Ghost Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

We talked about leasing some space in the forecourt. They wanted people to come on the weekends, and offer some different services. The banks and the Post Office and even the butchers were closed on the weekends in those days, but the department stores like Venture were open, and I suppose they thought some novelty stands would be interesting.
    It was quite a thrill to be in business. I got a certificate of registration from the Department of Small Business, which said, ‘Proprietor: Marg Cooper.’ Thatwas something! Ken put it in a frame and it’s still there, in the lounge room. My idea was to take portraits of local children and present them in a nice way, so that parents could display them in the home. I can imagine the rigmarole you’d need to go through to do something like that these days: a ‘working with children’ check, a police check, you’d need liability insurance. In those days, I had a sturdy table and a nice backdrop of blue sky and clouds. Ken helped me choose a camera, and off we went. I wasn’t interested in becoming a millionaire. I’ve got my Lotto tickets for that! I charged what I thought was fair: $5 for one portrait and $10 for a package. If they wanted a plastic key ring with a small picture inside I would charge $7 extra for that.
    Barrett wasn’t a rough place. I will say that things have changed: I’ve moved out of our original house and I’m in a unit now, and you do get more Asians. I saw some young men the other day, as black as the ace of spades. I know what Ken would say, ‘We’re the white dots on the domino,’ but they are perfectly nice people. A family of Somalis has actually moved into the unit next door and I have no problem with that. They’re not Muslim. It might be different if they were, but these are Christians just like you and me, except they cook their food in the garage, and the smell is often quite strong.
    Back then, when the thing with the Cashman boy happened, it was mostly young Australian families and people like Ken and me, retirees. You had your badelements, but you get that everywhere. There was Housing Commission on the estate but not the old kind, not those ugly towers, just a house here, and a house there, designed to blend in. Unless you knew, you would never have realised it was Housing Commission, although I’d say everybody did know.
    I read about the incident with the Cashman boy in the newspaper. I remember it, the same as I remember the day the mill burnt down and we all came into the street to watch. Perhaps it’s because we weren’t used to that kind of excitement.
    Anyway, I was at home when I heard about it. I used to get The Sun home delivered. Kids would go out before dawn on a bike with a milk cart lashed to the handlebars, and deliver the paper. I suppose none would be bothered now. I’m told they have too much else to do already, what with the sports and the studies and the time they have to spend on Facebook. On that day, I remember, I picked up the paper from the lawn and turned to put the jug on, and when I turned back, The Sun had unfurled and there, on the front, was one of my photographs. I only had to look at it to know it was mine. I immediately remembered little Jacob. First, there was the hair. People today say, ‘Oh, they were called the Ghost Kids,’ but I never heard that, and anyway, against my blue-and-cloudy backdrop, they didn’t look like ghosts. They looked like angels, really quite heavenly angels. Then, too, I remembered, the man who came with them, the one who went to prison.Maybe I’m embellishing it a bit now, but I seem to recall that he didn’t have proper shoes, he had rubber thongs, and he had that way of walking where they’d slap across the floor. I just hate that noise. I feel like saying, ‘Pick up your feet,’ and maybe I did say that to him. I’ve said it to enough people, I know that.
    I do remember that he was wearing football shorts – shorts, with bare legs, no socks, it’s all okay