained a rechargeable battery that he juiced up in the truck’s cigarette
lighter whenever the engine was running. The battery was supposed to last for
five hours and they even had another two fully-charged spares should that one
run out before they moved the truck again. He carefully shifted the crate to
the floor on the passenger side, below Winston’s feet, because the pedals didn’t
allow it to fit on his own side. He opened the glove box and took out a street
map then placed it on the seat between them, where the crate had been.

As a general rule Winston stuck to beer and
anything that emerged from a cask but this rule tended to be a bendy one, so he
leant forward and grabbed one of the dusty bottles by the neck, smoothly sliding
it out. ‘So this is wine.’ He tried to sound intelligent, going for a dash of
James Bond and a touch of Lone Ranger. Shaken, stirred and lassoed. ‘Where’s it
from?’

‘Yes. It is wine. A vineyard owner, he trade
it.’ Francesco reached over and firmly but gently took the bottle Winston shook
while holding it up to the light to see what moved in the bottom. ‘It is
Penfolds Grange, a mixture of different years. This the most expensive wine in
Australia.’ He peered at the label of Winston’s selection. ‘1981. Is a good
choice, we try this then, after we have let sit for some longer. In meantime,
we start on this.’ He withdrew a second bottle, placing Winston’s shaken ’81 in
the gap.

‘Max Shubert from Penfolds, he start to make
the Grange in 1955. Always from the same shiraz grape with minimo of cabernet
sauvignon.’ Francesco raised his thumb and forefinger together in an
O-
shape
and the “sauvignon” rolled from his throat like sludge draining out a pipe.

‘This bottle, she cost you more than a thousand
dollar if you buy at auction. Just for the one bottle. One bottle!’ He shook
his head and prodded the air with a single hairy index finger, unable to
believe the words coming out his own mouth, then poured two glasses. The
glasses were unusual bowl-shaped tumblers, without a stem, although they balanced
nicely on the street map.

Winston woofed back a third of his tumbler in
one healthy swallow. It certainly had a warm, moreish taste. Thick and . . . almost
like an extra-fine steak, minced up and magically transformed into some fruity,
beefy health drink. He’d listened to wine knobs before at the restaurant tables
lining the streets of Darlinghurst and Oxford St, dishing out terms like
“luscious” and “passionfruity overtones”. “My, what a cheeky drop!” the tossers
would say. But this really was luscious. The word seemed made for it. He
slapped back another third, this time with considerably more gusto.

Fucking luscious alright. ‘What did the guy
get for it, who traded it to you?’

‘Water.’

‘You guys drive a hard bargain. Was it a lot
of water?’

‘We hold him under for a while, so more than
he need I think.’

Winston’s hand froze midway to his mouth.

Francesco laughed. ‘No, we give him good
deal. I joke with you. We look after him.’ He topped up both their glasses.

A flash of light in the rearview mirror
signaled another vehicle approaching. Francesco turned off the torch. The surrounding
blackness absorbed noise like a sea fog and the sound reached them only moments
before the car pulled up. They watched in the mirror as its engine spluttered
off then a door creaked open and a second later, slammed shut. A shadow slunk
past, pausing briefly at Winston’s window before gliding on. He assumed they
were going to speak to the hotel staff on the gate. The vehicles headlights
remained on but the Ford’s interior was so fogged up Winston could barely see a
thing. He leant forward and stretched out to rub a section of window but just then
the headlights went off and everything outside disappeared.

Francesco turned the torch back on. ‘You are
suspicious man,’ he said raining down spittle. They were on bottle number
three, a 1967, and Francesco spat a lot when he talked. Winston held up his
hand defensively. ‘See! I am right already, always with the guard.’

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s because you
keep bloody spit—’

‘You suspicious of me, because you think I
like your little friend? Is right?’ The Italian laughed boisterously. ‘I squash
her! You no worry about that.’

Winston felt distinctly relieved, and took another
long slurp.

Francesco wound the corkscrew down on the fourth
bottle. A crisp, damp pop announced its birth. Winston was seeing the councilor
in a new light: albeit a groggy, hazy one. ‘This year, the 1974, was much bad
weather. The La Niña come. Crops stunted. But we try, as example of not so
perfect Grange, and so we know all of the spectrum. Then you can say you are
Vino Professoro.
’ He winked and kissed his fingertips.

‘I’m already an expert on stunted thank you.’

Francesco’s smile faded. ‘So, you have this
from  . . .  from when you born?’

‘No. I used to be really tall. Just shrunk
recently.’

‘Wha—? . . . Ha! Is good you can laugh on
this!’

‘Strangely enough, I don’t usually laugh
about it. Must be this Grange. The technical name for it’s achrondroplasia. It’s
a type of dwarfism that effects one in twenty-five thousand, so is kind of like
winning the lottery but in reverse. You end up with arms and legs much shorter than
normal compared with your trunk and head, and a few other side effects, like having
a nose that flattens at the bridge, and trident hand.’ Winston held up his
stubby fingers. ‘But apart from that, everything’s sweet.’

Yeah, sweet. That’d been John the Hat’s
prognosis when Winston first met him four years ago, on a rainy afternoon in a pub
across the road from Rose Hill racetrack. ‘Sweet! Closer to the ground after a
big night on the turps. That’ll save you some bruises!’ The Hat certainly had a
unique talent for looking on the bright side of life. Winston idly wondered if
John, Lord Brown and the Māori girl were enjoying luxury such as this: lazing
back outside a five-star hotel, walloping down Grange. The Hat was right though,
it all depends how you look at it and sometimes life is sweet indeed.

Knock! Knock! Knock!
Astrid belted her knuckles against the door. Winston groggily came
to and wound down his window. She was angry as buggery. ‘The idiots kept me
waiting in a room for three hours! They reckon Dick’s there, but they’re still
trying to track him down. Anyway, I’ve given them a good rarking up and they
said you could wait in there too. At least it’s a room.’ She stood on tiptoes
and leant slightly inside the cab, sniffing the air and frowning at the six
empty bottles lined up on the dashboard. ‘You got your own party in here, I
see.’ He felt like a naughty schoolboy.

They spilt out, Francesco carrying the crate
and singing while Winston held the glasses, stumbling, and trying to chip in with
the chorus.

‘
S
ῖ
mi chiamano Mim
ῖ
 . . . 

The men on the gate waved them through
without a problem. Francesco stopped singing and Winston could now see the
tents were rough-looking affairs, plonked around what must’ve been the hotels
front garden. A veranda ran across the face of the building and the main
entrance lay a fraction to the right of centre. Eight or ten men were standing
on the veranda: three Asians; a coffee-skinned man with a goatee, head-towel
and long white pyjamas; one Negro and at least four Europeans in dark business
suits. Francesco slurred a greeting but they all deliberately looked away
except the Negro, who smiled. The door was held open for them by an
expressionless doorman and the concierge at the front desk didn’t say a word as
they staggered past, obediently following Astrid.

Down the corridor, then a left, a right, up some
stairs, another corridor running at forty-five degrees to the last, and Winston
realized he was completely lost. He looked back to get his bearings and noticed
a porter following. When they turned into a narrower, dimly lit hallway the
porter ducked ahead and ushered them to their room.

It was spartan and dirty, not having been
cleaned for two weeks so mucky grim covered the bed, table, TV and single
chair. On the positive side was a fully functioning overhead light. Winston placed
the two glasses he’d miraculously carried without breaking on the TV, then
scrambled onto the bed holding his palms up towards the lightshade. They wouldn’t
even need a telly, this one little light would be enough entertainment after nearly
a month in the dark.

‘This is a different room,’ said Astrid.

The porter leant against the doorframe,
watching. ‘The lights are on for four hours a day in these rooms. You got about
an hour left.’ He continued to hang there, assessing them, or maybe waiting for
a tip although that was never going to happen because Winston didn’t have a
cent on him. Another ten uncomfortable seconds passed before he finally closed
the door and disappeared. Francesco sat on the bed and pulled a blanket from
the crate at his feet. He must’ve stuffed it in to stop the bottles clinking
around, and offered it to Astrid because she was holding her arms to her chest,
shivering. She shook her head, instead walking to the door and turning the
handle.

‘It’s locked. Hey, this is locked! I’m sure the
last room wasn’t because I went out to look for someone. Why would they do
that?’

Chapter Twenty

Dubbo

T
he roar came again: an incredibly deep, rolling, spine-tingling sound
ripping through the cold night air of Dubbo. ‘That
was
a fucken lion,’ whispered
the Hat. The gunfire stopped. Others had heard the beast too.

The lions were feeding in the suburbs of
Dubbo.

Leroy’s van had been stolen on the southern fringe
of town then it’d been a two-hour slog in the dark attempting to reach the
northern side where they hoped to somehow get another ride. Āmiria had a
strikeable camping flint which when given a quick sharp scrape provided a flash
of light allowing them to see about a meter ahead at a time. She also had a
compass. Both tools were gifts from Astrid’s dad before they left and the four burly
men who’d tossed them from the van fortunately hadn’t searched her (because
she’d been pretending to cry) as they did to Lord Brown and the Hat.

‘Keep together!’ she called, for the hundredth
time.

A large fire was visible in the distance
where Lord Brown guessed the centre of town might be and they’d decided to give
this a wide berth. He was the only one of the three who’d been through Dubbo
before.

‘Keep together, I said!’ The Hat led the dog
on a rope and this had become tangled around a letterbox. Another shot rang out,
and a millisecond later the ugly whine of a bullet, meaning it was close. Āmiria
recognized the sound as a large calibre round, certainly not a .22. Maybe a 308
or a 30-06. It didn’t have the explosive boom of a 45. Her uncle Monty used a Marlin
lever-action 45 on big boars sometimes so she knew what
they
were like. Most
of the time he used his knife, although once she’d watched him kill a sow with
a pair of scissors.

‘In here! Quickly!’ cried a stranger’s voice
to their left. A torch beam flashed briefly, coming from a doorway at the end
of a short path running off the street. Āmiria saw a woman’s face, down low
in the open door, beckoning them. ‘Inside, quick! Quick!’

The kitchen lay at the back of the house and
had a single window although this was blocked out by a large navy-blue bedspread
tacked across it. A candle burnt on the table and the woman who’d brought the
trio inside looked gaunt in the flickering light. Her grey hair was tied in a severe
bun and Āmiria thought she might be slightly older than her dad but nowhere
near as old as Lord Brown. A scrawny boy of about eighteen sat on the formica
bench next to the sink, watching them warily.

‘I’m Zelda. That’s David.’ The boy nodded nervously.
Āmiria, Lord Brown and the Hat introduced themselves. ‘David came from out
there, like you. We’re not related.’

‘Are we near the north side of town?’ asked
Lord Brown. ‘We’re trying to get back on the Newall Highway, towards Gunnedah
and Tamworth.’

‘You’re well off track. This is Cobbora Rd,
near the university. You have to cut back further west to get to the highway,
and you can’t go that way now even if you wanted to.’

‘Why not?’ asked Āmiria.

‘There’s a gang of aborigines on the
northern side of town who’re not letting people through.’

‘We can’t go back the other way,’ said the
Hat. ‘Those ratbags nicked our van. They weren’t abo’s though.’

‘That’s right, they would’ve. A man I run
into at the supermarket told me there’s a group of farmers come in and set up
some kind of roadblock on the southern side, and they’re taking whatever they
can from anyone.’

Zelda had to make another trip to the
supermarket. David was left “in charge” of the candle and he’d snuffed it out,
as Zelda instructed, two minutes after she’d left. Somebody’s chair scraped but
Āmiria couldn’t tell whose. Maybe David scampering back to the bench. Lord
Brown could’ve had the same thought because suddenly he asked where the
supermarket was located.

‘It’s just down the road.’ The shaky voice came
from the other side of the table so he hadn’t gone after all. ‘In the first few
days when there was lots of rain, people tried to carry out boxes which got wet
and broke open and the cans ended up spilt everywhere. Zelda says there’s less
left now because more have twigged onto it. Lots of them don’t have labels so
you can’t tell what you’re eating till you get them open.’

Āmiria wondered how that would be,
foraging around on your hands and knees outside the supermarket in the pitch dark,
searching for cans. ‘That wasn’t a lion we heard earlier was it?’

‘Yes. Zelda thinks there’s four of them. A
male and three females. They’re from Dubbo zoo which is only a few kilometers
from here. Someone must’ve let them out, rather than let’em starve she reckons.
It’s the biggest zoo outside of Sydney,’ he added helpfully, as though they
might be thinking of popping in for a visit. ‘There are heaps of open spaces
and it’s more like a wilderness park than a zoo, I guess is what they call it.’

Lord Brown clicked his tongue and Āmiria
heard him smack his hand against something, probably his grubby other hand or equally
filthy thigh.

‘What?’

‘I should have seen it. Arghhhh! Could kick
myself now, if my legs weren’t so tired. The Zoo! Of course! The lions would’ve
been waiting for this. Praying for it. Watching the sky every night when they’d
normally be out hunting, and thinking to themselves
where is it?
They’d
have the memory of it: long distant and so faint and passed down through so
many generations that now it’s probably just a
feeling
to them.’

His voice dropped and he continued in an
uneasy tone, like he’d caught David’s nervous-willies. ‘This town’s sunk into a
spiraling, primeval feast. The aborigines verses the redneck farmers verses the
lions.’

‘Gosh, that’s cheered us all up,’ said the
Hat.

There was a
noise out in the hallway. ‘Zelda?’ called David nervously.

WEATHER
BADGE DIARY

Mr Snow has taken us around to meet
everyone in the hotel but our parents aren’t here.

Sometimes there are funny noises outside
our room. Krystal thinks it’s rain dripping through the roof but it doesn’t really
sound like that.

The lights don’t come on very often and when
they do, we never know when they’ll—