Razorhurst (9 page)

Dymphna wondered what he’d be like to kiss. His lips were …

She looked away. She should not be looking at his lips. What would it be like to live in a world where she could kiss a good man instead of worrying if she was going to survive until nightfall?

“We’ll make sure you’re okay, Kelpie,” Mrs. Darcy said, putting her arm around the girl. Gravity meant Kelpie couldn’t extricate herself. Not that she was trying. She looked content. Dymphna knew that she should leave Kelpie with the Darcys. But she couldn’t stand the idea of losing her. She’d only just found her.

Jimmy paced the room, glowering. Dymphna wished she could make him stop. But she had no more power over him than she had over her leg. She stared at the floor and then at Neal. His eyes were green flecked with brown—hazel, she supposed. Jimmy paced faster.

“You’re really the only one who can see me?” he asked Kelpie.

“It’ll be all right, love,” Mrs. Darcy said.

Kelpie nodded. But Dymphna couldn’t tell if her assent was for Mrs. Darcy, for Jimmy, or for the both of them.

“Why can’t they see me?” Jimmy demanded.

Because you’re a bloody ghost, you arse-brained moron
, Dymphna wished she could say. She had thought he was cleverer than this.

“What’s happening, love?” Mrs. Darcy asked Kelpie. “Why are the coppers after youse?”

Kelpie shrugged. Again the answer served for the dead and the living.
Nicely done
, thought Dymphna.

“You don’t know?” Jimmy asked.

Kelpie looked down, shaking her head slightly. She straightened as much as she could given the bed’s sag and then gave up, sinking back against Mrs. Darcy.

“She saw something she shouldn’t have,” Dymphna said, which was true, but no one knew that except Dymphna. “There are bad
men who want to kill her. I’m protecting her. I have to get the both of us somewhere safe.”

The coppers had only mentioned a well-dressed blonde woman, not a young girl. Dymphna didn’t care that she’d given Mrs. Darcy the impression Kelpie was in trouble. She wanted Mrs. Darcy to think Dymphna knew more than the police, which she did. Though she had no idea how the police knew she had been at Mrs. Stone’s.

“
You’re
protecting her?” Mrs. Darcy said to Dymphna. “How do you expect to do that?”

“It’s dangerous,” Dymphna said, which had the virtue of being true and revealing nothing.

Mrs. Darcy’s lips whitened. She patted Kelpie’s knee.

“We’ll go soon. I promise,” Dymphna said. Though she had no idea where. Or if she could convince Kelpie to leave with her. Had the cops been tipped off?

Then she remembered the card. The one from Mr. Davidson. The one with her name on it. Where was it? She’d given it to Kelpie. Had Kelpie dropped it at Mrs. Stone’s? Her leg’s tremolo movement increased. She willed it to stop; it didn’t even slow.

“You’re cold,” Neal Darcy said.

“Is she?” his mother said. “We’re
all
cold. Only heat’s in the kitchen.”

Neal Darcy looked away. Dymphna wondered what he was thinking. She should not be wondering what he was thinking.

“Dymphna’s the one who needs protecting,” Jimmy Palmer told Kelpie. “She needs to get away from here, and she needs to hide.”

Kelpie said nothing.

“We really do have to go,” Dymphna said firmly. “It’s not safe here.”

“Won’t be safe anywhere,” Jimmy said, which might well be true, but Dymphna could do without him saying it. Now both Dymphna’s legs were shaking.

“No one’s keeping you here,” Mrs. Darcy said. “We can look after Kelpie. She’s welcome. She’d be welcome at St. Peter’s. About time she went to school. How old are you now, girl? Ten? Eleven?”

Dymphna was not going to let that happen; Kelpie stayed with her.

“They’re
both
in trouble, Ma,” Neal said. “We need to help them. How many times have we been helped? When Da shot through—”

Mrs. Darcy’s glare was enough to freeze flames. “You don’t need to tell me what’s right, young man.”

Neal grinned. Dymphna felt her face mirroring his.

Jimmy threw a punch at Neal which went straight through him. Dymphna bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her right leg stilled and the left slowed.

Mrs. Darcy stared at her eldest son, who was looking at Dymphna. For a moment, Dymphna thought she was going to be thrown out. Her right leg began to shake again.

“I wasn’t going to make her leave right off,” Mrs. Darcy continued. “How far do you think you’ll get, young lady, with your skirt torn like that and your gloves ruined? And look at the state of wee Kelpie! People will wonder how a lady like you wound up with a street urchin. Better she stay with us.”

Dymphna looked down at her gloves and then at Kelpie. Kelpie looked like she’d never washed in her life. “You’re right. Thank you. We’ll clean up as best we can. Then we’ll be out of your way. I will take good care of her.”

Everyone looked at Kelpie, who squirmed from their gaze.

“You don’t have to go with her, Kelpie,” Mrs. Darcy said. She turned to Dymphna. “You’re too young to be looking after a child.”

“She’s older than you were,” Neal said, “when you were first married and had me.”

Dymphna did not like to think about how old she was, how old her dead sisters weren’t.

“She’s
much
older than I was,” Mrs. Darcy said, flicking her eyes from her son to Dymphna so that she needn’t say
and much older than you
out loud. Dymphna almost laughed. “But she doesn’t know the first thing about young ’uns.”

“She’s a woman,” Jimmy said. “Women’re all tougher than they look.” A minute earlier he’d been proclaiming that she needed to be protected.

“I have friends,” Dymphna managed to say. “Powerful friends. No one touches me.”

“What, like that Gloriana Nelson? Or that Mr. Davidson?”

“He’s not my friend!”

“They’re not the sorts of friends I’d like. They might not touch you”—Mrs. Darcy sounded sceptical—“but they touch them that’s around you. We’ve all heard what they call you. Angel of—”

“Don’t call her that, Ma,” Neal said. His hand twitched to his chest and then back to his side. As if he wanted to cross himself.

“I can protect her,” Dymphna said. “You can’t.”

She knew it probably wasn’t true. She knew she should leave Kelpie with the Darcys, but she
couldn’t
. Dymphna had to save her, make her life less of a hell than her own had been.

If Dymphna lived through the day; if she didn’t get Kelpie killed.

“You’re barely old enough to protect yourself,” Mrs. Darcy said.

“I’ve lots of money,” Dymphna said, aware of how crass that sounded.

Mrs. Darcy snorted.

“Money that can buy a lot of protection.” Her money would be worth nothing if Mr. Davidson or Glory wanted her dead.

“They could
both
stay here,” Neal said.

Dymphna almost laughed. Where exactly? With the lodger?

“Everyone knows who Miss Campbell is,” Mrs. Darcy said with a little too much emphasis on the
Miss
. “How long could we keep her hidden?”

“There’s no need. We’ll be gone from the city before the day’s out,” Dymphna said confidently. She’d go back to her flat, grab the coat she’d lined with money, her passports, then they’d get passage out: overseas, safety.

“You can’t do that,” Mrs. Darcy said. “You’re not blood relations. I’ve a good mind to tell the authorities.”

On the other side of Mrs. Darcy, Kelpie flinched.

“You wouldn’t,” Dymphna said, cursing herself for saying it out loud.

“Sister Josephine or Father O’Brian would have something to say about your plan.”

Kelpie jumped up. “I’ll go with her,” she said, putting her hand awkwardly in Dymphna’s.

Scared of the nuns, thought Dymphna, squeezing Kelpie’s hand.

“You’re sure, lass?” Mrs. Darcy said. The expression on her face made Dymphna brace for Mrs. Darcy’s arguments against anyone going anywhere with the notorious Dymphna Campbell. But Mrs. Darcy said nothing, waiting for Kelpie to reply.

“I’m sure,” Kelpie muttered.

Mrs. Darcy did not look pleased.

“Good,” Jimmy said. “You can tell Dymphna everything that happened when youse get away from this mob. You can tell me what’s happening and all. I going to stay like this forever? This what being dead is?”

Dymphna wondered how on earth Jimmy expected a kid like Kelpie to know all about death. “Would it be all right if we cleaned up now?” she asked.

Mrs. Darcy stood up. “I’ll mend your skirt.” She grabbed a small basket from underneath her sewing table. “You can sponge your jacket in the kitchen. Neal, you should be off to work already. We can’t have you speared.”

Neal nodded, not taking his eyes from Dymphna’s.

None of Dymphna’s hard men had eyes as pretty as his.

Old Ma

Old Ma fed Kelpie and clothed her. Though shoes were a problem. Old Ma wasn’t made of money, and Kelpie kept growing. So they didn’t bother. Before long her feet grew tough as the streets she walked on. Besides, Old Ma said, it wasn’t like it was as bitter cold here as it was back in the old country.

Kelpie had never been anywhere but the Hills. Before Old Ma died, she’d never been outside Frog Hollow. She thought it was plenty cold. Especially at night in winter when the damp set in and you were so far down in the Hollow you’d forgotten what the sun looked like.

Her first memory was of Old Ma washing Kelpie’s face. Ma wasn’t gentle, but Kelpie could tell it was done with love. She remembered the smell of soap, the feel of the cold water hitting her skin, and Old Ma smelling like freshly baked bread, though most often the only bread she made was damper because that was cheaper. Old Ma made Kelpie drink the milk she couldn’t always afford.
You’re still growing
, Ma said,
up and up. I’m growing out and out
.

Old Ma died in the winter. Went to sleep and didn’t wake up.

But Old Ma stayed. She kept looking after Kelpie. Led her to places to sleep. Led her away from the bad men who took over Old Ma’s house. Led her to rooms where there really were apples.

But she wasn’t a talker like Tommy. When she was alive, Old Ma hardly ever shut up. Jabbering all the time with stories and opinions and telling Kelpie what to do.

Surry Hills
, she’d say.
Sorrow Hills, more like
. Then she’d tell the tale of someone who had died before they should have, which they all did in the Hills.

Mostly though, when she was alive, Old Ma had warned Kelpie to stay away from
them. They’re no better than they should be
. Old Ma’s
them
was wide and varied. The rich, the poor, the coppers, the crims. The only person Old Ma had a good word for was Snowy Fullerton.
Good man, Snowy. Always mind what he says to you, Petal. He’ll look out for you. Leastways he will when he’s not in the lock-up
.

Old Ma had little time for the living or the dead. Not that Old Ma had been able to see ghosts, but she knew they were there, knew they
were up to no good. Besides, Kelpie talked to ghosts often enough. Old Ma’s grandma had been the same way. Look at what happened to her!
Down the well
, Old Ma had said darkly. Kelpie tried not to giggle.

Old Ma couldn’t see ghosts after she died neither. Or if she could, she ignored them.

The damp and the dark that killed Old Ma was why they tore Frog Hollow down. Men in suits following up their evictions with wrecking crews and demolitions. Said the Hollow wasn’t clean what with the mould creeping up the listing walls.

It wasn’t too long after they’d torn down every last bit of rusted corrugated iron and rotten wood that Old Ma started to fade.

As if she had been clinging to those sodden timbers.

Kelpie was on her own.

Kelpie did not like being on her own.

She ventured all over the Hills. Even further than Moore Park—all the way to Centennial Park. There were ghosts everywhere she went. Most of them ignored her. But not all. A few of them helped her the way Old Ma had. Steering her towards food and away from bad men.

A few of them did the opposite.

Even so, ghosts were what kept Kelpie alive.