Ghost River

by Tony Birch

  ‘I let you do this, you save every cent. No wasting money on lollies and comics.’

  ‘Every cent.’

  The next morning it was raining. Sonny hopped out of his window, crossed over the roof and knocked at Ren’s bedroom window. When he couldn’t wake him, he opened the window, jumped into the room and tore the blankets from Ren’s bed. Ren rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjama top and looked up at Sonny. He was soaked through.

  ‘You wash with your clothes on?’

  ‘It’s pissing down. You try walking across a roof in the rain without getting wet. Come on, we have to go. You wanna work for me, Ren, you can’t be late. Or I’ll get my arse kicked off Brixey. Meet you out the front.’

  Ren dressed, went downstairs and grabbed two rolls from the bread-bin, which the boys ate as they rode through the streets in the rain. At the shop they swapped the bike for an old pram. Sonny loaded it with the morning papers and magazines and covered the pram with a plastic sheet. He picked up an elastic band and flicked it at Ren, stinging his neck.

  ‘Sonny!’ Brixey called. ‘If you want your mate helping you out here, don’t be fucking around.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  He handed Sonny a raincoat. ‘Take this.’

  One raincoat between the two of them wouldn’t be much help keeping them dry. It was fortunate that, as they were delivering the first papers, the rain eased to a drizzle, and had stopped completely by the time they got round the first block.

  The early morning streets were dead quiet except for passing trains, the tinkling of Mick O’Reagan’s milk bottles and the clip-clopping shoes of his sturdy horse, Tim, hitting the bitumen. During the first week of the paper round Sonny had been stealing milk from the back of the milk cart, until Mick caught him tearing the foil cap off a bottle. Rather than clip him behind the ears he offered Sonny an exchange, the morning paper for a half-pint of milk. A fair deal, Sonny reasoned. As he drank from the milk bottle he asked Mick why he was still using a horse when most other milkmen drove round in vans.

  Mick patted the horse along the mane as he answered. ‘I been with this old fella for ten years, and was the last milky left using a horse a year back when they offered me one of them electric trucks that make no noise. I was about to change over. Then my eldest boy, Daniel, he’d been grooming that horse in the milk yard since he was younger than you, he got conscripted. Last thing he said to me before he got on the bus to start his Army training was look after Timmy for me. And that’s what I’m gonna do. Look after this boy until he gets back.’

  ‘What’s conscripted?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘For that war in Vietnam.’

  Sonny barely understood what Mick was talking about. He’d seen images on the TV, of the war, but had paid little attention. ‘Why’d they pick him to go to war? Your son?’

  Mick looked into the horse’s eyes, as if searching for an answer. ‘Part of it’s luck, like playing the lottery. His number come up and he never got a prize. And part of it is because he’s a milkman’s son and not a politician’s.’

  ‘I got to tell you, Ren,’ Sonny said, as they took it in turns pushing the pram through the streets, ‘you see some weird stuff round the time the sun’s up.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Keep your eyes open. It won’t take long.’

  They were walking up the hill behind the Catholic Church when a woman coming from the opposite direction limped towards them. She was wearing a pink dressing gown, slippers and a white turban on her head. She had a smoke in her mouth and was carrying a cage with two small birds inside. Zebra finches.

  The woman blocked Sonny’s pathway and jabbed a pair of nicotined fingers in the direction of the pram. ‘You got my Women’s Weekly?’

  Sonny lifted the newspapers and pulled out a copy of a magazine he’d hidden earlier. ‘It come in this morning, Vera.’

  She rested the birdcage on the ground and stuck a hand in her dressing gown pocket, like she was going for her purse, Ren thought, watching her. She pulled out a packet of cigarettes, took three smokes out and handed them to Sonny. He put one in his mouth and the other two in his shirt pocket. Vera took a silver lighter out of the other dressing gown pocket and lit Sonny’s cigarette for him.

  ‘There you go, lovely boy. Have a good suck on that.’

  ‘Ta. What about my best mate here? He likes his smokes.’

  ‘I just give you three, you cheeky bugga. If he’s your mate you can look after him yourself.’

  ‘One Women’s Weekly equals three cigarettes, Vera. I can’t be sharing on that. I give him one and I’ve only got one left. Maybe he can do you a favour?’

  Vera looked Ren up and down. ‘You’re only a little fella, aren’t you? Poor urchin. They forget to feed you in the orphanage or something? What do they call you?’

  ‘Ren.’

  ‘Wren. A beautiful bird that one.’ She picked up the cage, brought it to her face and tried making bird sounds, which wasn’t easy with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. She blew smoke over the finches. ‘Look at this boy,’ she said to the birds. ‘Here’s another birdie for you, lovelies. He’s a wren. Hold on to this for me.’ She handed Ren the cage, opened the packet and silently counted the number of cigarettes she had left. She took a cigarette and handed it to Ren along with the lighter, in exchange for the bird cage. She watched closely as he lit up and took a decent drag.

  ‘Now, nothing’s free in this world. You remember that, lovely boy. That ciggie I just give you is all about incentive. You want a big smoke from Vera, you got to work for it. You bring me a magazine, like my number one paper boy here, and I’ll take care of you.’

  She reached across the pram and tried stroking Sonny’s face. He pulled away from her.

  ‘I love my TV Week,’ she said, turning back to Ren. ‘You bring me that one.’

  She stuck a hand on the back of his neck, pulled him into her body, took the cigarette out of her mouth and slopped a wet smoky kiss on his lips. Ren wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, even Sonny, but he felt his dick jump in his pants.

  ‘Don’t you forget. One magazine a week and I’ll look after you.’ She winked and laughed out loud, then turned around and headed back up the hill, chatting to her birds.

  ‘She’s mad,’ Ren said.

  ‘You’re telling me. First time I give her the Weekly she stuck her hand down the front of my pants and squeezed my balls.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Told her it would cost her more than three cigarettes if she wanted to be doing something like that.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Nothing. But the next morning she gave me a packet of Viscount twenties. Unopened.’

  ‘What did you have to do for them?’

  ‘Can’t say. You’ll get jealous.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Old old. Maybe thirty.’

  ‘And you let her play with your dick?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? A full pack of Viscount.’

  ‘Why’s she carrying the birds round with her?’

  ‘They need the fresh air, she says.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be smoking round them, then.’

  The last delivery of a morning was to Stumpy’s place. Sonny knocked at the door of a house on a dead-end street by the railway line.

  ‘Put your ear to the door and listen for the noise.’

  Ren heard a low rumble in the distance, a sound that appeared to be coming from miles off. If he didn’t know better he would have said it was a train. The noise grew louder until it came to a halt on the other side of the door.

  ‘He’s here,’ Sonny whispered.

  ‘Who?’

  The door opened with a creak. Ren looked down at a man around the same age as his stepdad, Archie. He was kneeling on a wooden trolley a
nd the knuckles on his hands had thick yellow calluses on them. Ren looked closer. He wasn’t kneeling at all. The man had no legs.

  Sonny handed the man the morning newspaper.

  ‘There you go, Stump. This is my mate, Ren. He’ll be helping me out from now on. You need anything from the shops this morning? I could call by later on.’

  Stumpy didn’t give Ren a second look and never bothered with Sonny’s question.

  ‘Okay, Stump. Tomorrow then.’

  Stumpy shut the door on them. Ren listened again, to the fading sounds of the cart.

  ‘What happened to his legs?’ he asked, as they walked the empty pram back to the shop.

  ‘It’s a long story, that one.’

  ‘I’ve never seen him up the street. Wouldn’t miss someone getting along on a cart.’

  ‘He don’t go up the street. Says he don’t want people seeing him that way, without any legs. He does some work in his garden, crawling round on what’s left of his legs. Nobody goes to the house except a woman from the church who drops off his food and does some cleaning and pays his bills.’

  ‘Why don’t he get some artificial legs so he can get about?’

  ‘He did have wooden legs one time, when his mother was around. Stumpy liked a drink and would put his legs on and get out to the pub. He’d finish up so pissed he’d fall off them on the way home. Sometimes the cops would give him a ride home. But if no one come across him he’d stay in the gutter until his mum come and found him. In the end she got jack of it. One night, after he went to bed, she threw the legs on the fire and burned them to ash. The next morning she told him he wouldn’t be going up the pub any longer. Laughed at him, Stumpy told me.’

  ‘Does she live at the house with him?’

  ‘Nah. She died a few years back.’

  ‘He could get himself some new legs. From the hospital.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But he says he can’t be bothered.’

  ‘Where’d you hear this?’

  ‘He told me himself. Stumpy gets lonely and likes to talk. When he gets used to you, you won’t be able to shut him up.’

  The boys reached the intersection a block away from the paper shop. They waited at the red light to cross the street. A car pulled in to the kerb, an old blue Mercedes, highly polished and not a scratch on it. The young driver hit the horn and an older silver-headed man came out from a curtained shop front. He got into the passenger seat of the car. As the car crawled to the intersection, the man wound down his window and called Sonny over to the car.

  ‘You have paper?’

  Sonny handed him a newspaper. The man offered him a twenty-cent coin, double the price of the paper.

  ‘Keep the change.’ He smiled, and ordered the young driver to take off.

  The building the man had come out of had originally been a fruit shop. After it had shut down, the blinds were drawn on the windows. Men came and went from the building day and night, although they never seemed to buy anything.

  ‘What’s that place?’ Ren asked.

  ‘The Greek club.’

  ‘What do they do inside?’

  ‘They run a card game. And the radio’s turned up loud on race days. An SP on the horses, I guess.’

  ‘You sell papers in there?’

  ‘Never stepped foot in the place. That bloke who just got in the car, just now is the first time he’s bought a paper from me. Usually sends a kid down to the shop of an afternoon for his paper.’

  Sonny’s job kept him so busy Ren was soon helping him out at the newsstand as well. At the end of the school day Ren would race home, drop his bag in his room and head down to the station. Passing by the Reverend’s house he’d often find Della sitting on the front verandah reading from a book. It looked just like the Bible the Reverend had held in his hand in the stable. Her mother would be sitting nearby, also reading, and there was no chance for Sonny to talk to her, which he’d been desperate to do since the day they’d spoken in the lane.

  From the day Sonny started his job he developed a work ethic that hardly seemed possible. He even lectured Ren on the best approach to selling newspapers.

  ‘You will need to be here when it’s busiest, so you have to come straight after school. And it’s important that you learn to smile at the customers. That helps a lot, specially with the women buying magazines. He held up the latest copy of Woman’s Day, with a picture of Elizabeth Taylor on the front.

  ‘Brixey’s been doing this for most of his life and he told me that hard work is number one in the newspaper business. Manners is number two, and a smile is close third. People are buggered after a day’s work. The last face they want to see on their way home is one that looks like a smacked arse, Brixey says. And it’s the best way to make tips.’

  ‘How much you earn on tips?’

  ‘Depends on the night. Thursdays, pay-night, is best, followed by Friday when people are out on the street. Early in the week it’s not so good, especially in the pub. Most of the drinkers are near broke, and a tip would cut them out of a beer. If the Truth didn’t come out on Tuesdays it wouldn’t be worth showing up. It’s dead.’

  The boys played handball against the wall under the rail bridge while they waited for the trains to pull in to the station. When one arrived they worked fast, selling the afternoon Herald and magazines to the workers pouring from the trains. The Truth newspaper, which came out twice a week, was a bestseller. It carried pictures of topless women and stories of girls who’d been caught by police in the back of a car or a telephone box, sometimes naked with an older boy. The stories were not all that different from each other. All that changed were the names and locations. It didn’t matter that none of the stories were actually true. They were read religiously.

  Ren would recite the stories aloud to Sonny as he sat on a stack of newspapers, smoking a cigarette and nodding his head up and down like he knew what was coming next. Ren had only started reading a story about a Fourteen-year-old topless girl discovered in wardrobe when Sonny interrupted him.

  ‘I bet a dollar she comes from St Kilda.’

  ‘It don’t say that here. There’s no address with this one. It says her name’s Ursula. That can’t be a real name.’

  ‘Don’t matter if it says where she comes from or not. I bet she’s from St Kilda. Things are different on the other side of the river. You been over that way?’

  ‘Nah. You?’

  ‘Nup. Maybe we could go sometime? You can catch a tram to the beach. And to Luna Park. It’s over that side of the city too. I heard they have river boats and caves at Luna Park.’

  ‘A real river?’

  ‘No, a fake one.’

  ‘We don’t have to go then. We got our own river.’

  Ren also helped out by dropping a bundle of newspapers on the front bar of the pub next door to the station, The Railway Hotel. On the way back to the paper shop they’d call into the pub, collect the takings and any leftover papers. The barman, Roy, would shout them a lemon squash each, and sometimes a packet of chips between them.

  The first time he went into the pub Ren couldn’t take his eyes off a group of men, sitting around a table in the corner of the room. The light above the table was out, making it difficult to see their faces through the haze of smoke. Ren soon worked out that the seating arrangements around the table never changed. The same man always faced the double saloon doors that opened into the street, and whenever the doors swung open he’d look up while the other men went on talking and drinking. He had his hair in a pony-tail, a moustache and a goatee, and wore a suit coat like he was off to a court case. Sitting opposite him, with his back to the room, sat a man wearing a similar coat, except his jacket was too tight for his heavy shoulders. He had no neck and an ugly purple scar, the shape of a half circle, in the back of his shaven head. The barman would regularly load a tray of drinks and take it over to the table without
the men having to ask for them.

  After the boys had left the pub one night Sonny grabbed Ren by the arm to stop him from walking on. He poked him in the chest as he yelled at him. ‘Don’t be looking over at the table like that.’

  ‘Like what? I weren’t looking at no one.’

  ‘Bullshit. You gawk every time we go in there. You want your throat cut, keep staring.’

  ‘Throat cut?’

  Sonny squeezed Ren’s bicep, tight. It hurt.

  ‘This is serious. You go looking at that table too long and one of them will pop your eyes out of your head and stomp on them.’

  Ren squeezed his eyes tightly together just thinking about it. ‘How do you know so much about them?’

  ‘The other paperboys. They hear stuff all the time. That’s a gang round that table.’

  ‘The big one, with the mark on the back of his head, is he the boss?’

  ‘Nah. It’s not him. He’s the bodyguard. Wide enough to take a bullet. That would be his job. Number one is the fella with the long greasy hair. I was in there last week picking up the papers when two men come in. Every head in the bar turned round like in a Western movie, when the gunslinger comes to town and crashes the saloon. I looked over to the table. The one with the big head stood up and spun round. Wouldn’t have believed he could move as fast as that. He stuck his hand in his jacket pocket. Ready to go for his gun, I reckon.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Turned out they were only the health inspectors. Went back in the kitchen, snooped round a bit and come out. Roy opened the till, give them their sling and they left. Everyone went back to their drinks like nothing had happened.’

  ‘The boss, the one facing the door, who’s he?’

  ‘Vincent.’

  ‘Vincent who?’

  ‘Just Vincent. Every one of them at the table are killers, but Vincent is the biggest killer of all. The other paperboys whisper about him. Won’t speak his name out loud.’

  ‘Who’s he supposed to have killed?’

  ‘For one, some debt collector they found in the waiting room at the railway station last year before I moved here. Had cut his throat from ear to ear. They say that was Vincent that did it. Did you hear about that?’