The Torch Read online

  Dedication

  To Lois

  Epigraph

  Inspiration is hard to come by.

  You have to take it where you find it.

  Bob Dylan

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The Cartographer’s Map

  1 Musical homes

  2 Flame Boy

  3 The Little Match Girl

  4 The family way

  5 Aunty Daphne

  6 The Baked Bean Tester’s wife

  7 Ned Kavanagh

  8 Raffi Radion

  9 The Creepy Crawleys

  10 The Queen of Richmond

  11 The Larsons

  12 The Olympians

  13 Mona De Coney

  14 The Shamrock Street fire

  15 Noddy goes to town

  16 Confession

  17 Ghosts in the head

  18 Uncle Seamus

  19 The Destroyers Caper

  20 From Russia with love

  21 Royal Raffi

  22 The Spirit of Progress

  23 Sweethearts

  24 The Russian flag

  25 The education of young Blayney

  26 The Great Fires of Richmond

  27 Mrs Bentley chucks a wobbly

  28 The Spirit and the traitor

  29 The trouble with girls

  30 The Tiger gets cool

  31 The tender trap

  32 The Darrods Caper

  33 The Briefcase of Doom

  34 Raspberry pash

  35 The hideout

  36 The Look

  37 The Genie of the Incinerator

  38 The Mole Patrol swings into action

  39 The Brush People

  40 The Italian connection

  41 Bodgie socks

  42 D-Day

  43 The Torch

  44 Father and son

  45 Flame Boy spits the dummy

  46 A tale of two towns

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise for Peter Twohig

  Other Books by Peter Twohig

  Copyright

  The Cartographer’s Map

  1 Musical homes

  After our house burnt down, Mum and I moved in with Granddad, up on the Hill. I took my dog, Zac, my explorer’s bag, and a few treasures I had stashed under my secret floorboard: a sheath knife I knew Mum would tell me to get rid of, a rare gold coin probably left over from the Gold Rush (same), and a photo of Josephine Thompson that I had taken at the school break-up party with Mum’s Brownie Box, while pretending to take a photo of Mother Sylvester, who I later cut out. (I wasn’t too sure what Mum would say if she found out I had cut out Mother instead of Josephine, but I wasn’t taking any chances. It had taken me a long time to get that picture, and now that I was leaving St Felix’s there might never be another chance.) I also saved my bloke’s hat, which I got from someone who didn’t need it anymore; and my kid’s hat, which was covered with flag pins from the Olympic Games (Tom and I’d had a race to see who could collect the most countries, and I won, because Tom didn’t think Brazil was a real country).

  It was Zac who saved us all. As soon as he smelt the smoke he rushed into the house so fast he busted right through the screen door and just kept on going, and didn’t stop until he had woken up Mum and Mrs Kavanagh, who was staying with us temporarily, and dragged them out of bed. Mum took a box out of her top drawer and a case from under her bed and Mrs Kavanagh, who was blind. Then Zac came to check on me. To a Labrador, rescuing people from a burning house is all in a day’s work, and practically boring.

  As for Mrs Kavanagh’s son, Keith (his real name), he didn’t need rescuing, as he was nowhere to be seen, which worried everyone concerned, especially Zac, who had been looking forward to rescuing him as well. In fact Keith had disappeared off the map. And we all knew why.

  My own name for Keith was Flame Boy. Keith had an interesting habit, one that was frowned on by those who did not understand the younger superhero set, of setting fire to things. His score up to that point was not public knowledge. But on Christmas Day, while all and sundry at our place — the whole suburb of Richmond, in fact — were gargling the grog as if their lives depended on it and generally paying no attention to the kids, he confided in me that he had been single-handedly responsible for at least half the calls to the Eastern Hill Fire Brigade over the previous year.

  I was impressed, as I had only credited him with one tram (heard about while at the doctor’s), one house (his own, and the reason he and his mum were staying at our place), one pub (the first one in the history of Richmond to burn down, according to Dad) and the back wall of the Gala picture theatre. And possibly our old Morris Cowley, though Dad was half stung when he came out with that idea, and it might have been the grog talking. In fact, I reckon Dad might have done that himself, as he was always leaving lighted cigarettes lying around, even in the car.

  For his sins, which, it turned out, were common knowledge among the adults around our part of the world, Flame Boy had been locked up, had his brain shocked by the local brain specialist — that was for the tram — and been punished in various horrible ways, yet in the end, set free.

  It was while he was staying with us that our house went up in smoke. Hence the sudden interest in his whereabouts.

  I was just as interested as everyone else, of course, but I had my hands full helping Mum settle in to her new home.

  Granddad’s house was big, and had enough bedrooms for both me and Mum, but that wasn’t the problem. Not long before Christmas, Dad’d had more than he could stand — I thought he lasted rather well — and did a midnight flit (though his final departure, which happened on the day that Flame Boy’s house burnt down, was actually at about five in the afternoon). He jumped on his green Triumph Speed Twin and was off. Mum had been acting very strangely just before he left, being alternately as nice as Beaver Cleaver’s mum and as cheesed off as the Wicked Witch of the West, but without the flying monkeys. The nice days were great, and we even went to the pics a couple of times, and saw Carry on Nurse, and It Started with a Kiss, which was about a cool red car, and at which I got to eat double cones. On the bad days, I avoided Mum completely and took off early.

  Since Dad’s disappearing act, I had been spending a lot of my nights over at his new home with him and his girlfriend, Mrs Bentley, who was so keen for me to be her friend it was almost painful, if you call a steady diet of ice-cream and lollies painful.

  The problem was that Mum was under the impression that I had been spending those nights over at Granddad’s place, and for the first few days after the fire I was flat out like a lizard drinking, sneaking my things over there from Dad’s. I even took a heap of dirty washing and dumped it on the laundry floor — a little touch I picked up from a soap powder ad on TV. Everyone had said that TV would be educational, and they were right. As for Granddad, he was on my side, and wouldn’t have given me away for quids.

  It turned out that Mum paid no attention to what I was up to, being busy for days going over the wreckage of the old house, looking for useful and valuable items. Once, she even saw our cat, Abbotsford, but couldn’t catch him. Abbotsford had become an outlaw. Mum wouldn’t let me help, as the place was a bit of a hazard to walk around in, and I had no need to visit, as I had moved all my aboveground treasures to the home of my friends the Sandersons, over in Kipling Street, as soon as Mrs K and Co had moved in, before Christmas. I had got a bad feeling.

  But as soon as the move to Granddad’s was completed I knew what I had to do. I even knew how to do it. However, the first step involved going over to the Sandersons’, one of the few places I could visit any time I liked and even stay at. Normally I’d lo
ok forward to one of these visits, but this time I was a bit worried.

  The reason was that Mr Sanderson belonged to a special kind of secret police outfit (according to Blarney Barney, Granddad’s offsider and business assistant) which could do pretty much whatever they liked, and even had the wood on the local coppers. And as it was the locals who were interested in getting Flame Boy to assist them with their enquiries — not that this was news to me — I thought that the Sandersons might be on their side and I did not want to do anything that might help them. To make matters worse, I was reasonably sure that both Mr and Mrs S could read minds. (I reminded myself to tell Granddad never to go anywhere near them, in case they read his mind and had a nervous breakdown.)

  Mr and Mrs S had taken a shine to me since moving into the neighbourhood the previous year. I had seen something pretty bad happen to a lady who was staying at their house while they were away — I think you could say that getting killed was pretty bad. It turned out that the lady was a policewoman, so of course, the Sandersons were all over me like measles when they discovered I knew something. And once they got to know, know, know me — like that Teddy Bears song — they got to love, love, love me, and Biscuit, my old dog at the time. Biscuit had also been a Labrador, only a yellowy colour. In fact, he was Zac’s uncle.

  You might as well know right now that Biscuit was shot by one of the local coppers — it was Murphy — just because he was my dog. Down our way that was unusual, as most of the kids’ dogs ended up being either creamed by cars or ironed out by trams; though some just got crook and keeled over. But none of them ever really got old.

  So the Sandersons knew me, and that meant that they knew I would never dob on a fellow superhero, which is really what Flame Boy was. I would have said I’d never dob on a mate, but Flame Boy was not really a mate, he being the quiet, shy type who did not believe in wasting words as long as there was a box of matches handy, which was all the time, as we lived within a stone’s throw of Bryant & May’s match factory, where Mum was some kind of boss. Also, to put it bluntly, Flame Boy was not quite the full quid. But then, who is?

  The Sandersons were happy to see Zac and me, and lost no time offering me a Marchants lemonade and ice-cream spider, as it was ninety in the shade because of the heat wave, which was killing off all takers, regardless of politics or creed, which I thought was a bit rough. Once we had settled down on the front verandah I pretended that I did not have a care in the world, knowing from experience that Mr S would soon start interrogating me in his gentle way, to find out whatever local news he could, me being a bit like Kipling’s Kim in my part of town, that is to say a collector of information. It was because I knew this would happen that I was wearing my kid’s hat, the one with the badges — I knew that if Mr S saw me wearing my bloke’s hat, he might forget I was a kid and give me a hard time. Also, in my kid’s hat, I looked cute, according to my Aunty Dot (because she knew what I looked like without a hat).

  ‘No one hurt in the fire, then? Everyone got out safe and sound?’

  I nodded without interrupting my straw sucking, a trick I learnt from Leave It to Beaver.

  ‘I heard Zac saved the women,’ said Mrs S. ‘Well done, Zac.’

  Zac raised his eyebrows, and shot me a quick look. I knew what he was thinking. Your black Labrador is as sharp as vinegar.

  In fact, something around the side of the house made Zac jump up and trot off like the guard dog I had trained him to be, and a few seconds later we heard him make the intruder noise they will one day be calling the Zac Growl. I jumped up and ran around the side, and saw Zac face to face with none other than his mortal enemy, Abbotsford the cat, who was looking a bit rough around the edges and not prepared to put up with any rubbish. That’s what two weeks of living on mice and sleeping under cars will do to you.

  Mrs S thought he was cute, and immediately installed him in the laundry with all the comforts of home, including a tin of sardines.

  Zac and I looked at each other. It’s true what they say about cats: that they always land on their feet.

  Back around the front, Mr S took the news in his stride.

  ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Abbotsford.’

  ‘A fine name. Has character. Reminds me of something.’

  ‘Probably the brewery.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  He smiled to himself. It reminded him of something else, as well. ‘So, we were discussing the fire.’

  The fire at our place was old news, and had been reported in the Herald, complete with a picture of Zac, who was dining out on it, as dogs do. I was wondering where the conversation was heading when Mr S emptied his pipe into a big ashtray he kept on the verandah just for that purpose, and looked at me over his glasses.

  ‘How did the other lady … Mrs … Mrs —’

  ‘Kavanagh.’ As he well knew.

  ‘Ah, yes. How did Mrs Kavanagh go? Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes. She’s staying at the blind people’s home.’

  ‘And her son — what was his name?’

  ‘Keith.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘He’s okay — shot through. Haven’t seen him since the fire.’

  ‘Wise move, in the circs. When they find him … well. Best we change the subject.’

  But it was too late for that. Flame Boy was the name on everybody’s lips, except they were all asking: Where is that young firebug? And the Sandersons would have known that. And they already knew that I had been questioned by the police. So while we sat there in the shade, and I busted a gut trying not to make that sucking noise with my straw, I hoped that Mr S would cease this interest in the disappearance of Flame Boy, as sensible as it had been.

  Just then I looked up and saw, at the end of the street, Rooney Park, where Tom had died. He had been doing something dangerous. He had been trying out a special Tarzan trick, which didn’t work.

  And. The monkey bars fell across his throat and squashed it. I was there.

  Now I saw it happening again. Whenever I visited the Sandersons, and sat on their verandah, I always made sure that I faced the other way, towards Bryant & May’s match factory, just so this would not happen. But just then my mind had been so full of thoughts about the fire, and Flame Boy, that I had slipped up. It was bad enough remembering that I used to have a twin, one who was just like me, and that he had died. It was ten times as bad when I remembered what happened — in that park. Right there, in front of me.

  ‘It’s all right, dear,’ said Mrs Sanderson, for the millionth time. (She was also a mind-reader, like Mr S.) She knew it wasn’t, really. But no one else ever said that — that it was all right. I liked her for that.

  Suddenly, the real sounds rushed back in: the city tram going past up at Church Street, Old Mrs Ackland’s cockatoo screeching at a cat over in Cotter Street, Mrs S shifting her chair, a clue that cake was shortly to be served to the young visitor.

  I wanted to be happy just then, and I forced myself to wonder what kind of cake it would be. Because of the heat, I was hoping for one of those kinds of cake you have to put in the fridge first, like chocolate teddy bear biscuit cake. But all that did was bring on that sickysad feeling I had been getting since the middle of last year, when I saw the Ghost Bus. It felt as if there was a bat cave in my chest, and some pirates had moved in and let a freezing breeze in and it was swirling around, making all the bats freeze and turn blue. Sort of. Until the Ghost Bus turned up, it had just been a cave in my chest, but after that night it had pirates, cold breezes and frozen bats as well. That’s how I always thought of it.

  I had been going home with Mum and Dad after visiting Aunty Gerrie and Uncle Nick at Mordialloc, and it was dark and raining and cold: in short, a Melbourne day in the middle of the year. And Mum was not in a good mood, I think because Dad had spent all day out on the bay fishing with Uncle Nick and Uncle Ivor and had come home half stung. I didn’t go with them because the last time I did that I got as sick as a sausage dog, and wanted to di
e. So I was allowed to explore Aunty Gerrie’s back sheds, which were full of junk, the young boy’s alcohol.

  So there we were, standing outside South Yarra Station, Dad still a bit drunk, but quite pleased with himself, and Mum looking as though she was going to murder the first person who opened his mouth. That’s when it happened. A bus stopped at the lights, and on the other side of a misted window, through the rain, I saw a hand clearing a space to look through, and on the other side, Tom. I only saw him for a second, then he was gone with the Ghost Bus. That’s when the pirates let the freezing breeze into my chest, and turned all the bats in there blue. I felt a big cry come up from my shoes, and swell up in my throat like a cold spew, then keep on going up to my head, where it leaked out of all the holes, not noisily, but waterly. Mum shook me by the shoulder, the way Sister Malachi did any time I started to see the funny side of things, and spat at me: ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  What could I say? Tom’s name was like a dirty word with Mum. And if I ever said it in front of Dad, he just went all quiet for about a fortnight. I suppose I could have come out and said that the bus that just pulled up right there in Toorak Road was actually a ghost bus, and that Tom was one of the passengers. But on a scale of terrific ideas, that would have scored a one. I wasn’t in that big a hurry to end up like Tom, so I kept my trap shut.

  ‘It’s time you stopped behaving like a child.’ There was a long pause, during which I wondered how the hell I was going to achieve that. I mean, I was twelve, for God’s sake. But after a few seconds of looking down the road at nothing in particular Mum piped up again. ‘He’s gone.’

  I turned the tone of those two words round and round in my brain, to see if there was a secret message in them, but there wasn’t.

  My life was never the same after the Ghost Bus: I loved it and hated it at the same time.

  I looked at the Sandersons. Mr Sanderson’s face looked less bloodless than when I had first met him, back in September. That would be from chasing crims all day, which does tend to put the colour in your cheeks. He had heard what Mrs S had said to me, had guessed what was going on in my head, and had formulated a plan, like in O.S.S., starring Ron Randell. I couldn’t really put anything over him. He half turned his head and gave me a wink, deadpan, reminding me for the moment of Granddad.