Ghost River (12 page)

He tried answering but couldn't speak. He felt shamed and wiped his eyes and covered his face with a hand. Loretta took his other hand in her own and stroked it. Ren was a little jealous.

‘Your father?' Loretta asked. ‘Do you have an idea where he might be?'

Sonny shook his head from side to side and snivelled. ‘I dunno where he is. Been out looking for him for days. He's nowhere.' He lifted his head and looked across the table, directly at Archie. ‘I'm sorry for making trouble for you.'

Nobody spoke. Ren could hear the tap dripping in the kitchen sink and a dog barking in a backyard further along the street.

‘Sonny,' Archie finally said, in a voice softer than the others seated around the table thought possible. ‘We will not have you over there on your own. Nobody in this house would be able to sleep at night knowing you were right next door with nobody looking out for you. It's not right. You can stay here with us until something can be sorted out. As long as that's okay with you, of course.'

Sonny nodded his head, just a little, up and down. Loretta squeezed his hand and smiled across the table at Archie.

Loretta was so taken with Sonny, Ren was sure that if she could claim him for life she would've. As it turned out, his stay lasted a week. The following Sunday night the family was sitting in the front room watching TV when there was a knock at the door. Loretta nudged Archie in the ribs. He'd fallen asleep on the couch.

‘Who'd that be at this time, Arch?'

‘What?'

‘There's someone at the door. You get it.'

Archie got up and answered the door. Ren could hear him talking to somebody in the hallway. He came back into the room, followed by an older man with a full head of ginger hair and the bloated face of a seasoned drinker. Sonny jumped up from the couch and smiled. ‘Uncle Rory.'

‘Hey, it's young Sonny.' The man waddled bowlegged across the room, gave Sonny a hug, reached up and patted him on the head. ‘You've sprung up since I last saw ya. I was knocking next door with no luck and saw the light was on here. I knocked on the off-chance.'

Rory explained to Loretta that Sonny's father was his younger brother. She invited him into the kitchen and made a pot of tea. He sat down and took two envelopes from his coat pocket and laid them on the table. He tapped on one of them with a finger, half of which was missing.

‘First of all this letter come in the post.' He took a sheet of writing paper from the envelope and ran his finger across the words, written in pencil.

‘This is from your father,' he said to Sonny. ‘It took over week for it to get to me. I moved house not long after we had a falling out and he sent it to the old address. The post office forwarded it to me. The letter don't say much except that he's going away. Doesn't say where to. Or for how long. But said he needed me,
urgent
, to come here and look after you.'

He handed the letter to Sonny, who also read it, or as much as he could make out.

‘It also says not to worry about the rent money. He'll take care of it,' Rory explained before losing his breath in a coughing fit. Loretta handed him a glass of water.

‘I thought to myself,
yeah that'll be the day
. Between the horses and a drink he'd always spent more money than he had in his pockets. Then this morning, I get another letter through the mail.' He opened the second envelope and pulled out another piece of paper. It provided both an explanation and more mystery. He placed the piece of paper on the table. It was a receipt. ‘This one is from the landlord of the house. The rent on your place has been paid in full, for six months in advance.'

‘Six months,' Sonny said, looking puzzled. ‘He don't have any money.'

‘Well he must have pulled a whack from somewhere. Maybe he kept a trap? No landlord round here plays St Vincent de Paul. And it's not Christmas, last time I looked at the calendar.'

‘I don't see that he had any money,' Sonny said.

‘Well, maybe you have a guardian angel out there someplace. Don't really matter. The rent's paid in full. All that matters.'

Rory put both envelopes back in his coat pocket, stood up from the table and thanked Loretta for taking care of Sonny. He touched her arm and told her she was a
mighty mighty woman
.

He rested his arm on Sonny's shoulder. ‘Come on, Sonny boy. Let's get you home.'

Rory thanked Archie and gently tugged at Sonny's shirt. ‘Your uncle Rory's slowed a bit since you last saw me. We got to take care of each other for a time.'

CHAPTER 9

The day after Sonny returned home with Rory, Ren came down with a burning fever. When Loretta put him in the shower to cool him down she noticed spots all over his body. She called the doctor from the phone box. Ren had the measles and was ordered to bed for the next week, which meant no school. Sonny visited him across the roof later that day. He was about to climb into the room when Ren called for him to stop.

‘You can't come in, Sonny. Doctor says I'm contagious. I've got the measles and have to stay in bed.'

‘What about the paper round?'

‘Can't do it. Not for a week. No school either.'

‘Lucky for you.'

The next day Sonny knocked at the window again and threw a brown paper bag into the room. ‘I brought you a present.'

Ren opened the bag and found two new exercise books and a set of colouring pencils.

‘Derwents,' Ren said. ‘These are the best you can get. You knock this stuff off from the shop?'

Sonny growled, genuinely offended. ‘I'd never steal from Brixey. I paid with my savings.'

‘Why'd you go and do that?'

‘Because your mum has been good to me.'

‘And I put up with your smelly feet in my bed.'

‘And I had to listen to you scratching at your balls all night. Sounded like a rat at a cereal box.'

‘That was a rat. At your balls.'

Ren spent the following days drawing colourful maps of the river and writing more stories. By the middle of the week he was feeling a little better. He didn't let on to Loretta, worried she might send him back to school early. He waited until she'd left the house for work before he got out of bed, went downstairs and opened the front door.

The morning was cool and the sky was clear. As he sat on the front fence catching the sun and searching the sky for birds, a car drove into the street and stopped outside Reverend Beck's house. A man got out and knocked at the door and waited until the Reverend came out. Ren didn't notice the red-headed girl from the stable seated in the back of the car until it drove off. A few minutes later Della came out armed with her broom. She began sweeping the footpath. She looked up at Ren as she made her way along the gutter and continued sweeping until she'd passed Sonny's house. She stopped in front of Ren and rested on her broom.
‘What are you doing wearing your pyjamas?'

‘I've been sick with the measles. Nobody can come near me. You better stay away or you'll catch them.'

If the girl was concerned about catching anything from Ren she didn't show it. ‘How do you know what illness you have?' she asked.

Ren thought it was a strange question. ‘Because the doctor told my mum, after he took my temperature and looked at the rash I had.'

‘My father … we have no need for doctors.'

‘What happens when you get sick?'

Della swept leaves into a neat pile before answering. ‘Our illnesses are a gift from the Messenger. He administers them to our bodies and eases them once we have dealt with our sins. You would have sinned to contract your own illness.'

Ren was sure Della had to be a little crazy. He didn't really mind. He knew a lot of crazy people. She was just one more. And he wanted to keep her talking.

‘I would have sinned, for sure.' He laughed. ‘When will this Messenger fella get rid of the measles for me?'

‘Maybe never,' Della answered, with complete seriousness. ‘Those who have no faith, sometimes they die for their sins.'

‘And in your church, no one dies.' He laughed again, angering Della. ‘What they call that? A miracle?'

Della rested her broom against the fence and took a step towards Ren. Her eyes narrowed and darkened. ‘We die for two reasons only. Either we sin and do not repent, which is a terrible death and ends in Hell. Or we die for the sins of others, which is the pathway of believers.'

Della sounded like her father giving one of his sermons. Ren leaned back on the fence. Her eyes opened a little wider and she suddenly smiled. ‘I'm sorry. You're not well. I shouldn't be talking to you this way.'

Della picked up her broom, turned her back on Ren and swept along the gutter towards her house.

The next morning a tremor shook the street. At first, half asleep, Ren thought it was coming from the stable again. He got out of bed and lifted the blind from the window. The side street was lit by the dull yellow eyes of a convoy of tip-trucks and front-end loaders. Each of the trucks had a badge painted on its side, the same name Ren had seen on the shirt pocket of the surveyor.

A worker stood in front of the first truck, swinging a lantern in one hand and holding a red flag in the other. As he walked forward the trucks gunned their engines and drove towards the end of the street and into the open paddock beyond the track leading to the river. Ren got dressed and opened his door. His mother's bedroom door was shut. She had worked overtime into the middle of the night and would be asleep. He crept downstairs, careful not to wake her, left the house and knocked at Sonny's door. There was no answer. He ran along the street and didn't stop until he'd reached the paper shop, his lungs on fire.

Spike was standing in the doorway of the shop biting into a chocolate bar. ‘What you doing here, Ren? Sonny says you been poisonous. You look like you're having a heart attack, I reckon.'

‘Is he here?'

‘Yeah, he stayed back to help Brixey with the count. You looking for him or something?'

‘Nah, Spike. I ran all the way here for exercise. Tell him I'm out here. Quick.'

Spike was in no hurry to move. He took another bite out of the chocolate bar, leaving a dangling gob of spit behind. He offered it to Ren. ‘You want a bite? I've had three of these this morning and I'm full up.'

‘I'd keep it for later if I were you, Spike. Never know when you'll be hungry again.'

The side gate creaked open. Sonny came out, pushing his bike. ‘What are you doing here, Ren? You're supposed to be in bed dying.'

Spike laughed so loud he spat runny chocolate down his front.

‘Hey, Spike,' Sonny said. ‘It weren't that funny. Calm down.'

‘It's started,' Ren said. ‘They're here.'

Sonny looked up at the bridge as a train rattled across.

‘Here? Who?'

‘Not
here
,' Ren yelled, his voice breaking up. ‘Trucks and machines. They've come to build the freeway.'

Sonny let go of the bike. It crashed to the ground as a news truck sped by the paper shop. The truck jockey dumped two bundles of
The Sun
off the back without the driver slowing. Spike jumped in the air as the bundles hit the footpath.

‘What are we gonna to do to stop them, Sonny?' Ren asked. ‘It's what you said we'd do. Stop them.'

Brixey came out of the shop to collect the papers. ‘Hey, Sonny, don't be distracting Spike from his work. If you and your mate feel the need to hang round the front of the shop you can make yourselves useful with a broom. Or clean the windows. And Spike.
Spike!
Stop feeding your face at my expense. Grab them papers and bring them into the shop.'

Spike licked melted chocolate from his fingertips and strolled over to the bundles of papers. Sonny picked up the bike and walked away from the shop. Ren followed him along the street.

‘How many trucks did you see?' Sonny asked.

‘A cavalry. At least ten.'

‘Hop on. We'll take a short cut through the railyards.'

The bike had no mudguards and water laying on the road shot up Ren's arse as they rode, weaving between the lines of derelict train carriages.

‘Maybe this is a bad idea, Sonny,' Ren shouted in his ear, ‘showing the bike off here. This is where you knocked it off.'

‘The yard boss hardly moves his arse. About now he'll be tucking into tea and toast in front of the potbelly in the foreman's shed. Probably got his feet up in a chair in a pair Hush Puppies.'

‘You sure?'

‘Sure enough not to be worried about it.'

The bike weighed a ton and the added weight of Ren on the back flattened the tyre. Sonny wore himself out pedalling.

‘I need to stop for a smoke,' he said. ‘Your turn to roll.'

Rolling and walking at the same time wasn't easy. Ren dropped more tobacco on the ground than he rolled into the cigarette.

‘I knocked at your door on the way here. Your uncle Rory must have been out early.'

‘He left for the racetrack before sun-up.'

‘What's he do there?'

‘Helps with the muck out at the stables for an old mate and has his own emu run on race days.'

‘What's an emu run?'

‘He picks up the betting slips the punters throw away. Collects them in sugar sacks, brings them home and checks them for winners.'

The idea sounded like a waste of time to Ren. ‘You say that the punters have already thrown the tickets away?'

‘Yep.'

‘Why would he go to the trouble of collecting losing tickets?'

‘Because some of them are winners. People make mistakes and bin the wrong tickets. He makes money off that. Then there's the big earners after a protest. Plenty of punters throw their ticket away straight after a race, thinking they've lost, before the hooter gives the all clear. If the protest gets up the emus really go to work.'

‘He make good money?'

‘Rory's a mystery when it comes to money, but it's the only job he's had, as far as I know, so he must make enough.'

‘Have you found out who paid the rent on the house?'

‘Nah. But my old man must have had a hand in it for the receipt to be sent to Rory's old address. I still can't understand how he could have got hold of that much cash.'

The potholes in the railyards were full of water. Ren slammed his shoe into one of the puddles, splashing water over Sonny.

‘Jesus, Ren …'

‘Hey, you thieving pricks!'

Ren turned to see the yard boss running between two rows of carriages, waving a shunter's bar above his head. ‘That bicycle is railway property!' he yelled.

‘Go Sonny!
Go!
'

Sonny leaned over the handlebars of the bike, started running and pushed as hard as he could. ‘Jump on, Ren,' he urged, throwing his leg over the bike. He mounted the seat and pedalled like mad, all in the one move. Ren leap-frogged the back wheel, onto the rack and spread his legs. The yard boss, even with a wobbly belly to support, gained on them. He was close enough for Ren to see his false teeth jumping in his mouth. And he was wearing a pair of slippers.

Ren slapped Sonny on the back. ‘Fucken
pedal
!'

The yard boss reached for Ren's leg just as Sonny picked up enough speed to get away from him. He slipped in a pothole and hurled the iron bar as he fell. It missed Ren's ducking head by a couple of inches and Sonny's – tucked over the handlebars – by the width of a Tally-Ho paper. The boys sped through the yard and turned into the lane. Sonny jumped from the bike and unbolted the gate.

‘We'd better wait awhile, in case he comes looking for us.'

Ren hadn't been in the house since Rory moved in. The lino floor in the kitchen had been scrubbed clean and the the room was tidy except for a mountain of betting slips piled up on the table.

‘Rory must be a cleaning nut.'

‘It's not him. He's got a girlfriend comes over a couple of nights a week to stay. She's mad on the mop and bucket.'

‘He's a bit old to have a girlfriend.'

‘You think
he's
old. You wanna see her. Like a walking corpse. It don't stop them going at it though. They get the old man's bed jumping off the floor. I'm worried I'll find them dead one morning.'

Ren found it hard to imagine Rory working up the energy to put one foot in front of the other without needing a breather.
‘You mean they have sex in the bed?'

‘Nah. Fucken ballroom dancing.'

Ren dipped his hands into the pile of betting slips. ‘These winners or losers?'

‘They haven't been sorted yet. There's a lot there to go through and I've been giving him a hand. If I pull a winner he pays me a commission. I made more last week on the slips than I did on the newspapers.'

‘Maybe we could try it out? Go to the racetrack and collect our own tickets?'

‘Not allowed. The emu run is a closed shop.'

‘What's that mean?'

‘Rory's been telling me about it, in case I have to step up. He says that all the workers in the business have their own piece of ground at the track, invisible lines dividing the turf that no one can see except the emus. He says it's always been that way. And when an emu gives the job away or dies, someone in the family takes over the run. There's rules as well. Like the cleaners at the track don't sweep the tickets up. Ever. They leave them to the emus. The most important rule though, according to Rory, is that if an outsider tries snitching a ticket he gets a warning. Second offence and the emus come from all over the track and dish out a kicking.'

‘That's tough.'

‘It's a tough business. Rory's got the scars to prove it. He took over the run from his old man, my pop, after he died.'

‘What happened to your pop?'

‘Same as the rest of the family. The grog took him and the run was left to Rory. He was no older than I am now. Had to fight off the standovers who thought they'd take the business from a kid. Rory's shit with my father started back then, he says, when they were kids. The old man wouldn't help him and Rory had to battle for the run on his own.'

The sound of the machines grunted in the background.

‘Hear that?' Ren said.

‘The coast should be clear now. Let's see what's going on.'

The steel gates guarding the mill hung from their hinges. The lock and chain on the gates had been broken so many times that whoever owned the mill had given up on the battle to keep the scavengers out. The scrap crews had weaselled their way in over the years, cutting through fences, smashing windows and stripping the mill of copper, brass and lead, as well as the porcelain toilets and sinks. Once they'd finished with the scrap they started on the timber. In the end all that was left of the mill were cavernous rooms, cobwebs and pigeons. Ren kicked the gate open. Sonny tried opening the sliding steel door into the main building. It was rusted to the frame and wouldn't budge. He searched the yard for something strong enough to force the lock.