‘He’s here,’ my brother says. ‘Let’s go.’

The van pulls in — a real heap of a thing. A Kombi. Four other guys are already in it. We enter it, through the sliding door.

‘Glad y’s could make it.’ Perry grins at us through the rear vision mirror. He’s wearing a suit today. Blood-red and tough to look at. It’s nice.

‘I had to cancel my violin recital,’ Rube tells him, ‘but we made it.’ He sits down and some guy the size of an outhouse slides the door shut. His name is Bumper. The lean guy next to him is Leaf. The fatty sort of bloke is Erroll and the normal-looking one is Ben. They’re all older than us. Daunting. Scarred. Fist-weathered.

‘Rube ‘n’ Cameron.’ Perry introduces us, via the mirror again.

‘Hey.’

Silence.

Violent eyes.

Broken noses.

Missing teeth.

In my uneasiness, I look to Rube. He doesn’t ignore me, but rather, he closes a fist as if to say, ‘Stay awake.’

Minutes follow.

They’re silent minutes. Awake. Moving. On edge, as I concentrate on survival, and hope for this trip to never end. Hope, to never get there …

We pull into the meat factory out the back of Maroubra and it’s cold and windy and salty.

People hang.

Around us, I can sniff out a savagery in the noisy southern air. It knifes its way into my nose, but I do not bleed blood. It’s fear I bleed, and it gushes out over my lip. I wipe it away, in a hurry.

‘C’mon.’ Rube drags me with him. ‘This way boy, or do y’ wanna play with the locals?’

‘No way.’

Inside, Perry takes us through a small room and into a freezing compartment, where some dead frozen pigs hang like martyrs from the ceiling. It’s terrible. I stare at them a moment, with the tightened air and the frightening sight of dead cut meat gouging at my throat.

‘It’s just like Balboa,’ I whisper to Rube. ‘The hangin’ meat.’

‘Yeah,’ he replies. He knows what I mean.

It makes me wonder what we’re doing here. All the other fellas just wait around, even sit, and they smoke, or they drink alcoholic beverages to eat the nerves. To calm the fear. To slow the fists but quicken the courage. That huge bloke, Bumper, he winks at me, enjoying my fear.

He’s just sitting there and his quiet voice comes to me, casually.

‘The first fight’s the toughest.’ A smile. ‘Don’t worry about winning it. Survive first, then consider it. Okay?’

I nod, but it’s Rube who speaks.

He speaks, ‘Don’t worry mate. My brother knows how to get up.’

‘Good.’ He means it. Then, ‘How ‘bout you?’