Razorhurst (46 page)

Kelpie didn’t like it. But she thought she might if Darcy was here to explain it to her. There were fewer ghosts, and not a one of them had tried to talk to them. That, she liked. She’d never been anywhere so silent.

No one said anything. Dymphna raised a canteen they’d taken from the house to her lips, drank deep, then passed it along as they walked.

“Will we bury Darcy too?” Kelpie asked when the house came into view. She wanted to. She hated the idea of leaving him there soaked in his own blood, flies already gathering, even in the cold.

“No,” Snowy said. “The caretaker gets back in a day or two. It’s better Darcy’s found. So people know what happened. Think of his ma.”

“And his brothers and sisters,” Dymphna said.

Kelpie knew they were right. Mrs. Darcy would need to know
what had happened to her oldest boy. She’d want to sit vigil. Drink whisky. Cry. Bury her boy.

Kelpie’s throat burned. She couldn’t believe Darcy was dead. For the first time, she was glad that Miss Lee had faded and didn’t know Neal Darcy had never written a book. She’d been sure he’d write hundreds.

Darcy had been going to teach her to use his typewriter. So she could write stories too.

All of that was gone.

“What do we do now?” Dymphna said. She brushed a stray fly from her face.

“I’m going back to the city,” Terry said. “Don’t like the bush.”

“Me neither,” Sam said. “Got a wife and a kid.”

“We run or we go back there,” Snowy said. “We leave this state—”

“This country,” Dymphna added.

“Or we take over Razorhurst.”

“I’d back you,” Terry said. “All of Davidson’s people would, Snowy.”

“Not all of them,” Sam said. “You’re not white, Snowy. Wouldn’t sit right with some.”

Snowy nodded. Kelpie couldn’t see what difference that made.

“Most would,” Terry said. “More than enough.”

Snowy did not look convinced.

“I’d have almost all Glory’s girls,” Dymphna said. “And a fair few of her men. If Glory’s dead, I mean. Perhaps even if she’s not. I don’t want to kill her.”

Kelpie was sure that Glory would kill Dymphna if Dymphna was in her way.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Snowy said. He sounded tired.

“But it can’t be helped,” Terry said. “Not if you want to run Razorhurst.”

Kelpie couldn’t figure out why they wanted to run Razorhurst. If Bluey was still alive, how would they get him to do what they said? They wouldn’t. So they’d have to kill him. He wouldn’t be the only one. Every death led to another. If Jimmy Palmer hadn’t been killed by Snowy, that copper wouldn’t be dead, and Mr. Davidson, not that him being dead was anything but good, and, and—her thoughts didn’t want to go there—Neal Darcy would still be alive.

Killings multiplied.

“We could say Mr. Davidson and I were married,” Dymphna said. “I know someone who could do the certificate for us.”

“You’d take over,” Snowy said. “I’d be your top man.”

“Could work,” Terry said. “If it looked like Snowy was calling the shots. No offence, Miss Campbell, Mrs. Davidson, I mean.” He smiled. “But we know Snowy, we don’t know you, and …”

“He’s still black,” Sam said softly.

“And what?” Dymphna asked Terry.

“Nothing.”

They were back at the house. Snowy sat down on the steps. Darcy lay dead inside. His head rested on the couch, his mouth open.

“And I’m a chromo?” Dymphna said, sitting next to Snowy.

“You’re a woman,” Terry said, sitting on Snowy’s other side. “Wouldn’t sit right with some of the fellas. Way Glory doesn’t always sit right. Plenty of Davidson’s men won’t work for a woman. I hear some of Glory’s have been peeling off since she tossed Big Bill.”

“Dymphna’s a woman,” Sam said. “And Snowy’s black.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Terry said. “We trust Snowy.”

“It would,” Snowy said.

“You don’t think we could do it, Snowy?” Dymphna asked.

“I think the odds ain’t good. We don’t know what’s happened back there. Drove away from a lot of shooting. We don’t know who’s dead or who’s alive.”

“How close is the nearest ’phone?” Dymphna asked. “We could find out what happened.”

“About twenty miles away,” Sam said.

“Not sure I want to know,” Snowy said. “Jack of the lot of them. Jack of Razorhurst and all.”

Kelpie couldn’t agree more. She wouldn’t miss Gloriana Nelson or Bluey or Big Bill or Cait or any of that mob.

“Me and Jimmy, we were going to take over,” Dymphna said. “We planned it all out. Seemed real before we’d done a single thing. Mr. Davidson has a mistress in the city.”

Sam nodded. “Donna. I’d always drop him off in the lane behind the house.”

“Then you’d drive away. Mostly before he’d gone in. It’s a quiet lane. Jimmy was going to jump him there. But he found out.”

Sam’s cheeks got a little redder. He pulled out a cigarette, started to say something.

“I don’t want to know how he found out,” Dymphna said. “Davidson’s dead. Doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He’s dead. Jimmy’s dead. That constable. Neal Darcy …” Dymphna paused.

Kelpie slid her hand into Dymphna’s and squeezed it.

“Who knows,” Dymphna said more firmly, “who else is dead? Bluey? Glory? Johnno? Those coppers? Could be we’d be walking into a bloodbath. The cops already going in hard to clean up. Like they did back in ’28.”

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Kelpie said. “Some place without …” She trailed off because she couldn’t say
ghosts
. Dymphna reached out to touch her face.

“Violence?” Snowy asked. “Wouldn’t that be grand?”

Dymphna wrote a letter
for Terry to give to Mrs. Darcy. She gave him ten pounds for delivering it and sealed one hundred pounds in the envelope with the letter. Snowy said Terry could be trusted. Kelpie hoped so.

Kelpie thought about that hundred pounds. She couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Darcy could ever spend it all.

After Terry and Sam left, Dymphna cut her hair short and put on some of the caretaker’s clothes. She didn’t look like a man, but she didn’t look rich anymore either.

Snowy shaved his hair off. Made him that little bit less visible. A six-foot-four black man with blond hair they’d find in seconds. A six-foot-four black man with a shaved head didn’t stand out as much.

They would stay off the main roads. Work their way north. Way, way north. Then find a boat to some other country. They had money. All the money Dymphna had hidden in her clothes and bag. There was more money hidden away in the house. Mr. Davidson’s stashes, Snowy called them. They hid it in their clothing, the lining of their hats, in the swags Snowy put together.

Dymphna said she’d always wanted to travel. Kelpie hadn’t realised it was a possibility. Kelpie had thought she’d live her whole life in the Hills, and that was a step up from living her whole life in Frog Hollow.

“You’ll love it,” Dymphna said. “Seeing the whole wide world.”

“Mango trees,” Snowy said.

Kelpie had no idea what mangoes were.

“Coconut trees,” Dymphna said.

Or coconuts.

“Yes, and monkeys,” Snowy added.

“Monkeys, really?” Dymphna asked. “Have you ever seen a monkey, Snowy?”

He shook his head. “But we will.”

“I’d like to see a monkey,” Kelpie said, and Dymphna hugged her. Kelpie realised that it didn’t make her feel strange anymore. She liked it.

Snowy ruffled her hair. “You can be my daughter.”

Dymphna smiled. “I was going to be her aunt. But we’re the same age.”

Snowy stared. “
You’re
sixteen? Jesus Christ.”

Dymphna laughed. “I am sixteen and now I can
be
sixteen, can’t I? I can stop pretending.”

“You can,” Snowy said. He still looked stunned.

“Are you old enough, Snowy?” Kelpie asked. “To be my da?” She paused. She still didn’t quite believe that she and Dymphna were the same age.

Snowy and Dymphna both laughed. Kelpie’d never seen him laugh before.

“I’m an old fella,” he said, the laughter gone from his voice. “I’m old enough to be your dad.”

“But you’re black.”

“We’ll say you had a black father and a white mother. Can lead to a light daughter. You’re plenty brown for a white girl. Besides, people see what you want them to see. If we say I’m your da, you’ll look even browner to them. It’s always that way. We just need to get away from this country, or they’ll take you away.”

Dymphna was looking at Snowy differently than before and then back at Kelpie. “Been watching over her all her life, haven’t you, Snowy?”

Snowy nodded. “I’m not proud of the job I’ve done.”

“Old Ma asked him to,” Kelpie said. “Like I told you. You’ve been good, Snowy. Lost count how many times you helped me out.”

Snowy shook his head. Dymphna didn’t say anything else.

“I want to leave,” Kelpie said, though what she was feeling was bigger than that.

She also wanted to go back to the Hills because that’s what she knew. Here she could see for miles, and there was not another house. It made her feel almost as strange as Central Station did, like something was wrong. But she didn’t want to see Glory again. Or Big Bill. Or Bluey Denham. Or Cait. Or Tommy, whose lies had started this whole mess.

No apples. Not ever.

She wanted to go somewhere without ghosts. Or at least fewer ghosts than the city. Somewhere her heart wouldn’t hurt with every step. She didn’t know where that place was. She didn’t know if such a place existed.

“Will you buy me a typewriter?”

Snowy laughed again. Kelpie liked the sound.

“Soon as we get settled,” he said.

“We’ll buy you a dozen,” Dymphna said.

“Right-o,” Snowy said. “We’ll buy you all the typewriters in the world.”

Kelpie smiled at that, even though it hurt. She only wanted the one.

GLOSSARY

Note: This glossary gives a definition for each word as it is used in
Razorhurst
. Some of these words have other meanings and many of them are no longer used in Australian or any other kind of English.

abo:
a racist term for an Australian Aboriginal person

barney:
a fight

bickie(s):
a cookie

billabong:
a pond or lake cut off from a main river

billycart:
go-kart

bludge/bludging:
to obtain by taking advantage of another’s generosity

bonzer
and bosker: excellent

to bottle:
to attack someone with a broken bottle

brick:
£10

bub(s):
a small child

bung
on: to put on

the bush:
the remote countryside, far from the city; often used in an idealised sense as the Bush in opposition to the City

(to go/gone) bung:
broken down, not working, fallen apart

(to go/went) bush:
to run away, disappear; to abandon the city for the remote countryside

(out) bush:
living in a remote area

chiack:
tease

choko:
chayote; a bland green fruit often used to replace apples in cooking

chook(s):
chicken(s)

Chrissie:
abbreviation of Christmas

chromo:
prostitute

cockatoo/cockie:
a lookout

cooee:
a bush cry to attract attention

crim(s):
abbreviation of criminal

damper:
a bread made without yeast

dingo:
someone who can’t be trusted

to turn dingo:
to betray someone; to inform on someone to the authorities

dropped her bundle/to drop one’s bundle:
to lose it

dunny:
toilet (usually outdoors)

(not the) full quid:
someone who is not all there

galah(s):
a fool

get(ting) stuck into:
to attack someone either physically or verbally