Ghost River

by Tony Birch

Bob went home with the consolation prize, a set of pillows, and Sonny jumped onto the couch and back to the floor, beating his chest.

  ‘How’d you know that, Sonny?’

  ‘Read it on the back page of a comic last week, at the paper shop. Amazing Facts. Before Lassie was Lassie, he was Pal.’

  ‘But Lassie was a girl. I saw her have pups in one of her films.’

  ‘Weren’t him. Lassie was Pal and he was a boy dog. That was the amazing bit. Everyone thought Lassie was a girl dog, but she wasn’t.’

  A key turned in the front door. Rory walked straight by them holding a chemist bag in one hand and his stomach with the other. He went into the kitchen, banged around in the cupboards and came back into the room. He dropped a couple of tablets on the coffee table and poured a sachet of powder into the glass of water he was holding. He took a long drink of the mixture and let out a roaring burp, followed by a deep fart.

  ‘Fuck me, boys.’ He laughed. ‘I’m a walking orchestra.’

  ‘You’re home early. You crook?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Yeah. Took ill at the track with this pain in the guts.’

  He picked the sack up from the coffee table and shook it. The betting slips sounded like dead leaves. ‘As luck had it we had a protest in the second. Should be a winner somewhere in this lot. You two make yourselves useful and help me sort through them.’

  He tipped the sack upside down. The tickets poured onto the worn carpet, along with a few cigarette butts, chewing gum wrappers and twigs. The betting slips looked as if they’d been screwed up in anger. ‘You know how to read a race ticket, young fella?’ he asked Ren.

  Ren shook his head. ‘Nup.’

  ‘Let me give you an education.’ Rory picked up a ticket, smoothed it out and pointed to the figures with his grubby stub of a finger. ‘See here, you’re looking for the race number. This ticket was a bet on race one. Then you look here for the horse,’ he said, pointing down the slip. ‘Number six. And the bet is written here. On the nose. Or here for each way.’

  Rory took a notebook out of his coat pocket and flipped through the pages. ‘I’ve got the placings listed here.’ He held the ticket against the open page of the notebook. ‘As you can see, this one is worth fuck all.’ He screwed it into a ball and threw it into the empty fireplace. ‘You still at school, son?’ he asked. ‘You like it?’

  Ren picked up a ticket from the pile. ‘I like English and Art.’

  ‘When I was a kid I hated school. Me and Sonny’s dad, we went to the nuns. Mad as cut snakes. I’d rather take a belt from the Jacks.’

  The machines continued rumbling in the background. Ren was sure he could feel the ground moving under his feet.

  ‘What’s the noise?’ Rory asked.

  Sonny told him about the day he and Ren had run into the surveyors on the river, the convoy of trucks that arrived that morning and the clearing and building work they’d done in just one day. ‘We’re gonna stop them,’ Sonny said, as if it were a certainty.

  ‘Think so?’ Rory said. ‘They’ll be from the government. You think you can put a halt to them? This is no rock fight with a shitty pants kids down the street. You boys got no hope.’

  Sonny looked down at the losing ticket he was holding and tore it apart. ‘I got some chance. I been saving up my money.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Maybe I could hire somebody to stop them for me.’

  ‘Someone like who?’

  Sonny looked over at Ren. ‘Maybe one of them in the Railway Hotel. There’s this one fella in there, Vincent. I heard about him. We could pay someone like him to do it for us.’

  Rory laughed so loud he blew the tickets across the room. ‘You mean the same Vincent who runs the crew from the front bar?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re a poor bugga, Sonny boy. Let me tell you a couple of things about Vincent. Firstly, how much money have you got saved up? A thousand? Two?’

  Sonny’s face dropped.

  ‘I didn’t reckon so. That would be your standard fee, right there. Second up, it wouldn’t matter what coin you had saved. No crim is gonna deal with a couple of kids.’

  He slapped Sonny lightly on the cheek to get his full attention. ‘But let me give you some better advice that might help you out when you’re a little older. Low types like Vincent pick their mark. That’s why he runs his lot from the pub. He’s a king pin in a house of stiffs and no-hopers. So fucken what? Most of the drinkers in there are cripples and seasoned alkies. One step off the back lanes. Cunts like Vincent prey on misery.’

  ‘How do you know so much about him?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Because I’ve been round a long time. Kept my head down and got a street lesson along the way. Better than I could have got in any classroom. Listening and learning and minding my own business. You want to make it, you keep your eyes open, your mouth shut, and don’t get too ambitious.’

  ‘What can we do about the bulldozers then?’

  ‘Not a lot, I wouldn’t think. But I’ll tell you this much, both of you. You got any expectations in life, never pay another man to do the hard graft for you. That’s a debt you can never pay back. You’ll spend a lifetime round dogs forever sniffing at your pocket, wanting more from you.’

  He took a snotty hankie out of his jacket pocket and blew his nose. ‘Maybe you don’t want to hear this, Sonny, but with your father giving up on you, my job is to teach you, not fill your head with bullshit that will get you nowhere.’

  ‘We’re gone then,’ Sonny moaned.

  ‘Maybe. And maybe not. You feel strong enough over this, take care of business yourself.’

  ‘How? You just said that the government can do what they like.’

  Rory leaned over further and poked Sonny in the chest. ‘You do the best you can and go down fighting. Nothing more to it. Why you so upset, anyway? There must be other places to swim.’

  ‘Not if they blow the river up with dynamite,’ Ren said.

  ‘Really? They might come across the old tunnels, then,’ Rory said, casually, as if the boys would have known what he was talking about.

  ‘What tunnels?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘You two have just been telling me how you know everything about the river. But you never heard of the tunnels? Don’t know it well enough then. When I was your age …’

  He stopped talking and passed an eye over the ticket he was holding and shook his head. He showed Ren the ticket. ‘See this fuckwit? Last of the big spenders. The goose put one unit on number six for the place, and still threw a winner away.’

  ‘What’s it worth?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Nothin that will add up to a day’s work. But it all counts.’

  He smoothed out the ticket and stuck it in his jacket pocket. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘You was telling us about some tunnels,’ Sonny said.

  ‘Right. The tunnels. When I was a kid, I worked at the paper factory. There’s a tip there now. You know it?’

  The tip was a few miles upriver. Any time it rained, rotting garbage washed downstream.

  ‘Some of the older fellas on my shift had been in the war. I heard bits and pieces about the tunnels from them. They’d been on the drill that put bomb shelters in.’

  The next betting slip Ren picked up was smudged with dirt. He thought it had a number six in the right column, but couldn’t be sure. He passed it to Rory for inspection.

  ‘Why would they have dug bomb shelters round here?’ Ren asked.

  Rory threw the ticket into the fireplace. The pile in front of them was almost gone and Rory had found only the one ticket worth any money.

  ‘It was the Americans. They were holed up at Victoria Barracks, down from the river. They had military speedboats tied up with the idea that if the Japs attacked they’d jump in the boats and head upstream. Couldn’t get above the falls, of course. T
he story is they built a warren of tunnels connecting two bomb shelters for the American command and every politician in the state. And fuck the rest of us good and proper.’

  ‘You believe the story?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Rory shrugged. ‘It’s worth believing. An adventure.’

  ‘But if there were shelters down there, wouldn’t somebody have found them by now?’

  ‘They didn’t want to be found. Then or now. They would have dug in some hidden entrances. Wouldn’t have wanted ordinary jokers fronting up and crowding them out. We’re talking top secret here.’

  ‘These fellas you worked with,’ Sonny said, ‘did they tell you exactly where the shelters were built?’

  ‘I never asked them. But like I said, it had to be this side of the falls.’

  Ren didn’t want to offend Rory or his story but he couldn’t understand why he and Sonny hadn’t heard about any tunnels before. ‘Hey, Sonny. You reckon if they built air-raid shelters Tex would know about it?’

  ‘S’pose so.’

  ‘Who’s this Tex fella?’ Rory asked.

  ‘He’s the leader of these fellas who live down the river. They’re our … friends.’

  ‘Would this be Tex Carter? Blackfella and ex-boxer? That him?’

  Tex had deep brown leather skin. But he’d never told the boys that he was a blackfella. Or that he’d been a fighter.

  ‘Maybe,’ Ren answered. ‘He lives down there with some others like him. They’re drinkers.’

  ‘Be the same fella. Knocks around with a big old boy.’

  ‘Tallboy,’ Sonny answered.

  ‘That’s the one. Blackfella too, that one.’

  ‘And Tex was a boxer?’ Ren asked.

  ‘Yep. And a beauty. Lightweight. I seen him fight at the stadium. Like Gene Kelly, on his feet. And quick hands. Could have been Australian champion, maybe world rated. Until he got himself well and truly fucked.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘He went out west one time before a big fight. From memory, I think he was visiting family. He took a couple of bottles of beer with him onto the mission where they were living, which weren’t allowed. He got caught in possession of the grog and was convicted. Boxing board took his licence away from him for five years. Poor bastard. He was a clean living kid who never touched the drink. Once they’d done him over like that he hit the piss. Fought in the tents after that. Did some time away for hurting a fella in a street fight. How’s he holding up?’

  Ren was about to answer not so good when Sonny waved a race ticket above his head and hollered, ‘Number six. Ten units each way.’

  ‘Pay dirt.’ Rory smiled. ‘You just hit the jackpot, son.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I’ll have to do the sums.’ He got up from the couch and hitched his pants up. ‘I’m not feeling too good, boys. I’m going for a sleep.’

  Sonny couldn’t get the smile off his face.

  ‘Maybe my luck is changing, Ren.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Ren was over the measles and soon returned to the river with Sonny. It was the winter school break and after the morning paper round the boys would go home for breakfast and meet in the lane. While neither of them were convinced about Rory’s story of the tunnels, it didn’t stop them searching for them. The old track leading to the river had been destroyed by the bulldozers. On the way to the river, on their first morning in search of the tunnels, they stood on one side of the compound fence and watched the workmen ready themselves for another day of destruction.

  Sonny grabbed the weave of wire in both hands and shook the fence. ‘Cunts.’

  ‘Yep. Cunts.’

  They slipped through the mill gates to the loading dock. Sonny kicked wooden palings out of the fence at the rear of the mill and climbed through. The boys beat a fresh path into the ground, grabbing hold of bushes and tree branches to stop them tumbling forward as they hiked the bank. ‘Can’t see the old boys climbing up there,’ Ren said, once they’d reached the bottom.

  Sonny was picking blackberry thorns from the front of his jumper. ‘They’ll have to take the stairs by the bridge any time they need to hit the street.’

  Ren climbed onto a tree stump above the pontoon. ‘I reckon we start here and work our way along the bank, up and down, until we hit the bridge.’

  ‘We’ve walked here a million times before and never come across any tunnel.’

  ‘What are we doing here then?’

  ‘It’s like Rory said, a good story is worth the adventure.’

  They headed into a tangle of scrub and quickly found themselves up to their waists in weeds. Ren heard rustling beneath his feet. ‘You hear that?’

  Sonny stopped walking, listened and nodded his head. ‘Be rats. I reckon they nest here at night and slip in the water for a swim. Fuck this. I’m not going any further with no weapon.’

  He worked ahead of Ren, along the bank to the car graveyard above the camp.

  ‘Where you going?’ Ren called. ‘Don’t chicken out now.’

  Sonny forced the boot of an old wreck and dived in, legs in the air. He came out waving a rusted golf club. Walking back he stopped on the track and practised his swing. ‘Four!’

  He lay the club down and tucked the bottoms of his jeans into his black-and-white striped football socks.

  ‘You’ve never looked more like a goose,’ Ren said.

  ‘I don’t care. This’ll stop them running up the leg of my jeans. If I were you I’d do the same.’

  ‘Hey, Sonny, how’d you know there was a golf club in the boot of that car?’

  ‘Just lucky.’

  ‘Bullshit. I bet you stole it off the golf course and hid it there.’

  ‘Good thing I did.’ Sonny sliced the iron through the weeds.

  Ren heard more scattering under his feet. ‘They must be close by.’

  ‘One of them sticks its head up and I’ll belt it to death.’

  ‘You don’t want one of them rats getting its teeth into you. Do you know there’s enough poison on the tip of a rat tooth to kill a town full of people?’

  Sonny lifted the club in the air, waved it like a sword and jabbed Ren in the stomach with it. ‘No, I didn’t know that, Mr Peabody. And I don’t care. One rat pops its head up I’ll smash the teeth out of its mouth before it gets near me.’

  The boys worked slowly towards the iron bridge, Sonny slashing and poking at the ground with his club, Ren creeping along behind him, his socks also tucked into his jeans. It was a hard morning’s work. They didn’t come across a secret doorway or manhole leading into a tunnel or bomb shelter, but they found a lot of rubbish. Bits of rusted machinery, old bottles and cans, and a KEEP OUT sign. Sonny decided the river men might like it.

  ‘Carry it for us, Ren. I’m gonna nail it to a tree at the camp.’

  Ren tucked the sign under his arm. ‘Never thought there was this much shit in the world. And that most of it would be dumped here.’

  Sonny made another discovery. He crouched so low in the weeds he almost disappeared. ‘Look what I got here.’

  He stood up, holding a dead animal by the tail. It was mostly a skeleton, with tufts of dull fur wrapped around its leg bones and shoulders. Weeds were knitted through its rib cage. Ren took a step back. He’d seen plenty of dead rats before, and another time a bag of maggoty kittens in a sack that had been dumped in the lane. He’d never understood why, but he was more afraid of a dead animal than a living one.

  ‘It looks like a dog.’

  Sonny held the skeleton in front of his face and sniffed the fur. ‘I don’t think so. It’s a fox. See this red colour along the back. And the teeth. They’re longer and sharper than dog’s teeth. Maybe we could keep it?’

  ‘Please yourself, Sonny. I’m not touching it. It could have some sort of disease.’r />
  Sonny swung the skeleton from side to side. The back legs of the carcass fell away. ‘Maybe I could take the head home and make a necklace from the teeth the way Indians do.’

  ‘I bet it stinks.’

  Sonny sniffed it again. ‘Smells of nothing.’

  ‘The only reason you can’t smell it is because your nose is blocked with snot.’

  Sonny threw what was left of the skeleton into the weeds. They went on searching. Ren got a foot caught in a rabbit hole, tripped and fell, and landed on a solid object. ‘Something’s under here,’ he called.

  Sonny turned and ran back to where Ren was kneeling. Excited that Ren may have found an entrance to the tunnels he attacked the weeds with the club.

  ‘Watch it, Sonny. You’ll take my head off.’

  Ren parted the bed of weeds and looked down at the face of a woman half buried in the ground. The tip of her nose was missing and her face was dotted with small holes. ‘Jesus!’ he screamed.

  ‘What is it?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘It’s the Virgin Mary.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘From Catholic school, where I did primary. Pass me the club and I’ll dig her out.’

  Ren scraped around the edges of the statue with the iron club until he was able to pull it from the earth. One of Mary’s hands was missing and the blue paint of her gown had mostly flaked off.

  ‘She’s more a broken Mary than a virgin,’ Sonny said. ‘How the fuck would she have ended up here?’

  ‘Maybe someone who gave up on God?’ Ren laughed

  ‘Come a long way to do it. Could have left her on a street corner. You gonna keep her?’

  ‘Not sure yet.’

  They walked on. Ren carried Broken Mary under one arm and the KEEP OUT sign in the other. He lost his balance several times and found it hard keeping his feet on the soggy ground. He’d had enough exploring for the day. When they reached the car graveyard he stopped and rested against the bonnet of an HJ Holden. He opened the door and put Mary in the front seat. A pair of older wrecks sat alongside, a VW beetle and a burnt-out Falcon. The graveyard was popular with car thieves, who drove the stretch of road at the far end of the mill to where they could strip a car clean without being spotted.