Dark Fires Shall Burn

by Anna Westbrook

  He waits for almost an hour at the neck of the street, sheltered in an alleyway, convincing himself that Snowy didn’t see him — or at least doesn’t know how much he overheard. His imagination turns grotesque, contemplating what Jackie and the others had done to Bob’s sister and called ‘revenge’. Finally Dot returns. Her hair is dishevelled from the wind, not being in its usual lacquered waves, and he notices how thin she is, her collarbone standing out sharply, milky-blue from the cold.

  ‘Dot!’ he blurts, bursting to tell her what passed between Snowy and Lorraine, but before he can get the first words out she puts her hand to her lips and gestures down the street, towards the house: Snowy and Errol are pacing about on the front steps having a smoke. As he and Dot approach, Templeton can see that Snowy has put a plaster on his cheek over the cut and has had a shave. Both Snowy and Errol are in clean suits — it looks like their best clothes. Snowy leans back on his heels and watches them, saying nothing, just smirking as they have to squeeze past his bulk and Errol’s to get inside.

  Dolly and the girls have returned, and Templeton hears her barking commands at them. He’s pinning everything on the hope that Snowy didn’t see him eavesdropping outside the door — and if he did, because he left the whisky, perhaps Snowy will let it go. So far, so good.

  ‘Lorraine, take the key to my trunk and fetch the ermine stole.’ Dolly has set up a vanity mirror on the card table and is busy scrutinising and powdering herself. ‘Roberta, darl, go into the second-largest hatbox in the cupboard and bring me the Sunday hat with the ostrich feathers, not the black rooster plume.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ Roberta tells her.

  ‘I know that!’ Dolly clasps her throat and wheezes, holding her handkerchief to her mouth. ‘Give me some air, I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Yes, Dolly.’

  Templeton and Dot sidle up to Annie, who is standing just inside the doorway. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Snowy is taking her to lunch at the Trocadero. He’s had a big win.’

  ‘No! Idiot,’ Dolly hisses at Lorraine. ‘The ermine is white! That is the fox. Can’t you tell the difference?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lorraine mutters, glaring darkly.

  ‘Don’t you know what a bloody fox looks like?’ Dolly blows a cloud of tobacco at her. Templeton smiles. ‘Annie, go into the kitchen and fill the hip flask that’s in the third drawer, under the serviettes, with the brandy that’s behind the false back in the top cupboard on your right. Fill it all the way up, mind you. There’s a lass. Boy! Boy, come here,’ she bellows, and then there is a long pause of exasperation. ‘Boy!’ she snaps, turning to him.

  ‘She means you, you know,’ Dot says to Templeton.

  ‘Um, what?’ he splutters.

  ‘You’d better get over there.’ Dot nudges him.

  ‘Coming! Yes, ma’am?’ He darts over and stands behind her, looking at her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Escort me upstairs, to my bedroom.’ Her eyes narrow and she holds out her hand to him. He takes it, trembling.

  Templeton has never been inside Dolly’s room before. The mantle above the fire is crowded with fading portraits of her as a young woman; the bureau is overflowing with trinkets — little china-cat ornaments, mostly — and more than a dozen clocks, tapestries and rugs. The room is bulging. It’s Captain Flint’s treasure trove. He tries not to stare.

  She does not say anything, and he fidgets. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Go and get some grease and come back here.’ She turns the exhausted drapery of her neck to a full-length mirror, withdrawing vines of pearls from the jewellery box and slinging them around herself.

  ‘Grease?’ he says under his breath as he takes the stairs back down in three large jumps. In the kitchen, he stands looking at the unhelpful surfaces and shelves. ‘What?’ he mutters.

  ‘Butter,’ Roberta says, following him, cigarette poised on her lower lip.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She wants butter. Or dripping. She needs to get her old rings on.’

  ‘Oh … thanks.’ He takes the lid off the butter dish on the counter and walks back. ‘Wait, what do I need to do?’

  ‘Grease her up, baby. Grease her up.’ Roberta waggles her fingers at him in amused pity. He swallows. ‘Old trout ain’t as thin as she used to be.’

  ‘Mother of God,’ he blurts. ‘She wants me to rub this … on her?’

  ‘That’s not the worst of it. Worst is getting them off.’ Roberta smirks, but not unkindly. ‘She nearly put me through the window one night trying to tug them off her.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’ He carries the log of butter on its chipped dish. He sees Dot and Annie have joined her, and they’re fussing about and hold up different coats for Dolly to inspect.

  ‘Better take off that good shirt.’ Dolly tells him matter-of-factly after she looks him up and down.

  With his back braced against the foot of the bed and Dolly sitting at her coiffeuse, he applies pinches of butter to each finger and works the rings on.

  ‘Three to each,’ she demands. ‘The more the merrier.’

  It is like turning nuts onto stiff bolts as he grunts and labours to get them down over each knuckle. She barely looks at him.

  ‘Dot, what do you think of my jewels, Dot?’ Dolly asks.

  ‘They’re beautiful.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes —’ She hesitates. Something is off. Dolly is never this friendly to Dot.

  ‘Would you fancy a box like this of your own some day?’ Dolly’s voice is low and her gaze is riveted on Dot’s face.

  ‘I guess so.’ Dot treads gingerly.

  ‘How about today? Right now?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do,’ Dolly says.

  ‘What — what is this about?’ Dot swallows.

  ‘There’s twenty-five pounds missing from the strongbox. Do you want to tell me what you know about that?’

  Dot blanches visibly. Over by the closet, Annie stops brushing the lint off Dolly’s black coat.

  ‘What makes you think I took it?’ Dot wets her lips.

  ‘You put it back and I’ll forget it ever happened.’ Dolly lowers her right hand slowly, rings in place, and gives her left to Templeton. ‘I’ll tell you what. When I come back from lunch it’s right where I left it and that’s the end of it.’

  Templeton knows how generous an offer this is, coming from the woman who cut a girl’s face beyond recognition for far less.

  ‘I didn’t take it,’ Dot says, the expression in her eyes defiant, although Templeton sees that her hands are shaking.

  ‘Are you quite sure you didn’t take it?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘She didn’t take it, Dolly. Please!’ Annie interrupts. ‘I’ll vouch for her. She would never —’

  ‘Did I ask you?’ Dolly roars as she draws herself up with considerable effort. Her hands are thick, wide paddles, heavy with gold.

  ‘It must have been someone else,’ Annie flounders. ‘Lorraine! It must have been Lorraine. She’s had it in for Dot since the start. Please, Dolly. You must search her things. The money will be there. Please. If you just look in Lorraine’s case, I swear. Dot didn’t do it. On my honour!’

  ‘And what is a whore’s honour worth?’ Dolly spits out at her.

  Annie flinches as if she’s been slapped.

  ‘Dolly!’ Roberta says in horror. ‘I vouch for Dot too. I know she didn’t take the money.’

  ‘You.’ Dolly latches her snake-eyes onto Roberta. ‘Go to your room.’

  Roberta hesitates, stricken. ‘I would prefer to stay.’

  ‘Do as you’re told. I’ve seen the way you moon after her dark eyes, like a silly schoolgirl. Enough.’

  Dot stands still in the middle of the bedroom. Templeton can see her triplicat
ed in the mirror of the dressing table, can see the strong set of her chin catching the light.

  Roberta’s lip trembles and she erupts into tears. She hurries out, hand over her mouth, and he hears the thuds of her footfalls up the stairs.

  ‘You will be gone from this house,’ Dolly waves at Dot, imperious. ‘You will not stop to collect your things. You will not dawdle around saying goodbye.’

  ‘But —’ Templeton volunteers uncertainly.

  ‘And I will spare you your livelihood!’ Dolly raises her voice over him. ‘I will not cut that fucking Jewess nose off your otherwise pretty face. Do you understand me? The boy too, he goes with you. I’m sick of the sight of him.’

  ‘What?’ Templeton looks at Annie in shock.

  ‘Come on, Lucky.’ Dot nods at him.

  ‘Annie?’ he attempts, but she is looking fixedly down at the coat.

  ‘She stays here.’ Dolly cuffs Annie’s wrist and reels her close. ‘This one’s not going anywhere. We’ve worked out a new arrangement, me and her. Sally, too — she’s a good little earner.’

  ‘Annie, don’t do this.’ Dot grabs her roughly by the waist and pulls her away from Dolly. Annie is limp and will not speak. ‘How can you stay here and leave your brother? Zdrajca! Your own brother.’

  Tears have kindled in Templeton’s eyes, and he brushes them away angrily. ‘Annie? Let’s go?’

  Annie won’t look at him, or anyone else. She fiddles with an ornament on the mantelpiece.

  ‘It’s all about Jackie Tooth with our Annie,’ Dolly says. ‘Anything to help him.’

  ‘Come on,’ Dot beckons to him. ‘Let’s go.’ Sally stands with her eyes rooted to the floorboards. Dot looks her up and down and shrugs. ‘You too? Fine.’

  Templeton stares furiously at Sally. Dot glances up to see Lorraine in the stairwell, a look of unconcealed triumph on her face. She might as well be dancing a jig.

  ‘It’s not worth it.’ Templeton takes Dot’s arm and leads her out into the street before she can murder Lorraine. He is waiting for Annie to change her mind and burst through the door to follow them. It’s always been the four of them, for almost as long as they’ve been in Sydney. But the doorway is empty.

  They tramp the long decline of William Street without speaking to each other, and it is not until they are across Hyde Park, past the fountain that makes Templeton blush crimson, that he dares say the words sticking in his throat like a fishbone. ‘It’s my fault! I’m sorry Dot. I’m an idiot.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Dot looks at him in surprise.

  ‘Snowy and Lorraine. I heard them — I mean … I was listening to them in secret. They must’ve thought I was you. Lorraine must have wanted to punish you.’ The feelings are like a knotted ball of yarn he tries to pull out of his stomach through his unwieldy mouth. ‘It’s my fault.’

  ‘What? No. That bitch had it in for me from the start. She set me up.’ Dot clicks her tongue, waving off his apology with a dismissive hand.

  ‘No, listen,’ he insists. ‘They were talking about something bad. I was hiding on the landing, about to take Snowy’s drink up to him.’ He pauses. ‘I think they are rooting each other. In fact, I know they are, but that’s not the point.’

  ‘Who’s rooting?’ Dot smoothes her hair, gone rampant with perspiration.

  ‘Lorraine and Snowy,’ he says again, and when he doesn’t get a response. ‘Having relations!’

  ‘Ha! Lorraine would be so damned stupid. Doesn’t she know what savagery Dolly did to the last girl Snowy shot his bolt in?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he says impatiently. ‘Snowy said that Jackie is here. In town! He’s been here the whole time, probably, hiding out in Lennox Street or one of his other moll’s places.’

  ‘What did you hear, exactly?’ Dot stops walking.

  ‘They did something to Bob’s sister. Something bad. Hurt her. Like they killed Frances Reed!’ It is an unexpected and powerful rush to say the thought aloud. The force of it hits him somewhere high in his chest.

  ‘What makes you think Jackie had a hand in Frances Reed?’ Dot’s eyes rest curiously on him.

  ‘Who else would do a thing like that?’ Templeton screws his face up.

  ‘He is capable of it. But why? Have the police crawling all over looking for him, just to off some child? Jackie always looks out for himself. Everyone knows about his beef with Bob, and Long Bay is full of Bob’s mates. Jackie knows that more than anyone.’

  ‘Well, I —’ He trails off. Because I saw him not two blocks away, sweating like a madman, that night. He looked guilty as hell.

  He is fumbling for the words and by the time he looks up, she is more than half a dozen steps away. She finally stops outside the Fortune of War.

  ‘What are we doing?’ he asks.

  ‘Go in and ask the publican if he’s seen Bob Newham today.’

  ‘Are you cracked?’ Templeton gawks at her. ‘Bob Newham wants to kill us.’

  ‘No, idiota, he wants to kill Jackie. And I have information that Jackie is back in town and trying to get in first. You want to get over on Jackie? I think Bob might find our news interesting.’

  ‘Jackie will kill us if he knows you ratted him out.’

  Dot flicks her lashes up at him insouciantly. ‘So what? He’ll kill me for the snow debt. He’d kill me for less than that too. You as well, most likely.’

  ‘How do you know Newham’s here, anyway?’ He glances in through the doorway. Old grizzled blokes take long draws from their beers like a row of swine at a trough. He smells piss and vomit clinging to the sawdust on the floor, which looks infrequently swept.

  ‘He is from the Rocks boys, is he not? Well, good bet he’s been in the Fortune or that they will know where he is. Now go in there.’ She flicks a match to a cigarette and shoves him. ‘You know I can’t.’

  ‘But Dot, I don’t …’

  She breathes a cloud of smoke into his face. ‘Who was dumb enough to get themselves heard listening at keyholes?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He hangs his head.

  ‘I don’t care. I wanted a reason to be out from Dolly’s anyway. One more word from that Errol and I was going to strangle him in his sleep. Then where would I be? Out on the street is better than Long Bay. Now, get to it.’

  Templeton enters and sidles up to the bar, doing his best to ignore the hostile looks he is drawing, like metal filings to a magnet. He looks straight at the barkeep and asks in a voice steady as he can, ‘Bob Newham been in today?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ A man of about fifty, sitting to his right, turns to ask. Although he’s reasonably well dressed, he has a long white scar through his eyebrow and a broken nose that had set badly into a stepladder of bumps.

  ‘Uh — the, the lady outside,’ he stammers. ‘She has something to tell him. Something he’d be interested to know.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ He tilts so he can get a look. He whistles low. ‘Tell her she can say it to me and I’ll pass it on to him for her.’

  ‘No. That’s fine. We’ll find Newham ourselves.’ Templeton makes to step away.

  ‘What d’ya think, mates?’ The man says to the wall of blokes beside him. They are all beery, bull-shouldered.

  ‘I got him.’ A nuggety man-at-arms gets up and outflanks Templeton, cutting him off before he can reach the door. Templeton is humiliated by his own sweat, the rigidity of his spine like someone has stuffed a poker up his back — his own constant sense of never feeling right in the world, or in his body. His mind grapples with what to say and comes up desperately short.

  ‘Hands off!’ shouts a portly fella in a corner, rescuing him. To Templeton's surprise, they back away. To his further surprise, he registers that the man in the suit jacket and old-fashioned button-on collar and tie is not, in fact, a man.

  ‘Alright now, Tipper. Settle down. We wasn’t go
nna hurt the little bugger,’ the first man explains. ‘We’re just giving him a scare.’

  ‘Well, leave him alone then.’ Templeton’s defender stares the man down stonily. ‘Go on. You’ve had your fun. Piss off back to your beers.’

  The thugs who, only moments before, seemed bent on pulping him settle back to their conversations like grumbling hamsters. He tries not to stare.

  ‘Barry, get the little lad a drink,’ she barks at the barman, who serves up a frothing glass. She guides Templeton back to where she had been sitting before the commotion and nods at the ale wobbling in his hand. ‘Bottoms up, friend.’

  ‘Th— thank you.’ He swallows, trying not to cough.

  ‘Tipper,’ she says, clapping a palm hard on his back. Her eyes are small, set deeply into her broad face. Her hair is short, from what he can see of the back and sides underneath the unfashionable bowler hat, like something his grandfather might have worn. Her nose is fleshy and her lips are almost invisible, yet she commands a charismatic twist to her mouth when she smiles, as she does now, listening to him stutter his introduction.

  ‘Luckett? That rings a bell. Your sister does the Enmore Road corner, is that right,’ she says in a way that doesn’t sound like a question.

  ‘Yes. How did you know that?’

  ‘And who’s the lass outside? Dot Kaczmarek? The handsome Jewess?’

  Templeton is speechless. Did Nellie describe them all after last night’s dancing? But why would Tipper want to know their business? She finishes her beer in one long, impressive mouthful and raises a finger in the air. Almost immediately another is brought over. The cold glass leaves a wet ring on the table.

  ‘Ain’t you two working for Dolly Jenkins anymore?’

  ‘I was never working for Dolly,’ he answers indignantly.

  ‘Well, what were you doin’? Dolly doesn’t take in charity. Must’ve earned your keep somehow.’

  ‘I mostly stayed out of her way.’

  ‘I see.’ Tipper pulls a chunky, filterless cigarette from a white packet and lights it. ‘Clever boy.’

  ‘We … we’re trying to find Bob Newham, Dot and I. Do you know him? ’