Ghost River

by Tony Birch

  Sonny held a thumb over the end of the water hose. Once it had built pressure he squirted Ren in the face with it.

  ‘We can go to the signal box for a smoke.’

  An abandoned signal box in the railyards had become the classroom where Sonny taught Ren to roll cigarettes. Sonny’s cigarettes were so perfect, Ren told him that if it was a national sport he’d be world champion. They left by Sonny’s gate that day, walked the length of the lane to the railyards, climbed the fence and scaled the ladder into the box. Sonny sat in the signalman’s chair rolling and instructing. Ren lay on the floor flicking through the pages of an old National Geographic.

  ‘That’s your problem, Ren. It’s why you’ll never roll a decent smoke. You can’t concentrate.’

  Ren was concentrating, on a centre-spread photograph of a large bird gliding across a clear sky. The bird was magnificent. He carefully tore the photo from the book, folded it and put it in his shirt pocket.

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘A picture of an eagle.’

  ‘Eagle? What you want that for?’

  ‘I’ll put it on the wall near my bed so I can look at it.’

  Sonny was dumbfounded. ‘Look at it? You do some crazy things, Ren.’ He lit the cigarette he’d rolled, took a couple of drags on it and passed it to Ren.

  A train whistled in the distance, rounded a bend and sped through the yards. Sonny held on tightly to his seat as a diesel-powered coal train thundered along the tracks below him, shaking the signal box from side to side and rattling the windows like an earthquake. The box filled with smoke and fumes. Sonny spun around in his chair and kept an eye on the train until it disappeared around the next bend.

  ‘Hey, Ren, you ever been on one of them trains to the countryside?’

  Ren could hardly see and was rubbing his eyes.

  ‘I got no reason to. I don’t know anyone who lives out of the city. You been there?’

  ‘Once, when I was a small kid. My gran lived in a town in the bush where my pop worked in a garage fixing cars and trucks. After he died she stayed on in the house by herself. She fell over one day and hurt herself and my mum took me on the train, just me and her, for a stay and to take care of her.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘Yeah, the train had leather seats like big couches, and when I had to go to the toilet it had a hole in the bottom straight down to the tracks. Splattered the shit at fifty miles an hour. Maybe faster than that.’

  ‘How long did it take to get there, the town she lived in?’

  ‘Hours. They had a shop on the train for sandwiches and cups of tea. Ham and pickle. And sausage rolls and lollies.’

  ‘And your gran, what was she like?’

  ‘She was okay. But strict. She was crazy on keeping everything clean and tidy. I had to wash my hands any time I touched myself and scrub my nails clean with a laundry brush after I’d been playing outside. She could cook better than anyone. When we were there relatives come over and we had a big lunch. She was in a wheelchair, me pushing her round the kitchen, and her giving my mum orders and telling her what to do.’

  ‘What else did you do in the country?’

  ‘Not much. There was an old truck rusting away in a shed in the yard. I’d climb in that and pretend I was driving some place.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Just places. Anywhere, as long as it wasn’t back to the city where my old man was waiting for us.’

  ‘Have you seen her since, your grandmother?’

  ‘I don’t even know where my mum and little brother went to. My gran could be dead and I wouldn’t know.’

  He threw the tobacco and papers to Ren.

  ‘You gonna try one or not?’

  Ren did, and rolled a cigarette that bulged around the centre and tapered at both ends. When he finished he handed it to Sonny for approval.

  Sonny looked at it in disgust. ‘Fucken spastic.’

  Walking home, Ren saw a furniture van parked out the front of the vacant house next door to Sonny’s. Two men were unloading cupboards and tea chests from the back of the truck. The house had been empty for months, left to a battalion of cockroaches that moved in after the tenants did a moonlight runner, a pair of con artists who kept Salvation Army uniforms and a tambourine at the ready when they were broke. They dressed up and stood on street corners belting out hymns and passing around the hat. After hearing that police had been knocking at their door while they were out, the couple disappeared one night, tambourine in hand, rattling along the street as they went.

  The complaints started when the cockroaches spread from the vacant house and marched into neighbouring homes, including Sonny’s. A health inspector from the council was called. He broke the door down with a sledgehammer and trapped a pair of roaches in a glass jar. He then stood out front of the house examining the insects, with a crowd gathered around him.

  The inspector took a magnifying glass out of his briefcase, studied the roaches closely and declared that the house had been invaded by cockroaches of the Argentinian variety. The landlord was ordered to fumigate the building, fix the leaking roof and clear out the rubbish. The old stable in the yard behind the house, which had been used as a blacksmithing works for years, was also cleaned and given a coat of fresh paint.

  The boys stood on the footpath watching the removalists wrestle with a piano. The men lifted it up and strapped it to a trolley, swearing at it like it was someone they were fighting with. ‘Fucken iron frame,’ one of the workmen grunted to the other. ‘We’re marking the job. Double time.’

  ‘Triple time. Bad enough as it is, working Sundays.’

  They were beaten and stopped for a cigarette. One of the men looked over at the boys.

  ‘What you two looking at?’ he snapped at Sonny, wiping sweat from his neck with a dirty hankie. ‘You wanna try carrying this?’

  Sonny folded his arms, smiled and whispered something under his breath, words of cheek the removalist couldn’t quite hear.

  ‘Wouldn’t reckon so,’ the removalist jeered, ‘you can stop being smart-arses or piss off.’

  As far as the boys were concerned the street belonged to them as much as anybody and they weren’t about to piss off anywhere. The removalists finished their smoke and dragged the piano into the house.

  Sonny stepped into the gutter and tapped the toe of his foot against the bluestone edging. He looked up at Ren and back down at his toe. He whacked it hard enough that it was bleeding. He went on tapping as he spoke.

  ‘My mum used to play one of them. A piano.’

  ‘You had a piano in your house?’

  ‘Nah. She had a cleaning job before she … she used to pick me up after school and take me to this kindergarten where she cleaned, after all the kids had gone home. It was before my little brother was born. I’d lay down in one of these tiny beds, where the little kids slept in the afternoon. Or I’d go in the kitchen and make my own cup of tea while she worked. One time I was sitting at one of the tables, they were tiny too, same as the chairs, and I heard music and somebody singing in the hall next door. I thought it must have been one of the teachers practising for a show or something and went to take a look.’

  Sonny stopped kicking, lifted his toe in the air and watched as blood dripped from the wound into the gutter.

  ‘And?’ Ren asked. ‘What happened when you got to the hall?’

  Sonny kept his head down and eyes on the injured toe, a ploy to stop himself from looking at Ren. ‘It was my mum, playing the piano, like she owned it, and singing a song.’

  The front gate of the empty house creaked. The workman who had told them to piss off was standing at the back of the truck watching them.

  ‘Do you remember the song she was singing?’ Ren asked, only because he could think of nothing else to say.

  ‘Yeah.’ Sonny smiled. ‘It was
an old song, Wheel of Fortune. She used to sing it around the house too sometimes, when my father wasn’t home.’

  ‘And what did she do when she saw you watching her at the piano.’

  Sonny shrugged. ‘Not much. Closed the lid of the piano and picked up her mop and bucket.’

  The removalist walked across to where they were leaning against Ren’s front fence. He noticed the man had a limp.

  ‘How’d you kids like to earn a couple of dollars?’

  ‘You just told us to piss off,’ Sonny reminded him.

  ‘I was mucking round.’ He smiled, front teeth missing. ‘Name’s Jack.’

  If he was waiting for the boys to introduce themselves it would be a long day.

  ‘We have a load of chairs in the back of the truck, and my mate, Henry, and me, we want to get away. You give us a hand and there’s an earn for you. A couple of bucks each.’

  ‘How much is a couple?’ Sonny asked.

  Jack held up two fingers. ‘Same as it’s always been.’

  Sonny held up four fingers. ‘Two’s not enough. It’s Sunday. We work double time, same as you.’

  ‘Jesus, you running a union here? You’re not getting four. Three dollars each.’

  ‘Only if you pay up front.’

  ‘Bullshit! Nobody gets paid up front. Not in full.’

  ‘Then we’re not doing it.’

  Three dollars is good money, Ren thought. He wanted Sonny to shut up and take the deal.

  ‘Fuck me. Next time I’m chasing a pay rise, I’ll give you a call,’ Jack said. He dipped into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and paid the boys three dollars each.

  The chairs were made of solid wood and were heavy. The boys struggled with two chairs apiece, one under each arm. They followed the removalists through the house – it smelled of fresh paint – and crossed the backyard into the open door of the stable. The walls were painted white and the wooden floor had been sanded clean. Ren looked down at the boards, marked with deep scars. The piano sat at one end of the room, next to a brass cross atop a wooden pole. Picture frames rested against another wall. They reminded Ren of the prayer cards the fake Salvos had given out on street corners, except these ones were bigger. He read aloud the gold lettered inscription running across the bottom of one of the cards. There Can Be No Being Before God, As God Has No Mother.

  ‘What do you reckon that means?’ he asked Sonny.

  ‘Fucked if I know.’

  One frame was covered in a piece of green cloth. Sonny pulled it away, revealing a portrait of a man in a dark three-piece suit, a round-collared shirt and spotted bow tie. He had shining black skin and wore a pair of round sunglasses that hid his eyes from view. He was seated in a carved wooden chair. A young woman in a white wedding dress knelt alongside him. She held the man’s hand in hers and looked up at him, smiling. She had golden curls, flowers in her hair and skin as white as his was black. Across the bottom of the painting were the words Father Jealous Divine & Mother Purity Divine – the Younger.

  Jack whistled and called out to his mate on the other side of the stable. ‘Henry, take a look at these stagers.’

  Henry was lining up the chairs in straight rows. He shuffled across the room, picking at his arse through his overalls. He stood next to Jack, folded his arms and studied the painting with his head tilted to the side, as if he was an art expert.

  ‘She’s not bad looking, Jack.’

  ‘Not bad at all. See the way she’s eyeing the old black boy. I bet he’s fucking her. Put my house on it.’

  ‘If you had a house.’ Henry laughed. ‘What you think, boys? The old buck fucking her or what?’

  Ren was sure the man in the painting had to be old enough to be the girl’s father, if not her grandfather. He didn’t want to think about Henry’s question at all.

  Heavy footsteps echoed across the room behind him. He turned and was frightened by the sight of a tall thin man standing in the doorway of the stable, casting a shadow across the room. The man wore a long suit coat over a white shirt. A silver head of hair sat on his shoulders, and his skin, pulled tight across his face, was lined with pulsing veins. The removalist began rubbing his chest with a hand, as if the man’s cold blue eyes were boring a hole in Henry’s heart. His face tightened with pain.

  The man strode across the room and stopped inches from Henry, who looked down at the floor, at the pair of black leather shoes the man was wearing.

  ‘Your remark?’ the man asked, raising one eyebrow.

  Henry flicked his tongue out and licked his bottom lip. He tried getting his mouth moving, but it had seized on him.

  ‘That weren’t no remark,’ Jack offered. ‘We were having a joke here with the youngsters. Weren’t we, Henry?’

  The man set his eyes on Jack, who suddenly seemed as uncomfortable as his workmate.

  ‘How often do you feel a need to speak on behalf of your co-worker?’

  Jack appeared insulted and spoke up for himself. ‘I don’t feel any particular need. Like I said, we were just mucking about. No harm done. Is there?’

  The man ignored the comment. He took a stiff white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. Ren, listening closely to the man’s voice, heard an accent. American, he thought.

  ‘Set the chairs in rows, an equal number of chairs per row, separated by a clear centre aisle of three feet. You will move the piano to the right side of the room. You will also need to hang the psalms, and …’

  He stopped and looked down at the cloth that had been pulled away from the painting of the old black man. He picked up the green cloth, folded it neatly, tucked it under one arm, raised the other and pointed to the wall behind the piano. ‘Mount the portrait of the Messenger in line with the centre aisle. At a height on the wall.’

  He took another step forward and stood so close to Jack they almost touched. He handed the folded piece of cloth to him. ‘Are you able to complete these tasks?’

  ‘No worries.’ Jack smiled. ‘It’ll cost a little more though. Mr Beck, weren’t it?’

  ‘Reverend Beck,’ the man smarted.

  Jack offered his grubby hand. The Reverend ignored it and wiped his hands with the handkerchief. He put it back in one coat pocket and took a small black leather Bible from another and held it in one hand. He opened the Bible and ran his eyes down the page before suddenly flicking them to one side. As sharp as a bird in the sky spotting the prey it was about to snatch and kill, Ren thought. A girl had appeared at the stable doorway. She wore a long chequered dress reaching to her ankles and a scarf on her head, hiding most of her blond hair. She was around the same age as the boys. Ren snuck a look at her face. The girl glanced at him and just as quickly, for only a moment, before turning away.

  ‘Della,’ the Reverend said, ‘what are you doing in here?’

  She answered by bringing her hands together in prayer. ‘The followers have arrived and they are asking what work you need them to do.’

  The Reverend spread his arms, raised his hands in the air and closed his eyes. ‘There is work for them in our church. Return to your mother and ask her to escort them here.’

  Jack and Henry were staring at the Reverend as if he was a freak. Sonny caught Ren’s eye and nodded in the direction of the stable door. As the boys slipped past the girl, Ren stole another look at her and decided on the spot that she was pretty, even though half of her face was covered by the scarf. Her skin was as a clear as the young bride’s in the painting except for the dark rings under both eyes, which gave her a look of deep worry.

  Ren followed Sonny through the house. A thin woman stood in the middle of the kitchen wearing a uniform similar to the young girl’s. She wrung her hands together and said nothing as the boys walked by. In the next room a group of men, dressed similarly to the Reverend, were gathered in a circle. They had their heads bowed in pray
er and did not look up as the boys passed the doorway. Once they were out in the street the boys began firing questions at each other.

  ‘What a nutcase,’ Sonny said. ‘Did you see his crazy eyes?’

  ‘The black man in the picture? He didn’t have eyes. Just them circles. His glasses.’

  ‘No, I mean the Reverend fella. They are the eyes of a killer, for sure. He was so white he looked like someone had stuck him in a freezer for a week. He had a strange voice. And the girl, she was afraid of something. I could see it on her face. Come into the yard with me. We can sneak a look through the fence.’

  Sonny was peeping through a hole in the side fence when the back door swung open. It was his father. His hair stood on end and he was wearing only a pair of stained underpants. He didn’t look at Sonny or Ren, or say a word as he leaned against the fence. He supported himself with one hand, pulled his dick out of his underpants with the other and pissed in the dirt. When he finished, he spat against the fence and shuffled back into the kitchen, scratching at his unshaven face.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sonny said, as embarrassed for Ren as much as for himself. ‘He’s been hitting it hard.’

  ‘It don’t matter to me,’ Ren answered. ‘I don’t care.’

  Ren truly meant it. He felt bad about most things that happened to Sonny – his mother up and leaving him, and his father treating him poorly. He wanted to offer words that might help his friend feel better. ‘I have to get home or my mum will kill me. But tomorrow, I reckon it will be hot again. We could swim at the falls?’

  Sonny was staring at the open doorway his father had just walked through. ‘Sure. We’ll swim at the falls.’

  Ren went into the house and up to his bedroom. He took the photograph of the eagle out of his pocket and smoothed the creases in the paper as best he could. He took two drawing pins from a matchbox and pinned the photograph to the back of his bedroom door, where he’d be able to look at it from his bed. He heard footsteps on the stairs. His mother’s.

  Loretta walked into the bedroom, stood alongside Ren and admired the bird.