Razorhurst (18 page)

Miss Lee laughed so hard that if she was alive she would have fallen over.

KELPIE

Kelpie squeezed Dymphna’s hand. Why did they all die? Kelpie knew the answer wasn’t
because someone slashed their throat open
or
because there wasn’t enough food
or
because they got sick
.

Dymphna meant why did she keep losing people she cared about. Kelpie wanted to know the same thing. Why had her parents died? Why Old Ma? Why did ghosts fade away? Why wasn’t Old Ma still around to help her? Or Miss Lee?

Why did they all—living or dead—abandon her?

“I like your place,” Kelpie said, because she was afraid Dymphna was going to start crying. Because if she did, then Kelpie would too. It was clean and new. Shiny. Just like Dymphna. Other than Palmer there were no ghosts. Kelpie’d never been in a place too new for ghosts.

“Ta, love. I never cry.”

Dymphna’s eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying. Kelpie never cried either. Tears were useless. But right then she felt like it. She bet her own eyes were red too.

“Have to get those clothes off you.” Dymphna disappeared into the bathroom. She returned with a large white towel and Seamus’s clothes. “Dry yourself, get dressed.”

Kelpie wrapped herself in the towel. Her shirt and trousers were more holes now than clothing. Bits of them were floating in the bath.

“How do you feel about travelling?” Dymphna asked.

Kelpie loved the idea of getting far away from coppers and Welfare and Mr. Davidson and Glory and anyone else who might lock them up or hurt them.

“I’ve been thinking about taking a trip on an ocean liner. Going to the old country. Seeing the sights. Learning a new language. What do you think?”

“Say
yes
,” Palmer said. “You don’t have much time.”

Kelpie said, “Yes.”

Dymphna went into her bedroom.

“Snowy didn’t do you,” Kelpie whispered to Palmer. She dropped the towel and peeled off what remained of her old clothes and put Seamus’s clothes back on. She took a piece of her once-white shirt
about the size of her palm and slipped it into her trouser pocket. Miss Lee had found that shirt. She put one of the packets of chips on top of it and the other packet in her other pocket. “Who was it really?”

Maybe it was Bluey Denham. He was the scariest man in the Hills. Eyes so pale they seemed colourless. Him working for Glory wouldn’t stop him killing one of her men. Not if he had it in for Palmer.

The ghost shook his head. “I told you. It was Snowy. Mr. Davidson told him to. He’s the one to blame.”

“She already knows to avoid Mr. Davidson. You saw her.” Kelpie finished getting dressed, buttoning the coat all the way to her chin.

“You need to make sure she gets moving! Tell her you can see me. Then I can tell her what to do, where to go. She needs more money. I can help.”

“I can’t.”

All that telling the living about ghosts did was get them thinking you were mad, which made them want to give you to Welfare even faster.

“Fucking tell her, you little shit. It’s not just her life we’re talking about. It’s yours too.”

“I can’t tell her! She doesn’t know about ghosts. She’d think I’m mental. Ghosts aren’t real. Don’t you know?”

Palmer leaned in so close that her stomach began to roil. “Tell her about the tattoo of me mum on my back. No way you could know about that. She’ll believe you.”

Kelpie shook her head.

“I could scream again,” Palmer said, moving even closer.

A fraction more, and he’d be leaning through her. “Right in your ear and not stop. You didn’t like it when I screamed before, did you? I can yell bloody loud and bloody long. Was a cockatoo when I was wee, keeping watch for Glory. Me yelling me arse off and only you hearing it. That’d be bad, I reckon.”

“I’ll run.”

“I’ll follow.”

“You can’t. You have to stay with Dymphna. You’re her haunt. You can’t go anywhere she ain’t.” Kelpie was tempted to stick her tongue out at him.

Palmer’s face darkened. He looked like he was going to say something. Yell something, more like. He disappeared.

Dymphna came out of the bedroom with her lips redder than before. Kelpie realised she was wearing different clothes and shoes, but still matching, all in black, with a necklace of small white balls at her throat. She had a bigger, warmer coat. Her bag was bigger too, hanging on a metal strap from her shoulder.

“Ready to go?”

Kelpie nodded and knew that she wasn’t going to run from Dymphna. Not right then. It wasn’t because of anything Palmer had shouted at her. It was because …

Dymphna needed Kelpie. She could see that.

Somehow Kelpie was starting to need Dymphna. The way she had needed Old Ma and Miss Lee. The thought scared her.

Dymphna led Kelpie down
the hall into the back stairway, which was cold and smelled of dust and old cigarette ash, then out through the tradies’ entrance into the back lane where two sleepy coppers stood smoking. Kelpie tensed, ready to run, but at the sight of Dymphna, the cops smiled. The handful of ghosts in the lane paid the living no mind.

“They’re Glory’s,” Palmer whispered, appearing behind Dymphna and scaring Kelpie half to death. “You were right, Kelpie. I can’t go anywhere unless she’s close by.”

Kelpie would have loved to snort at him.

“Why’s that one looking at me?” Palmer asked. How would Kelpie know what a ghost she’d never seen before was thinking? People’s thoughts were their own, living or dead.

“Best to go this way,” the taller cop said, ushering them to a door at the back of a building on the other side of the lane. A large plaque above it was emblazoned with the words
REGENCY LODGE
. The copper pulled out keys to open it.

“She’s at Palmer Street,” he said, holding the door open. “Waiting for you.”

Dymphna didn’t ask who “she” was. Kelpie guessed that it was Glory.

“Come on, Kelpie,” Dymphna said, walking through the door the cop held open for her. “Too much irony for me,” she said under her breath.

“Take care of yourself,” the copper said behind them.

“I will.”

Kelpie kept her eyes down. Even crooked cops made her nervous.

Palmer was shaking his head. “What’s she find ironic?” He let out a sigh. “Why am I talking to an illiterate tyke like you? Do you even know what ‘ironic’ means?”

As it happened, Kelpie did. It had been the subject of a long lecture from Miss Lee. Although Miss Lee preferred to call it “a disquisition.” Kelpie agreed. She liked the sound of “disquisition” better than “lecture.” They’d been reading
Pride and Prejudice
, and Kelpie had wondered why the book kept saying one thing when it really seemed to mean another. Irony was why, it turned out. But Kelpie was not going to explain that to Palmer.

The door opened onto a hallway with fancy red gold-trimmed carpet and walls papered with entwined green and gold leaves. On each door was a number and a letter in gold like where Dymphna lived.

At the end of the corridor, the carpet turned into shiny big white-and-grey tiles. Dymphna nodded to a large man sitting at a brown desk that curved all the way around him. Kelpie wondered how he got out of it. Did he have to climb over the top?

There were no ghosts. Kelpie decided that she liked new buildings.

The man grunted at Dymphna. “Glory’s waiting for you, Miss Campbell. Word is she ain’t happy. Tell her I’m doing like she said.”

He put his hand on the big, black telephone on his desk, which was even bigger than the one at Dymphna’s flat.

“Tell her I’m on my way.”

Palmer shook his head. “Glory’s got too many men. Don’t know how Dymphna’s going to give them all the slip. She’d be best off heading to the Quay. Bound to be a boat that’ll take her on. Even with no luggage. Tell her, Kelpie.”

Kelpie kept her mouth closed.

Dymphna led her briskly past the huge curved desk, through a double set of huge wood and glass doors and out onto a street almost as crowded as Elizabeth Street. Horns blared, a tram rattled past. They had to thread their way through the crowd. Many of them said hello. Hats were doffed, heads nodded, kisses were blown. Kelpie increased her stride to stay beside Dymphna.

“Ah, the joys of the Cross.” Dymphna laughed. “Glory owns most of those apartments, you know,” she continued, as if she was giving a tour of Kings Cross and wasn’t on the way to meet her angry boss, who was known to make people disappear. “In my building too.”

“Is that where we’re going?” Kelpie asked. “To Gloriana Nelson?”

“Of course not,” Palmer said. “Glory might kill her.”

“Is Glory going to kill you?” Kelpie asked.

Dymphna squeezed Kelpie’s hand and slowed her pace.

“No, silly. Of course not. I’m her top earner. She won’t kill me.”

“She’s not going to Glory,” Palmer assured her. “She just had to tell Glory’s boys that.”

“Where are we going then?”

Dymphna smiled brightly at two men who’d raised their hats. “Somewhere safe.”

“Ask her where,” Palmer said. “The Quay is in the opposite direction.”

“Not to Glory?”

Dymphna said nothing, but increased her pace.

“Will Glory kill
me
?” Kelpie asked, scrambling to keep up.

“No, Kelpie. You’re with me. I’ll tell her how helpful you’ve been. How much I need you. Glory likes me. She’s cranky right now, but she’s been cranky with me before.”

Palmer shook his head. “She’s not going to Glory. You notice Dymphna didn’t say you were going there.”

Kelpie hoped Palmer was right. She did not want to meet Glory.

“Glory’s a scary woman,” Dymphna continued. “She’s powerful. I told you—she owns all those flats, but she wasn’t born with money. She had to make her own way. She did it the same way I have, but now look at her! I’m going to be like her. Not just own my own place but other people’s places too. No one will ever think they own me again. You’ve got to be strong for that. You’ve got to be able to scare people. Especially if you’re a woman.”

Kelpie had never scared anyone. She’d never owned anything neither.

Owning took money, and Kelpie had never had any save the occasional penny, or twice a trey and once a zack she found on the streets. Another bonus to keeping your eyes down: you avoided trouble with the living and you found coins. She spent the zack on hot fish and chips with salt and vinegar and cake and a loaf of bread. Nothing had ever tasted as good as those fish and chips. But even a penny could buy a couple of bread rolls or a bag of mixed lollies. If the shop owner would sell them to her. Sometimes they didn’t want money from her because she was dirty.

“It will be all right.” Dymphna sped up again, smiling briefly at
yet another man doffing his hat. She ignored the man who whistled and the man who called out something nasty about her tits.

Palmer didn’t ignore them. “They should show more respect. How can they talk to her like that? Can’t they see she’s in mourning? Even if she wasn’t. It ain’t right. Not that the ones lifting their lids like they’s all respectable are any better. Look at the leers! Not fooling anyone. Bloody maggots. She shouldn’t be smiling at men like that.”

Kelpie wondered if there was any way a man could look at Dymphna that wouldn’t set Palmer off.

“You’re doing well, Kelpie,” Dymphna said, touching her shoulder briefly. “Not making eye contact is good. Very good. We don’t want to have any trouble if we can avoid it.”

“She’s right about that,” Palmer said. “But might happen anyway. Ask her why she’s still going the wrong way.”

Kelpie risked a glance at Palmer. His face was darkening again. He was scaring her. Kelpie didn’t want to be scared.

“Does she
want
to die?”

Kelpie didn’t think so, but she didn’t get why Palmer thought Glory wanted to hurt Dymphna if she was her best girl. Dymphna had said so.

“You can at least tell her she’s being followed.”

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