Razorhurst (39 page)

Johnno was a handsome man who loved to cook.

He’d been a safe-breaker back in the day. Until he’d discovered the glories of bouillabaisse and wound up head chef at Romano’s, where he stayed until the Bedford family hired him. Out from the kitchen and into their Vaucluse mansion he went, their private chef at three times his Romano’s salary. Only to be let go less than a month later because he made inappropriate advances at the oldest Bedford girl.

The fact that she was twenty-one and had not rejected those advances, that she had, in fact, been ready to run away with Johnno, did not change the Bedford family’s version of events. Though it was telling that they did not press charges. Even more telling that Johnno and the Bedford girl still saw each other from time to time even though she’d long since married.

Johnno left the Bedfords’ fancy mansion, and Glory snatched him up.

“Always wanted me own chef,” she told everyone and was pleased when Johnno’s new appointment was mentioned in the gossip columns. She even let him hire kitchen hands and an assistant chef, though he called him a sous-chef, which impressed Glory.

Glory paid Johnno more than the Bedfords had, but she demanded a lot more of him too.

He didn’t mind. He was allowed to cook whatever he wanted—except for the proles fed out back when Glory had one of her parties, and he delegated
that
cooking to his underchefs. Besides, with Glory he didn’t have to watch his p’s or his q’s, and the old bird liked for him to be adventurous. She liked trying new things she’d never heard of. She appreciated his artistry.

They were a happy fit. Many suspected they were going to be together much longer than Glory had been with any other man. Big Bill taking a drunken swipe at Johnno, demanding that he cook
bloody normal food
, had been the straw that sent Bill out onto the street and in the direction of a divorce.

Glory couldn’t trust a man, even if he was her own husband, who didn’t appreciate a good feed.

KELPIE

Kelpie thought Darcy was leaning over her, offering to tell her a story about all the ghosts of the Hills, but his voice was lighter than it usually was. Her eyes weren’t focusing. She closed them, counted to ten, opened them again.

It was Dymphna.

Offering her water.

Kelpie drank.

The room swirled. The light had changed colour—everything was gold and pink and red. She couldn’t tell who was living and who was a ghost. She thought Dymphna was alive, but she couldn’t be sure—hadn’t Glory tried to strangle Dymphna, or did she imagine that?—and she didn’t recognise anyone else.

Kelpie closed her eyes. Then she was drinking again. More water. It tasted cold. She could feel it slide down her throat and into her belly. It sloshed around in there even though she was sure she wasn’t moving. She suspected there was a ghost in her belly. More than one. Small ones running back and forth.

Kelpie opened her eyes to food. She held it, took bites. She couldn’t taste what it was. But she chewed and swallowed. There was some kind of film over her eyes, making everything brilliantly coloured. Had all those ghosts, blurred into one giant mass, broken her eyes?

No, she could see Dymphna.

Dymphna who could see ghosts same as Kelpie could.

Dymphna Campbell who was the same as her. Same age, same ghosts.

She closed her eyes again because it was too much. Dymphna Campbell was exactly like her. Kelpie hadn’t thought there was anyone like her. She’d thought maybe she was the way she was because her parents were dead almost as soon as she was born and they’d infected her with their ghostliness.

She would have to ask Dymphna if that was true. If that was what had happened to her. Because it could have happened that way, couldn’t it? So many mothers died having babies.

Kelpie thought about asking her, but it seemed too hard. Her mouth was heavy. Everything was heavy. But then Dymphna was beside her and whispering, answering her questions. Telling her about ghosts.

The ghosts that Dymphna could see same as her.

Then there was an earsplitting crack. A gunshot. Glass breaking.

Kelpie leapt up. Her ears hurt, but everything was clear. She was in a kitchen. There were two ghosts and eight living, if she included herself. The kitchen looked over a yard that was full of people lining up behind trestle tables piled with food. Everything was gold and pink and orange because the sun was setting over Glory’s backyard.

A gunshot.

Someone screamed. Dymphna turned to where the sound of the shot had come from.

Stuey Keating, who had led them through the crowd in front of the house, came running into the kitchen. He was smiling. “False alarm. One of the O’Hannagan kids let off a firecracker. Scared one of the old fellas so much he dropped his glass.”

He ran out onto the back balcony and repeated his tidings.

“Which doesn’t mean there won’t be the real thing later on,” Dymphna said.

The tall man with the white hat shook his head. “Not in the Hills. Guns aren’t the fashion. Haven’t had a proper gunfight since ’28. They’ll come on us quiet-like, with a blade in hand.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Dymph. It’ll be right as rain. Glory’s tough as nails. Tougher. Every man in this kitchen can more than hold their own. She’s got more fellas stationed out front and in back. This place is a fortress with several hundred guards.”

He turned back to where he was stirring a reddish-brown sauce that smelled delicious.

One of the other kitchen people opened the icebox. Inside was a giant pink-and-white construction.

“What’s that?” Kelpie asked.

The tall man laughed. “That, my girl, is Gloriana Nelson’s I-am-shot-of-that-bastard cake. Six tiers, it’s got. Pretty impressive, eh? Even if I do say so myself.”

Kelpie had never seen anything like it.

“You ready to face Glory and her party?” Dymphna asked.

Kelpie nodded. She had herself back. She hadn’t made eye contact with either of the ghosts. She could stand up now. Focus.

She wondered where Palmer was. She hadn’t seen him since they’d entered Glory’s house.

Kelpie wondered if there really was a place in the world with no ghosts.

Newspapers

Before Miss Lee taught her to read, Kelpie collected newspapers. They could be used for almost everything.

They kept you a lot warmer than you’d expect. You could use them to line your shoes and your coat and your hat—if you had one. You could tear off strips and stuff them into too-big shoes or wrap them around your feet if you didn’t have shoes, which Kelpie almost never did. They were excellent ground cover, keeping the cold and the damp further away. You could use them to pad the bench or the tree you kipped down in. You could use them to wipe your nose or your arse.

They absorbed blood and pus.

They worked well, too, for wrapping up the useful things you found: string, sticks, stones, bits of food, a wrench. Kelpie had carried that wrench for months before Mr. Sung agreed to swap it for a fresh loaf of bread. It was a good wrench; but that still-hot bread in her belly had been better. You couldn’t eat a wrench.

One old man who always dossed down in Moore Park dressed entirely in newspapers, swore they were warmer than cloth. But at the end of every day, he had to fashion a whole new newspaper suit. Besides which, every time he fell asleep on a bench, the pigeons would start to eat his clothes. Sometimes possums too. If he was lucky, he would wake up in time to grab one. More meat than you’d expect on a pigeon. A possum was three, four meals, easy.

After Miss Lee, Kelpie had a whole other use for newspapers: she could read ’em.

So many strange and wonderful things in newspapers. Reports of police, fires, love gone wrong, and the strange goings-on in the capital and far away over the ocean where the foreign king had sacked the Hills’ beloved Big Man without asking a single denizen of the Hills what they thought on the matter. Though from those same newspapers, Kelpie learned that not everyone loved the Big Man. She hadn’t realised that was possible.

Newspapers were full of advertisements for everything you could ever imagine wanting, including a cream that made men’s hair grow and one that made women’s hair disappear and another that faded
freckles and warts and made your nose smaller. All it cost was more money than Kelpie had ever had.

The one thing you couldn’t do with newspapers was eat them. Though Kelpie had heard some of the older hobos had done that when desperate.

But, like eating dirt, all it did was make you sick.

DYMPHNA