Razorhurst (35 page)

Dymphna leaned past Neal to open the door. She said quietly into his ear, “Hide at St. Peter’s. You know how the father feels about Glory. He’ll hide you.”

Neal shook his head, turning towards her, leaning closer. “I’m not leaving.”

Dymphna put her hands to his chest and pushed. There wasn’t time for this. Should she make him take Kelpie with him? That would probably be best. The girl was not ready for Lansdowne Street.

“Please, Neal, for me?”

“What’s she doing now? I know Neal’s soft, but he’s better than having no man at all,” Jimmy told Kelpie. “Look at that mob.”

Dymphna didn’t have to look—with the door open, she could hear them.

“Is there a problem, Miss Campbell?” the cabbie asked, turning around.

“No, no problem. Thank you.”

She wanted to tell Kelpie to go with Neal but found she couldn’t. Kelpie
had
to stay with her. Otherwise … Dymphna wasn’t sure what, but she knew she couldn’t let Kelpie go.

“I can look after myself,” Neal said.

“I know you can. From what I saw, you look after your whole family. But this is different. I need to handle Glory on my own. She’s apt to take one look at you and have you knocked about because she can. Or worse, decide that you should be working for her. I’ll meet you here after. Please?”

Neal leaned into Dymphna and kissed her mouth. She wanted to lean back into him, but she pulled away.

“Okay,” he said, sliding out of the cab. “But it doesn’t sit right.”

“Go,” she said, closing the door on him. She did not look back to see if he was going to do what she said. Her leg began to shake. She gripped Kelpie’s hand. Kelpie returned the squeeze. “Be strong,” Dymphna told her, though she knew it was meaningless.

“I never knew she was such an idiot,” Jimmy said. “Right into the lion’s den. Not once, but twice.”

The driver, having the luxury of not hearing Jimmy, continued on as close as he could to Glory’s place.

On Lansdowne Street, the crowd, mostly men, spilled from the footpath onto the road. Noisily jostling each other, yelling decreasingly witty demands for beer even though Glory’s people wouldn’t start distributing said beer for an hour or so. Not till the sun went down.

“How much?” Dymphna asked.

“I don’t need your money,” the cabbie said. “Glory looks after me.”

“Well, at least take this.” Dymphna pressed a shilling into his hand.

“Thank you.”

Dymphna kept a tight hold on Kelpie as she led them through the rowdy men. Even on such a cold day, she could smell the sweat on them, the stale beer. Mostly the men made way for her, nodded, lifted their hats, but a few grabbed at her with lecherous hands, whispered nasty words.

“Bloody stop it,” Jimmy said, putting his fist through their faces to no effect.

Were he still alive and towering by her side, they would not have dared. Dymphna never enjoyed the time in between boyfriends.

Someone pinched her arse so viciously she knew there’d be a bruise. She said nothing and showed no reaction, though her eyes watered briefly. She wished she could have them all killed.

“Filthy bastards,” Jimmy said, throwing more futile punches.

No one ever touched Gloriana like this. Or said such foul things to her. Not to her face. One day they wouldn’t dare do it to Dymphna Campbell either.

“It’ll be all right, Kelpie,” she said, though she doubted Kelpie could hear. She pulled the girl in front of her, and they walked in step. She didn’t rule out the possibility that one of Mr. Davidson’s men would snatch them right here under Glory’s nose. It felt like a thousand people were looking at her, trying to touch her.

“Dymphna,” little Stuey Keating said, grabbing her arm and steering her through the crowd. He was one of Glory’s. Not big enough or old enough to do standover work, but he ran messages and stood cockatoo.

A large man made a grab for Dymphna’s waist. Stuey slapped the man’s hands away. “Oi, you. Get your fucking hands off her. You want beer or not? Think Glory’ll thank you for roughing up her best girl?”

“Thanks, Stuey.” Dymphna couldn’t be sure he’d heard her.

“What the fuck is that?” Jimmy asked. Dymphna followed his gaze to Glory’s balcony then quickly looked away. It was better not to look.

Jimmy stopped. “It’s like Central. I’m not going in there.”

Good, thought Dymphna. She wished it was possible to keep Kelpie from going in as well.

Stuey cleared their path by shouting at everyone who stood in their way and giving them what for if they didn’t shift. The threat of no beer proved effective. Stuey practically lifted her and Kelpie up to the steps leading into the yard. He was stronger than he looked. He’d be a standover in no time.

Dymphna weaved her and Kelpie’s way around the kegs crowding Glory’s front yard. The beer was doled out in front and the food in back. The back lane would already be packed with hungry Hills people. The first year Glory had a party for the whole community, she’d tried to serve both the food and the beer from the back of her place. It was a miracle none of the littlies had been trampled.

“Glory’s in the fancy room with the chandeliers,” Stuey said. “Could you tell her I haven’t seen any coppers yet?”

Dymphna blew Stuey a kiss. She smiled as his blush crept down from his cheeks to his neck. He turned towards the crowd, keeping his eyes peeled for the next set of proper guests trying to make their way inside.

Dymphna turned to Kelpie, bending a little. “It’s best not to look Glory directly in the eye. Probably safest to look down,” she said, though Kelpie had already met Glory.

The advice was not for coping with Glory but for coping with her house. She had to hope that Kelpie would understand.

“You ready? You can do this. You’re strong.” Dymphna wished she could tell Kelpie the truth. But Jimmy had not left them alone for long enough.

“Yes,” Kelpie whispered. Dymphna hoped she was ready because Glory’s house would test her.

Many people had died here. It was a house full of ghosts.

Kelpie’s First Ghost

Those who are gifted—or cursed—with seeing ghosts lay eyes on the dead not long after they behold their first living person. It can take time to learn to distinguish between the two. Some never do. Giggle houses around the world have more than a few inmates who see the dead as well as the living.

Kelpie began seeing ghosts before she could hold her neck up properly.

Old Ma said that little baby Kelpie’s eyes would stare off at nothing and follow that nothing around the room. Once she started walking, Kelpie began following things that were not there and, once she had words, asking them questions.

It was eerie
, Old Ma said.
Just like me mam. She had the sight, she did, and now you do too
. Old Ma was proud of it, though she told no one.
You can’t be telling everyone about a thing like that. They’ll find ways to make use of you. They’ll find ways to turn it wrong and try to make money. Don’t be telling no one. Not ever
.

Kelpie didn’t.

By the time Kelpie could talk, she’d met more ghosts than living people.

The first ghost she remembered was so faded Kelpie couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a man or if it was old or young. The ghost could have been Irish or Italian or Chinese. There was no way of knowing.

Her first ghost was a talker.

But Kelpie couldn’t understand the words; they were as faded as the ghost. They might even have been in a different language. Old Ma spoke Irish. She taught Kelpie how to say “I am cold” in Irish because she was sick of hearing it in English. So Kelpie took to saying “
tor may fooar
” until Old Ma got sick of that too and begged her to go back to English.

Some of Old Ma’s lodgers were German; they’d bark at each other in their yelling language. Kelpie had also heard the priests speaking their secret language. Old Ma said it was how they spoke to God, which was why only priests learned it and why all the services in church were in that language too. It did sound like God’s words: big and strong and incomprehensible.

The ghost’s words didn’t sound like they came from any of those languages. They weren’t singsong like Old Ma’s Irish, or barking like German, or cranky like the priest language. They were gentle and whirling words. Like the kind of wind that came out of the northeast in spring. Soft and warm. Not raging and cold like a southerly buster.

When Kelpie walked through her first ghost, she didn’t feel sick. There wasn’t enough of the ghost left for that. Though it did raise the hairs on her arms a little. Like when there was an electrical storm.

A few days later, the ghost was gone. But by then Kelpie’d already met the Frog Lady who camped out where the stream through Frog Hollow had once been. She wasn’t a talker, but Kelpie could tell she was looking for the frogs that had disappeared in the last century. Old Ma had told Kelpie what good eating frogs were.

Many ghosts forgot that they didn’t need food; ghosts could only eat air.

DYMPHNA

Dymphna paused in the doorway and focused on the living. The trick was to consign the swirling, translucent grey mass of ghosts to the periphery of her vision, to close her ears to their whispers and moans, to see only the living, to hear only the clink of champagne glasses and Glory’s dulcet tones telling her waiters exactly how they were doing everything wrongly.

With Gloriana Nelson dressed in her party finery, it was easier than usual. Glory wore green and gold velvet, which contrasted strikingly with her hair and mouth and nails, all of which were crimson. On every finger was a different jewelled ring: sapphires, rubies, and, of course, diamonds. There were more diamonds in her ears. But the diamonds at her neck were the most brilliant, falling in tiers, sending reflected light around the room.

Almost as brilliant as the many-tiered chandelier, hanging from the centre of the ceiling rose.

Glory hovered over her three waiters, all of them wearing lustrous black tuxedos only surpassed by the lustrous blackness of their hair. They almost looked like the genuine article.

The living were glittery eyed and pink cheeked; they glowed. The dead were all matte greys.