Razorhurst (12 page)

“Don’t tell him!” Jimmy shouted at Kelpie.

“Around,” Dymphna said. “It’s a perfect winter day for a stroll.”

Snowy looked up as if he hadn’t noticed that the sun was out and the sky cloudless.

“Might get us something to eat. Kelpie reminds me of my niece,” Dymphna said. “I don’t like to see her hungry.”

“None of us do,” Snowy said. “Thought I might take you for a meal myself, Kelpie. Whatcha reckon?”

Kelpie took another step towards him.

“Don’t go with him, kid,” Jimmy yelled. “Tell her, Kelpie. You want to stay with Dymph, don’t you?”

Dymphna wished he would shut up. Getting away from Jimmy was an excellent reason for Kelpie to go with Snowy.

“Flanagan’s missus is doing a big spread,” Snowy continued. “She’ll be serving it midday. Paid for the beef myself. When’s the last time you ate meat, Kelpie?”

Kelpie didn’t say anything, but she edged even closer to Snowy.

“Sheila Flanagan?” Dymphna asked, wondering why Snowy was lying.

Snowy nodded. His eyes were on Dymphna’s now. She would not be afraid of him.

“Sheila’s gone back to Dural,” she said. “Her mum died.”

Sheila’s oldest, Lettie, worked for Glory too. She’d been distraught about her grandma passing. Lettie was as close as Dymphna got to having a friend. She’d eaten at the Flanagans’ more times than she could count. Snowy should have known better.

He bent to Kelpie’s level and leaned in to whisper in her ear. Dymphna couldn’t hear the words. She didn’t need to. Snowy wanted Kelpie to go with him. Kelpie’s head dropped lower; she shook it. His hand went to her shoulders, making Kelpie seem even tinier than she was. Kelpie wiggled away, shaking her head, and ducking behind Dymphna.

Snowy stood and addressed Dymphna softly. “She’s not safe with you. I heard about Palmer.”

“
Heard
about what happened to me? That’s a fucking laugh!” Jimmy said without laughter.

“I can look after myself,” Dymphna told Snowy.

“Maybe,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he believed it. “Can you look after Kelpie?”

“I can try.”

Snowy did not look impressed. “You should consider getting away. Far away.”

Snowy might as well have told her Mr. Davidson was after her.

“You’re a good man, Snowy. Have you …” She trailed off, then took courage. Snowy was warning her, wasn’t he? “Have you heard anything specific?”

“The boss wants you. You know that. Everyone knows that. This time though he wants us to bring you to him.”

Dymphna swallowed. “Alive?” she whispered.

“Unharmed. He was very definite about that. No one’s to harm you,” Snowy said.

“Are you going to take me to him?”

“Going to
try
not to,” Snowy said. “The boss is, well, he’s not himself. He’s not thinking straight. You need to scarper. Let me take Kelpie. She’s safer with me.”

“Do you want to go with him?” Dymphna asked Kelpie, hoping the girl was still shaken by whatever Snowy had whispered to her.

Kelpie pressed closer to Dymphna. “Not going to the orphanage.”

“I’m not taking you there, Kelp. I promised you I wouldn’t. How long have I been looking out for you?”

Kelpie nodded, then shook her head. “You lied about Mrs. Flanagan.”

“Because I didn’t know if I could trust Dymphna here.” He ruffled Kelpie’s hair. “We’re mates, you and me. What would Old Ma think of you going off with a stranger like this?”

Dymphna could feel Kelpie wavering. “How’s a single man like him going to look after you, Kelpie? He’d have to give you to someone. Or Welfare would take you away.”

Snowy could pick Kelpie up in one hand and walk away with her. But Dymphna could see he wouldn’t do it if she was unwilling.

“We have to go, Kelpie,” Dymphna said, pressing her advantage.

He shook his head but said, “Go.” Then he walked down the lane at a fast clip, looking back only once.

Dymphna followed, dragging Kelpie with her. But where to go?

“Shouldn’t let an abo touch you,” the ghost in the lane told Kelpie. He hadn’t said a word while Snowy was there, even though Snowy wouldn’t have heard him.

“That’s ignorant,” Jimmy said. “Snowy Fullerton’s father was as white as you and me. His mother was from the Caribbean.”

“How would you know?” The ghost stuck out his lower lip.

Dymphna wished they’d shut up. Mr. Davidson wanted her unharmed. Surely that meant he didn’t know that she and Jimmy had meant to kill him, had meant to take over Razorhurst. So perhaps Glory didn’t know either. Which meant she’d be safest going straight to Glory, who could protect her. Jimmy Palmer was dead not because of their scheming but for being her man.

“I know a lot of things,” Jimmy said. “Snowy is a good man. Even though he did kill me. You can’t hold a grudge against a man doing his job.”

Kelpie looked sick. Dymphna was going to have to explain to the girl that you could be a killer and a good person at the same time. You could kill no one at all and be worse than Satan. She’d heard Mr. Davidson never lifted a hand to anyone. He didn’t ask any of his men to kill for him either. Instead he gently requested that they
see to someone
or
sort out the problem with so-and-so
. So much worse than Snowy could ever be.

Glory was much more honest. Besides, Glory had killed with
her own hands more than once; she knew what she was asking. Mr. Davidson kept his hands clean, but his soul was putrid.

“I’ll admit I done plenty I shouldn’t have,” Jimmy said.

“What?” the pimply ghost shouted at Jimmy. “Like get your throat cut open by an abo?!” He didn’t follow them onto Mary Street despite several attempts to do so. Dymphna was relieved the pimply ghost really was haunting the lane and couldn’t follow them any further. She turned towards the train station. The quickest way home was a train into town and then a tram. Her feet had decided on home: money, passport, and then to Glory if it seemed safe.

If the coppers didn’t take her in.

If Davidson’s men didn’t find her.

A woman hurried past with her handkerchief held to her nose. The brewery didn’t smell that bad, certainly not as bad as the room at Mrs. Stone’s with Jimmy in it.

“The card,” Dymphna whispered. “The one with my name on it. From
him
. Where is it?”

Kelpie put her hands in the pockets of her new coat, then into her old and new trousers. She shook her head. Dymphna didn’t remember the girl transferring any belongings from the old coat to the new. Certainly not a card.

Shit.

A man in a suit brushed past them, doffed his hat. Two lorries backed into the cavernous rear entrance to the brewery. More and more people. Which was in their favour; they’d be harder to spot in the crowds around Central Station. But also bad, because there were more people to spot them.

Dymphna kept her head down and turned right on Foveaux Street.

“Nah.” Kelpie came to a dead stop, causing people to walk around them, to notice them.

“Come on,” Dymphna said, lowering her voice. “Don’t make a scene.”

Kelpie shook her head and took a backward step and then another. Bumped into a man in overalls.

“Watch yerself,” he said.

Kelpie was staring at the station on the other side of Elizabeth Street.

Dymphna followed her gaze. Of course. Kelpie would be terrified.

That many ghosts all in the one place. No one had ever taught Kelpie what to do. How not to see or hear them.

Miss Lee Teaches Kelpie to Read

Kelpie was not the only illiterate homeless child in the Hills, but most of the ones without parents were swept up off the streets by Welfare quick smart. Wasn’t a child in the Hills, or all of Razorhurst, for that matter, who’d evaded Welfare for as long as Kelpie had. She was agile, fast, clever, and she had one or two ghosts on her side.

Kelpie was an ideal student for Miss Lee. Her first reading lesson began in the Darcys’ backyard after Neal had gone to work, the littlies to school, and Mrs. Darcy was at the markets with little Kate. Miss Lee went inside the dunny.

Kelpie opened the door to join her.

“The smell can’t be helped,” Miss Lee said. “He likes to read, you see.”

Miss Lee waved her hand at the back of the door plastered with pages. Some were from newspapers, some from books. Some, Kelpie knew without being able to read, advertised fights and circuses.

“It starts with letters. See that one there?” Miss Lee pointed. “That’s the first letter in the alphabet, which consists of twenty-six letters. It’s the letter A.”

Kelpie already knew that. She’d seen the nuns yammering on about
A
being for apple often enough. Bloody apples.

Miss Lee traced its shape with her fingers. “This is also a letter
A
.” She pointed to an entirely different shape, round with a sort of hat on top.

“They represent this sound,” Miss Lee said. “
A
as in aaaapple.”

Kelpie frowned. Why did it have to be apples?

“
A
as in ant and animal and ankle and apricot and arrogant and abacus and …”

Kelpie didn’t know what an arrogant or an abacus was.

They were up to
Q
, and Kelpie was feeling pleased that she had recognised so many of the letters, when they heard Mrs. Darcy’s keys in the front door. Kelpie climbed over the fence to where Tommy started chanting letters like a song and laughing at her for not knowing anything.

Miss Lee led her to St. Peter’s and into the priest’s office where she continued the lesson with the Bible. These letters were much
smaller and harder to see in the gloom. They would have gone to the library after that, but by that time it was closed, so they went to the richest man in the Hills’s house: Old Man O’Reilly’s.

He didn’t act like a rich man. He had no live-in help, not even a cook. Just Mary Sullivan, acting maid for him. She came once or twice a week. When O’Reilly deigned to let her in, and only when he seemed calm. She warned him the minute he started throwing things she would go and never come back no matter how much he paid her.

He was a big man with a red, veiny face who was rumoured to have put a knife through Bluey Denham’s shoulder, and Bluey never went after him, which showed you how tough O’Reilly was. Almost as bad were the rumours that he killed his wife because he didn’t like the way she made soda bread. Now he made his own.

But O’Reilly had more books than anyone else, was asleep more often than he was awake, and had electricity and the fortunate drunken habit of leaving the lights blazing all night. Biggest drinker in the Hills, everyone said. Kelpie wasn’t sure how you could tell. There wasn’t a man in the Hills who didn’t get drunk when he could, not even the priests. O’Reilly had the money to get drunk whenever he pleased, which was most of the time.

Miss Lee led her to the library. O’Reilly was so rich he had his own room of books. Miss Lee pored over the shelves but did not find a copy of
Great Expectations
. There were plenty of other books. Even a shelf of them for children. Kelpie pulled down the kids’ books and turned the pages, gawking at the pictures of women with impossibly long hair and men on horses, dressed in shiny metal.

“Fairy tales,” Miss Lee announced, and had Kelpie hold the book open to a story called “Rapunzel.” Kelpie didn’t think much of Rapunzel’s name, nor of her lack of gumption. She preferred Darcy’s stories. But at least the pictures were beautiful, and Kelpie couldn’t help feeling proud when she recognised words and when she knew it was time to turn the page.

O’Reilly also had paper and pencils. So Miss Lee showed Kelpie how to make letters and words, not just read them. The first word she wrote was her own name:
K-E-L-P-I-E
and
K-e-l-p-i-e
.

He had a kitchen too. With more food in it than any other kitchen Kelpie had ever seen, which admittedly wasn’t many. Miss Lee might not need food, but Kelpie did. She stole bits of cheese
and sliced ham from the icebox. Taking only a little to make sure he wouldn’t notice.

They would go back to O’Reilly’s many times. Even though he was scary, Miss Lee made her feel brave. Sometimes it seemed being near a ghost made the living less likely to see you. O’Reilly never gave any sign of knowing that Kelpie spent so much time in his house.