White Ghost Girls

Alice Greenway

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781843544401
• eBook ISBN: 9781848877788
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction
A Radio 4 Book at Bedtime Two sisters grow together and apart into their emerging selves. Frankie pulses with curiosity and risk; Kate is watchful, all eyes and ears. Immersed in the heat and colours of Hong Kong in the 1960s, theirs is a world of fishermen and insurgents, temple gods and ghosts, of blinding light and dark, dark waters. As Frankie's behaviour becomes more and more outrageous in her defiant attempt to win her parents' attention, Kate retreats into a quiet desperation, unable to act to save the soul for whom she would sacrifice everything - Frankie.

Copyright

First published in Great Britain in trade paperback in 2006 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

This paperback edition published in 2006 by Atlantic Books.

Copyright © Alice Greenway 2006

The moral right of Alice Greenway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Atlantic Books

An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

First eBook Edition: January 2010

ISBN: 978-1-848-87778-8

Contents

Cover

WHITE GHOST GIRLS

Copyright

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

twenty-four

twenty-five

twenty-six

twenty-seven

twenty-eight

twenty-nine

thirty

thirty-one

thirty-two

thirty-three

thirty-four

thirty-five

thirty-six

thirty-seven

thirty-eight

thirty-nine

forty

forty-one

forty-two

forty-three

To Timo, Annie and Eliza,
and in memory of Theodore,
with great love.

one

What can you give me?

Can you give me a back alley, a smoke-filled temple where white-hooded mourners burn offerings and wail for the dead? The single chime of a high-pitched temple bell? The knocking of a wooden fish?

Can you give me hot rain, mould-streaked walls, a sharpness that creeps into my clothes, infests my books? The smells of dried oysters, clove hair oil, tiger balm, joss burning to Kuan Yin in the back room of a Chinese amah? The feverish shriek of cicadas, the cry of black-eared kites? The translucent green of sun shining through elephant ear leaves?

Can you give me a handful of coloured silk? An empty pack of cigarettes? A tape recorder? Narrow, stepped streets, balconies hung with shop signs, laundry strung on bamboo poles, rattan birdcages? A ripened pomelo split open? The chalky bone of cuttlefish?

Can you give me my father’s hand in mine, Frankie’s in the other? Then take everything and go away?

Because if you can’t, it’s not enough. And if you can, I might leave anyhow. I’ll head for cover. Disappear in jungles of triple canopy.

Out in the harbour, at the end of summer, fishermen feed the hungry ghosts. They float paper boats shaped like junks and steamships. One is double-prowed like the cross-harbour Star Ferry which plies its way back and forth between Hong Kong and Kowloon, never having to turn around. The fishermen load each...

Table of contents

• Cover
• WHITE GHOST GIRLS
• Copyright
• Dedication
• one
• two
• three
• four
• five
• six
• seven
• eight
• nine
• ten
• eleven
• twelve
• thirteen
• fourteen
• fifteen
• sixteen
• seventeen
• eighteen
• nineteen
• twenty
• twenty-one
• twenty-two
• twenty-three
• twenty-four
• twenty-five
• twenty-six
• twenty-seven
• twenty-eight
• twenty-nine
• thirty
• thirty-one
• thirty-two
• thirty-three
• thirty-four
• thirty-five
• thirty-six
• thirty-seven
• thirty-eight
• thirty-nine
• forty
• forty-one
• forty-two
• forty-three