Ghost River (13 page)

‘You find anything?' Ren called from the loading dock.

‘Nothing.'

Sonny dragged a wooden pallet across the yard and stood it on its end against the wall, under a broken window. ‘Bunk me up.'

Ren cupped his hands together and Sonny used them as a stirrup. He balanced one foot on the pallet and the other on the ledge of the window. He thumped the frame of a shattered window with the side of his fist. It wouldn't budge.

‘Take your jumper off, Ren. I'm gonna have to rest something on the bottom of the window so I don't get cut on the jagged glass when I squeeze through.'

‘What about your own jumper?'

‘I can't get mine off. I'm lucky to be holding on. Give me yours.'

Ren took his jumper off and threw it up to him. Sonny laid it across the bottom of the window, wriggled through and jumped into the mill. The door shifted and flung open. Sonny was holding Ren's jumper in his hand. He snatched it from him and put it on. It was torn at the shoulder.

‘Well, done, Sonny. This is the only good jumper I got. How am I gonna explain this?'

‘Looks as if you've been attacked by Zorro.' Sonny laughed. ‘Maybe you could sew it up and your mum won't find out.'

Ren popped his head through the hole. ‘Sew it, my arse.'

‘Forget the jumper. You'll be in more trouble for sneaking out of the house when you're supposed to be sick in bed.'

The saw-tooth roof of the cotton mill was eighty, maybe a hundred feet above their heads. A steel stairway bolted into the brick wall zig-zagged towards the top. They made a racket climbing up and set the pigeons off. Hundreds of birds lifted from the steel rafters, flew in an arc and came together in the shape of a boomerang. The boys stopped on a landing and watched as the birds flew the length of the mill, turned and glided above their heads, close enough that Ren could feel the breeze of their wings. The birds turned again and flew to the far end of the mill. One by one they settled along the rafters.

A small wooden door sat at the top of the stairs. Ren pushed against it. It wouldn't move. Sonny took a couple of steps back, ran at it and gave it a kick. The door flew off its hinges and crashed to the ground below. A cold wind hit the boys in the face and the roar of the machines blasted their ears. Ren stuck his head out of the open window. ‘Jesus. Look at what they've done already.'

The paddock was being cleared of every tree and the air was full of dust. A jet of water from a broken water main shot into the sky on the far side of the paddock. Bulldozers had pushed the rubbish to one side of the cleared ground
-
dead trees, rotting railway sleepers, the wreck of a van that had been dumped years before, and a mountain of old couches, chairs and car tyres. Anything that could be burned had been put on a front-end loader and piled onto a bonfire. Twisted metal and rocks were loaded into the bucket of another loader and dumped on the back of a tip-truck. Another machine was pile-driving deep holes into the ground. Each time the hammer stabbed the earth it shook the ground. Workmen were following behind the machine, laying down metal poles and rolls of wire.

The boys watched from the doorway as a worker circled the mountain of scrap wood and furniture with a can of petrol. He splashed it onto the dry timber, stood back, lay a length of cloth on the ground and soaked it with petrol. Fumes filled the air. He hooked the cloth to the end of a length of wire and lit it with a match. It exploded in flames. He poked the torch into the pile of wood. More flames shot into the air, the wood crackled and spat and black smoke lifted from the bonfire and drifted towards the river.

Sonny was perched on the edge of the open doorway with his legs tucked under him. He rocked backwards and forwards with nothing below him but a gravel driveway. It was a long way down.

‘Careful, Sonny. You fall from here and they'll scoop up your broken body and throw it on the fire.'

Sonny ignored him. He couldn't take his eyes off the pile-driver. A pair of workmen stood a metal pole on its end and dropped it into one of the holes that had been made. A third worker followed with a wheelbarrow. With the two workers holding the pole upright he poured cement into the hole and pounded it with a blunt ended bar.

‘They're putting a fence up, Sonny. I thought they were building a road. Why would they be building a fence?'

‘We'll know soon enough. I never seen anyone work as fast.'

The boys smoked and watched as the work continued. The sky grew dark with smoke from the fire. Diesel fumes from the machines and more dust were thrown into the air as the trucks drove about. A long-load semi-trailer drove onto the cleared ground, its tyres sinking into the dirt. The truck's tray was stacked high with metal panels. More workmen unpacked the panels from the semi and bolted them together. In no time they'd built a workshop. The fence posts surrounding it were knitted together with rolls of cyclone wire, topped with barbed wire and finished off with a set of double gates, ready to be bolted and chained. Other trucks parked in the yard were unloaded and equipment was carried into the shed.

Sonny sat his chin in his hands and sulked. ‘I dunno how Tex and the others will get up to the street with that fence in the way. It's hard enough for them now.'

‘They'll have to go the long way round. Us too.'

‘Bullshit we will.'

‘What will you do then? Pole-vault the fence?'

‘There's a pair of old bolt-cutters in the toolbox behind the toilet at my place. I'm coming back tonight after dark to cut a hole in the fence. We'll be taking the same track we've always used.'

‘And they'll let us walk straight by them, Sonny? Remember the movie we saw last summer, the one about the robbery? They kept all them armoured trucks in a
compound.
It's what this is. A compound. Anyway, they work so fast, we won't have any river soon.'

‘Then we have to work quick.'

‘At what?'

‘Stopping them.'

‘No chance of that. One of them bulldozers could crush us to death. Drive straight through the front door of your house and out the back with nothing left standing.'

A workman sitting in a bulldozer turned off his machine. He'd seen the boys. Sonny got to his feet and yanked a metal hinge from the doorframe. He yelled out and waved to the workman, ‘Hey, mate.'

The worker lifted his hand and waved back.

Sonny threw his arm back, pitched the hinge as hard as he could and ran for the stairs. Ren bolted after him, hearing a loud ‘ping' of metal on metal.

They didn't stop running until they were at Sonny's gate. ‘You have to go home,' Sonny said, ‘before you get in serious trouble.'

‘Mum's on afternoon shift and Archie's driving interstate.'

‘Come in then. We have to make plans.'

‘For what?'

‘What do they call it? Sabotage.'

CHAPTER 10

Sonny could hear the TV in the lounge room. He put a finger to his lips. ‘There's someone here.'

The front room was empty except for one of Rory's sugar sacks sitting on the coffee table. Sonny walked over to the stairway and called upstairs for him. There was no answer. ‘He don't usually get home this early. Must be something up.'

Ren wasn't listening. He was concentrating on a game show on the TV. A camera panned along the
Showcase
stage to reveal the winner's loot
-
a pair of electric blankets, cooking pots, a two-door refrigerator, a tropical holiday, and the biggest prize of all,
a new car
. The boys collapsed onto the couch, unable to take their eyes off the screen.

‘You see that car, Sonny? If I won the jackpot I'd drive it down to the river, pick up Tex and the boys and take them on a cruise through the city with the windows down and the radio turned up full blast.'

‘But you're not on the show, Ren. And you can't drive a car. And even if you were on the show you wouldn't win the car.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because you have to answer the questions. You can't do it.'

‘I bet I could answer some of them.'

‘Not before one of them contestants hits the buzzer. I bet you can't do that.'

‘You're no Barry fucken Jones yourself.'

‘Not saying I am. Just setting you straight. Won't be driving no new car. That's all I'm saying.'

‘I bet you a dollar I can beat them on some of the questions.'

‘You don't have a buzzer.'

‘Don't need one. Soon as I have the answer I'll clap my hands together.'

‘Okay, but only if you get five, no, six questions right. I bet you a dollar.'

‘You said five first. Five and it's a bet.'

‘It's a bet.'

Ren sat on the edge of the couch going head to head with the three contestants. He surprised Sonny and himself by getting two questions right in the first round, which was one more than a lanky bank teller, wearing a name tag –
David
– dressed in a chequered jacket with leather pads on the arms.

‘See that coat he has on?' Sonny said, during the first ad break. ‘He's hoping to make himself look intelligent, wearing that.'

‘It's not working. I'm already one point in front of him. They should kick him off and get me on.'

Muriel
, the contestant seated in the middle, wore a beehive hairstyle. She was fast on the
Who am I
, but paid the penalty for hitting her buzzer too quickly on other questions and giving the wrong answer. By the end of the second round, Ren had answered only one more question and the carry-over champion,
Bob
, was way out in front. He blitzed the final round with such speed Ren never got to clap his hands once. The champion had the showroom of prizes to himself. All he needed to do to take home the lot was answer one more question. And Ren owed Sonny a dollar.

The losing contestants were shuffled off-stage. The champion stood next to the host of the show, who was wearing a suit that shimmered under the studio lights. Two girls in bikinis lay across the bonnet of a new car. A camera zoomed in on the host opening an envelope holding the last question.

‘Look at the champion's hands, Ren. They're shaking.'

‘He should stop looking at the bikini girls out of the corner of his eye. He'll lose all his concentration.'

The host took the question card from the envelope, read it to himself and smiled into the camera. He had perfect white teeth. ‘I will have to be honest with you, Bob,' he said. ‘This is a tough question.'

Bob wiped his brow on the sleeve of his cardigan. The host laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you ready, Bob? To take home all of these wonderful prizes?'

The host waved his arm the length of the gift shop. Bob couldn't speak. He nodded and sprayed sweat all over the host, who took a couple of steps back and looked straight into the camera, at Ren and Sonny.

‘Bob. For this immaculate six-cylinder Holden car, equipped with air conditioning – donated by our wonderful friends at City Wide Motors – and everything you see on the floor here this afternoon, with the exception of these two lovely ladies, of course.' He winked. ‘We need the answer to the following question … after this break from our sponsors. And don't go away, you good people at home. We'll be right back.'

‘Shit! They always do that,' Sonny complained.

Ren was desperate to go to the toilet. He jumped up from the couch and ran out of the room, through the kitchen and out into the backyard. When he got outside he looked up and saw Della at her open window. The rings under her eyes were so dark Ren wondered if they were bruised. A ginger cat was walking across the roof. Della watched it closely.

‘Hey, Sonny,' Ren said, walking back into the lounge, ‘I just saw Della at her window. I think she has a black eye.'

‘Shut up. Bob's back on. This is it.'

‘Her face is marked …'

‘Shut up! The question's coming.'

A low drum roll kicked off the final drama.

‘For the grand prize on tonight's
Showcase
,' the host announced, ‘Bob Avon, of Glen Iris in Victoria, we need the correct answer to the following question.' The host turned and directed his attention to the live audience. ‘And please, ladies and gentlemen, not a word from you, or Bob may be disqualified.'

He read from the card in his hand. ‘The popular brand of dog food,
Pal
– another loyal friend of this program – was the original name of which famous screen canine?'

Bob closed his eyes, as if he was praying. Sonny jumped from the couch waving his arms in the air. ‘The answer! I know it!'

‘Bullshit.' Ren laughed. ‘Bob don't know it himself. Look at him, Sonny. He's fucked. You know nothing.'

Sonny lapped the couch waving his arms in the air like a boxer who'd just won on a knock-out. ‘Lassie! It's Lassie!' he screamed.

The drum roll got louder. Bob stuck his tongue out of his mouth and licked his lips.

‘Shut up, Sonny. Or we're not gonna hear a word he says.'

The drum slowed and stopped. The host gave Bob a serious look. ‘Time's up. We need an answer, Bob.'

Sonny collapsed to his knees, chanting ‘
Lassie, Lassie.
'

Bob's eyes suddenly lit up, like someone had turned the switch on. ‘It's … is it Rin Tin Tin?'

The host showed off his sparkling teeth to the TV audience one last time. ‘Rin Tin Tin … Rin Tin Tin …' he repeated slowly.

Ren threw a dirty sock he'd found between the couch cushions at Sonny. ‘Lassie, my arse.'

The host dropped his eyes. ‘I'm sorry Bob. Your answer is incorrect.'

The audience groaned.

‘It was Lassie. Also know by his handler as Pal.'

Bob went home with the consolation prize, a set of pillows, and Sonny jumped onto the couch and back to the floor, beating his chest.

‘How'd you know that, Sonny?'

‘Read it on the back page of a comic last week, at the paper shop.
Amazing Facts.
Before Lassie was Lassie, he was Pal.'

‘But Lassie was a girl. I saw her have pups in one of her films.'

‘Weren't him. Lassie was Pal and he was a boy dog. That was the
amazing
bit. Everyone thought Lassie was a girl dog, but she wasn't.'

A key turned in the front door. Rory walked straight by them holding a chemist bag in one hand and his stomach with the other. He went into the kitchen, banged around in the cupboards and came back into the room. He dropped a couple of tablets on the coffee table and poured a sachet of powder into the glass of water he was holding.
He took a long drink of the mixture and let out a roaring burp, followed by a deep fart.

‘Fuck me, boys.' He laughed. ‘I'm a walking orchestra.'

‘You're home early. You crook?' Sonny asked.

‘Yeah. Took ill at the track with this pain in the guts.'

He picked the sack up from the coffee table and shook it. The betting slips sounded like dead leaves. ‘As luck had it we had a protest in the second. Should be a winner somewhere in this lot. You two make yourselves useful and help me sort through them.'

He tipped the sack upside down. The tickets poured onto the worn carpet, along with a few cigarette butts, chewing gum wrappers and twigs. The betting slips looked as if they'd been screwed up in anger. ‘You know how to read a race ticket, young fella?' he asked Ren.

Ren shook his head. ‘Nup.'

‘Let me give you an education.' Rory picked up a ticket, smoothed it out and pointed to the figures with his grubby stub of a finger. ‘See here, you're looking for the race number. This ticket was a bet on race one. Then you look here for the horse,' he said, pointing down the slip. ‘Number six. And the bet is written here. On the nose. Or here for each way.'

Rory took a notebook out of his coat pocket and flipped through the pages. ‘I've got the placings listed here.' He held the ticket against the open page of the notebook. ‘As you can see, this one is worth fuck all.' He screwed it into a ball and threw it into the empty fireplace. ‘You still at school, son?' he asked. ‘You like it?'

Ren picked up a ticket from the pile. ‘I like English and Art.'

‘When I was a kid I hated school. Me and Sonny's dad, we went to the nuns. Mad as cut snakes. I'd rather take a belt from the Jacks.'

The machines continued rumbling in the background. Ren was sure he could feel the ground moving under his feet.

‘What's the noise?' Rory asked.

Sonny told him about the day he and Ren had run into the surveyors on the river, the convoy of trucks that arrived that morning and the clearing and building work they'd done in just one day. ‘We're gonna stop them,' Sonny said, as if it were a certainty.

‘Think so?' Rory said. ‘They'll be from the government. You think you can put a halt to them? This is no rock fight with a shitty pants kids down the street. You boys got no hope.'

Sonny looked down at the losing ticket he was holding and tore it apart. ‘I got some chance. I been saving up my money.'

‘And?'

‘Maybe I could hire somebody to stop them for me.'

‘Someone like who?'

Sonny looked over at Ren. ‘Maybe one of them in the Railway Hotel. There's this one fella in there, Vincent. I heard about him. We could pay someone like him to do it for us.'

Rory laughed so loud he blew the tickets across the room. ‘You mean the same Vincent who runs the crew from the front bar?'

‘Yeah.'

‘You're a poor bugga, Sonny boy. Let me tell you a couple of things about Vincent. Firstly, how much money have you got saved up? A thousand? Two?'

Sonny's face dropped.

‘I didn't reckon so. That would be your standard fee, right there. Second up, it wouldn't matter what coin you had saved. No crim is gonna deal with a couple of kids.'

He slapped Sonny lightly on the cheek to get his full attention. ‘But let me give you some better advice that might help you out when you're a little older. Low types like Vincent pick their mark. That's why he runs his lot from the pub. He's a king pin in a house of stiffs and no-hopers. So fucken what? Most of the drinkers in there are cripples and seasoned alkies. One step off the back lanes. Cunts like Vincent prey on misery.'

‘How do you know so much about him?' Sonny asked.

‘Because I've been round a long time. Kept my head down and got a street lesson along the way. Better than I could have got in any classroom. Listening and learning and minding my own business. You want to make it, you keep your eyes open, your mouth shut, and don't get too ambitious.'

‘What can we do about the bulldozers then?'

‘Not a lot, I wouldn't think. But I'll tell you this much, both of you. You got any expectations in life, never pay another man to do the hard graft for you. That's a debt you can never pay back. You'll spend a lifetime round dogs forever sniffing at your pocket, wanting more from you.'

He took a snotty hankie out of his jacket pocket and blew his nose. ‘Maybe you don't want to hear this, Sonny, but with your father giving up on you, my job is to teach you, not fill your head with bullshit that will get you nowhere.'

‘We're gone then,' Sonny moaned.

‘Maybe. And maybe not. You feel strong enough over this, take care of business yourself.'

‘How? You just said that the government can do what they like.'

Rory leaned over further and poked Sonny in the chest. ‘You do the best you can and go down fighting. Nothing more to it. Why you so upset, anyway? There must be other places to swim.'

‘Not if they blow the river up with dynamite,' Ren said.

‘Really? They might come across the old tunnels, then,' Rory said, casually, as if the boys would have known what he was talking about.

‘What tunnels?' Sonny asked.

‘You two have just been telling me how you know everything about the river. But you never heard of the tunnels? Don't know it well enough then. When I was your age …'

He stopped talking and passed an eye over the ticket he was holding and shook his head. He showed Ren the ticket. ‘See this fuckwit? Last of the big spenders. The goose put one unit on number six for the place, and still threw a winner away.'

‘What's it worth?' Sonny asked.

‘Nothin that will add up to a day's work. But it all counts.'

He smoothed out the ticket and stuck it in his jacket pocket. ‘Where was I?'

‘You was telling us about some tunnels,' Sonny said.

‘Right. The tunnels. When I was a kid, I worked at the paper factory. There's a tip there now. You know it?'