There it was.
Very faint.
Almost drowned out by the distant hum of traffic.
But definitely a wail.
‘Ow!’ said Tracy.
‘Shhh,’ whispered Keith, ‘I can hear him.’
‘I’ve just cut myself,’ said Tracy.
Keith sighed.
It was his fault for allowing a jet-lagged person near broken glass.
‘But I’ve found the key,’ she whispered. ‘It must have been in the milk bottle.’
Keith took the torch and had a look at the cut. It was on one of Tracy’s fingers and even though it was small it was bleeding quite a lot.
Keith offered her his hanky, but she said no.
He turned his attention back to listening.
The wail was still there.
Just.
‘Hear it?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ said Tracy.
‘Don’t suck so loud,’ said Keith.
Tracy stopped sucking her finger and listened.
‘I still can’t hear it,’ she said.
Keith took a deep breath and licked his dry lips.
He had hoped they wouldn’t have to do this, but now he realised they had no choice.
‘Come on,’ he whispered, his heart thumping even louder than before, ‘you’ll hear better inside.’
Inside the dark house Keith sent an urgent message to the fish and chips in his stomach.
Don’t panic.
Stay where you are.
This is just the normal musty smell of a house that’s been shut up for a bit.
It is not, repeat not, the smell of rotting flesh hanging off the putrid and decomposing body of a ghost.
‘I still can’t hear anything,’ said Tracy.
Keith listened.
She was right.
The wailing had stopped.
‘He’s probably just having a rest: whispered Keith. ‘You probably get out of breath easily when you’re dead.’
Tracy took the torch and shone it around.
A ghostly white shape loomed over them.
Keith flinched.
But it wasn’t Mr Mellish, it was the water heater above the kitchen sink.
‘Look,’ whispered Keith as the torchlight shone on a pile of mould-covered plates. ‘Vegetable scraps. Meat scraps. Bread scraps. He obviously didn’t die of a bad diet.’
Keith took the torch and shone it into the cupboards.
‘No empty bottles,’ he added, ‘so it couldn’t have been drink.’
He shone the torch around the kitchen.
‘And no microwave,’ he concluded, ‘so it wasn’t a radiation leak.’
He shone the torch on Tracy.
‘Looks like it was loneliness alright,’ he said sadly.
‘Or his heart going bung,’ said Tracy. ‘Or cancer. Or him choking on a vegie. Or . . .’
Tracy stopped.
She listened intently.
Keith could hear it too.
The mournful wail.
‘See,’ whispered Keith, heart pounding, ‘he’s telling us it was loneliness and we’ve got to save Mum and Dad from the same fate. Satisfied? OK, let’s go home now.’
He tried to steer Tracy towards the back door, but she took the torch and pulled away from him.
‘Let’s have a squiz,’ she said and moved off into the darkness towards the wail.
‘Wait,’ said Keith, following her down a narrow hallway, ‘he might not want to meet us in person.’
A stairway loomed up to his left.
‘It’s coming from upstairs,’ said Tracy. ‘Come on.’
Keith felt sick.
Nice one, he thought as he went after her up the stairs, forty million best mates in the world and I get the maniac cane-toad hunter with the guts of steel.
Still, he told himself as they crept along the landing towards the open door the wail was coming through, that’s probably just as well. Because when we see what’s in that bedroom I’ve only got fish and chips to keep down, but she’s got corned beef, apricot halves and baked beans.
As they slowly poked their heads round the door, Tracy gripped his arm.
She was shaking just as much as him.
He hoped that when they’d finished screaming she wouldn’t be too exhausted to run for it.
The torch lit up the room.
Keith opened his mouth to yell.
But he didn’t.
Because in the neat little bedroom with its neat little bed there wasn’t a ghost to be seen.
Just a small thin shivering wailing black and grey dog.
11
Keith and Tracy and the dog were all still shivering when they got back to Mum’s place.
‘Hope it hasn’t caught a chill in the night air,’ said Keith, anxiously peeking inside his jacket for signs of a runny nose.
The dog peered out at him with mournful eyes.
Keith could feel its ribs quivering against his own.
‘Dogs are pretty tough,’ said Tracy. ‘Buster shut himself in the freezer once and we didn’t find him for twenty minutes. Would have been longer except we heard him coughing up frozen peas.’
Keith stroked the dog’s head.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘It’s probably just suffering from overexcitement like us.’
‘That and not having anything to eat or drink for nine days,’ said Tracy.
They all had some warm milk, and then the dog had some more.
And some more.
And some more.
By the time it had finished its fourth bowl they’d all stopped shivering.
Keith and Tracy lay on the kitchen floor watching the dog lick milk off its paws and face.
‘Amazing,’ said Keith. ‘I couldn’t go nine hours without food, let alone nine days.’
‘Wolves can go ages without food,’ said Tracy, ‘and all dogs are descended from wolves. Except Buster, he’s descended from a garbage disposal unit.’
The dog was looking at Keith again with its sad eyes.
‘Shouldn’t we give it some solids?’ said Keith.
‘Not too much at first,’ said Tracy, ‘or it’ll get gut-ache. Try it with a bit of sugar cane.’
Keith got the sugar cane out of the fridge and sawed a piece off with the bread knife and put it on the floor in front of the dog.
The dog sniffed it, chewed it half-heartedly, then went to sleep.
‘Buster does the same thing with cane toads,’ said Tracy.
Keith lifted the dog onto his jacket and watched its ribs rise and fall under its straggly black and grey fur.
‘Poor thing,’ said Keith. ‘Do you think it knows Mr Mellish is dead?’
Tracy shook her head. ‘That’s why it stayed by the bed. Waiting for him to come back.’
Keith’s eyes suddenly felt prickly.
He swallowed and took a deep breath.
‘I’ll have a chat with it,’ he said, ‘when it’s got its strength back.’
‘Wonder why the ambulance officers and the police left it behind?’ said Tracy.
‘Must have thought there’d be relatives coming round to collect it and do the washing up,’ said Keith. ‘Mustn’t have known Mr Mellish’s death was such a tragically lonely one.’
‘Keith,’ said Tracy quietly, ‘don’t be a dope. How could Mr Mellish die of loneliness when he had such a loyal and devoted friend in the house?’
Later, curled up in Mum’s bed on the settee, Keith finally worked it out.
OK, he thought, so Mr Mellish didn’t die of loneliness.
But that was only because he had a dog to love him and keep him company and perk him up.
Mum and Dad haven’t got that.
All they’ve got is me and Tracy and Aunty Bev.
They’re depending on us.
Keith looked at the dog breathing quietly next to him.
He felt very fond of it already.
You brave little thing, he thought. You’d have starved to death
worrying about your master.
Bit like me, stunting my growth worrying about Mum and Dad.
He gave the dog a hug.
Except I’m lucky, he thought. Thanks to me worrying, Mum and Dad are going to be OK.
‘Dazzle?’ said Tracy, exploding with laughter and spraying cereal across the kitchen. ‘You’ve called him Dazzle?’
‘Yes,’ said Keith, giving Dazzle a third helping of Irish stew. ‘I like it. And we don’t know what his real name is.’
‘I doubt if it’s Dazzle,’ said Tracy. ‘Pretty unusual name, but.’
‘I got the idea from something Aunty Bev once said,’ replied Keith. ‘Dazzle the buggers.’
‘I should have guessed,’ said Tracy bitterly. ‘That’s the sort of thing that prawn-brain would say.’
Keith stared at her, stunned.
‘Keep your voice down,’ he stammered, ‘she’ll hear you.’
‘She went out early,’ said Tracy. ‘Gone to make your dad look even more dopey.’
Keith felt anger rush through him.
‘Aunty Bev,’ he said, ‘is saving the lives of two seriously depressed people. And that’s more important than whether she nags a bit about aerobics.’
Tracy frowned for a moment, then wearily put her cereal spoon down and looked hard at Keith.
‘Aunty Bev,’ she said, ‘is a fanatic. If she came in here now and saw Dazzle stuffing his face with Irish stew, do you know what she’d say?’
‘What?’ asked Keith, wondering if a person could get inflammation of the brain from cutting their finger on a dirty milk bottle.
‘She’d say,’ mimicked Tracy angrily, ‘“Dazzle, mate, that extra helping’ll go straight to your thighs and hips and then you’ll be dumpy and no one’ll like you and everyone’ll laugh at you and you’ll be lonely and unhappy for the rest of your life".’
Keith stared at her.
‘How do you know?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ said Tracy tearfully, standing up and tweaking underneath her arms, ‘that’s what she says to me.’
Tragic, thought Keith as he left Mum’s block.
His ears were still ringing from Tracy slamming the bedroom door in his face.
All he’d done was try and talk a bit of sense to her.
Suggest to her that Aunty Bev was probably just worried about her because she’d grown upwards so fast it could mean her metabolism was a bit unstable and she was in danger of growing outwards very fast too.
She hadn’t even let him finish.
Slam.
‘I’m worried about her too,’ Keith said to Dazzle. ‘I think this might be something more than jet lag.’
Dazzle nodded.
He understands me, thought Keith.
Either that or he’s not used to having string tied to his collar.
‘G’day Keith,’ said a cheery voice.
Keith looked up.
Aunty Bev was striding towards him in her pink tracksuit.
‘Didn’t know you had a dog,’ she said. She stopped and patted Dazzle. ‘He’s in lovely condition, but. Not an ounce of fat on him.’
‘Aunty Bev,’ said Keith, ‘did you and Tracy have any injections to stop you getting typhoid and cholera when you go to Nepal?’
‘Yes,’ she said ‘why?.’
‘I’m worried about Tracy,’ he replied. ‘I think she might be allergic to them.’
‘Is she sick?’ asked Aunty Bev, concerned.
‘No,’ said Keith, ‘just sort of emotional.’
Aunty Bev nodded.
‘I’ll go and have a chat with her,’ she said. ‘No drama. Her hormones are playing up a bit at the moment, that’s all.’
Keith felt relief trickle through him.
Hormones.
Of course.
‘Go and say g’day to your dad,’ grinned Aunty Bev. ‘That’s if you recognise him.’
Keith watched Aunty Bev hurry into the flats.
‘That woman,’ he said to Dazzle, ‘is a saint.’
Dazzle did a pee on the pavement.
On the way to the cafe Keith decided it would either be a new suit or a wig.
He imagined Dad’s bald patch covered with thick luxurious hair.
He grinned.
Nice one.
Then a thought hit him.
Wigs had to be made to measure. Even Aunty Bev couldn’t get a wig made on a Saturday morning.
‘Unless,’ he said to Dazzle, who was panting inside Keith’s jacket trying to lick his face, ‘they got lucky and picked up one his size second hand from the classifieds.’
He pushed open the cafe door and went in.
‘Hello Keith,’ said Dad, looking up from the table he was wiping. He ran his hand over his head. ‘What do you think?’
Oh no, thought Keith.
Please no.
He stared in horror.
12
It was the worst haircut Keith had ever seen.
‘Bev reckons short hair looks better on balding men,’ said Dad. ‘She’s right, eh?’
Keith sighed.
The longest hairs on Dad’s entire head were the ones growing out of his ears.
Keith sent an urgent message to his own head.
Be positive.
Nod.
But it wouldn’t.
‘You’ll use much less shampoo,’ said Keith after a bit.
It was the best he could do.
Dad grinned and moved on to the next table.
Keith sent Dad’s hair an urgent message.
Grow back.
Please.
Later in the weekend Keith saw another haircut just as bad.
The same bristles all over the scalp.
The same sticking-out veins on the temples.
Even the same hair in the ears.
Keith stared at it.
Oh well, he thought, at least Dad’s not the only one.
But he didn’t feel any better.
It was hard to when the only other haircut in London as tragic as Dad’s belonged to an escaped convict who’d killed eight people with a whale knife.
Keith reached up and ran his fingers over the murderer’s bristles.
They felt exactly the same as Dad’s.
‘Hey you,’ said a museum attendant, ‘no touching the exhibits.’
‘Sorry,’ said Keith.
He pointed at the wax figure of the murderer.
‘Would you invite someone who looks like him to the pictures,’ he asked the attendant, ‘if you knew he was kind and gentle and a whiz with fried foods?’
The attendant smiled.
‘Only if I was his mother,’ she said.
Keith sighed and went back over to Dad and Aunty Bev.
‘Glad you came?’ Aunty Bev was saying to Dad.
‘You can say that again,’ said Dad. ‘Best wax museum in Britain and it took a foreigner to bring me here.’
Aunty Bev grinned and pretended to clout him round the head with her bag.
Dad pretended to duck.
Keith noticed a small roll of fat appear at the top of Dad’s neck.
It’ll take weeks for the hair to grow back over that, thought Keith gloomily.
Months probably.
‘A manicurist at a beauty therapy conference in Townsville told me about this place,’ said Aunty Bev. She pointed to a nineteenth century fish shop assistant who minced up her neighbour’s children. ‘Look at those exquisite nails.’
Dad leant forward to look and his bottom wobbled.
Keith sighed again.
He looked at the flat stomach and firm buttocks of the police officer who was arresting the fish shop assistant, and wished you could get wax parents.
At least if they were beyond help you could melt them down and start again.
A bit later Dad lingered to look at a famous chef and Keith found himself walking on with Aunty Bev.
‘Suits him, eh, the haircut?’ she said, glancing back at Dad. ‘Short hair always looks bett
er on balding men.’
Keith didn’t know what to say.
He wished he’d stayed at home with Tracy and Dazzle.
Then he told himself to stop being silly.
OK, he thought, Aunty Bev made a mistake with the haircut. That doesn’t mean she’s a prawn-brain. Even highly-skilled professionals make mistakes sometimes.
Keith looked back at Dad, who was studying the contents of the chef’s saucepan with his hands in his pockets and his tummy bulging under the parrot shirt.
Think positive, Keith told himself. There’s still heaps Aunty Bev can do.
‘Aunty Bev,’ he said, ‘have you done much work with tummies and bottoms?’
‘You mean sculpting the basic lines of the body,’ said Aunty Bev.
Keith thought that was probably what he meant.
‘Exercise and stuff,’ he said.
He had a vision of Aunty Bev making Dad do push-ups with a box of tinned pineapple on his back.
He grinned.
If that didn’t cure bottom wobble, nothing would.
‘Exercise is OK,’ said Aunty Bev, ‘but it doesn’t go far enough. I prefer a combination of diet and cosmetic surgery.’
‘Cosmetic surgery?’ said Keith. ‘What’s that?’
‘It means when bits of your body are stopping you looking good, you have them altered or cut off,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘Bits of skin, flesh, even bone.’
Keith stared at her.
Cut off?
With a scalpel?
Just to look good?
Keith had a vision of Dad without his bottom.
He felt dizzy and a bit sick.
‘I think liposuction would be perfect for your dad,’ said Aunty Bev.
‘Liposuction?’ said Keith. ‘What’s that?’
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
‘It’s very clever,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘They’ve got a special sort of vacuum cleaner that can suck the fat out from under your skin.’
Keith sat down next to an attendant and hoped he wouldn’t be sick over her handbag.
‘Of course that leaves the skin a bit baggy,’ continued Aunty Bev, ‘so they have to cut some strips out and seam it up. Like having jeans taken in.’
Keith realised what was going on.
Aunty Bev was sending him up.
Joking.
He glanced over to see if the attendant was getting it.
The attendant didn’t seem to be.
The attendant was looking a bit queasy too.
‘I’ve had it done,’ said Aunty Bev, running her hand down her neck.