Keri Hulme - The Bone People

piri, bitterly:

"Not long ago he could read and write better than my ten year old, and now look at him."

"Given enough time, and the right kind of care, he'll read and write as well as ever he did, I think."

"Yeah?" says Piri, with a world of doubt behind the sound. He looks down at the note Simon is holding for him.

JOE OK AND WHERE AND K PIRI HOW LONG I HERE CAN I COME HOME

"Don't worry if it's a bit scrambled," says the doctor. "He's getting there, but it takes him time."

The boy keeps his eyes fixed on Piri's face in a disconcerting unlevel stare.

Piri looks over it, over to the doctor.

"I can make it out, but it's not how he used to do it. And bloody hell, would you believe the first thing he asks is how that prick is?"

And while the doctor blinks over that, Piri writes swiftly,

JOE'S FINE. HE'S IN JAIL. I DON'T KNOW WHERE KEREWIN IS. YOU BEEN IN HOSPITAL FOR TEN WEEKS, HIMI, AND YOU HAVE TO STAY IN A WHILE YET.

The boy reads it, and reads it, and reads it again, as though the words don't make sense, while Piri begs him in his heart not to ask any more questions.

These bastards haven't told him anything, and no way am I going to be the one who breaks his heart. How can I say he hasn't got a home any more? That Kerewin's knocked down her Tower and apparently gone for good? Or that my triple-dyed shit of a cousin isn't his father any more?"

He avoids Simon's eyes then, too. He writes, GET BETTER QUICK. I WILL COME BACK NEXT WEEK, ignores the fact that the child is obviously loaded with more questions and imploring him with his eyes to stay, and gives him a fast final hug.

It can be Lynn's turn next time, thinks Piri, this is killing me,

patching the doctor handle Simon, reluctant and upset, back into bed.

He doesn't wave back when Piri waves him goodbye.

He keeps the tobacco packet for days.

He takes it a question and answer at a time, working them out in his mind. Joe okay?

Yeah, writes Piri, Joe's fine.

That's good. I didn't hurt him then. He's fine.

That's not why he can't come.

Where's Joe?

In jail, Piri's reply… but why's Joe in jail? Was it the windows? Did he get the blame because I was in here? I hope not, he'll be wilder than hell. But why else?

That is why he can't come though…. Jail, he means jail, ah yes, penitentiary. Aside from the penitential part, says Kerewin, floating out the door and going down the Tower stairs… where would she be but at the tower? Piri knows, he's been there.

But where's Kerewin?

I don't know where Kerewin is, writes Piri. Which means she must have gone away.

Why has she gone away? Because Joe's in jail, and I'm here?

And I've been in here how long?

Ten weeks. Ten weeks! That's a hell of a long time.

And I can't come home because Joe's in jail, and Kerewin's gone away because he's in jail and I'm here.

It starts to tie itself in knots, the question and answer way. But the crux of it is,

You'll have to stay here a while yet, Himi.

How long's a while yet?

For days he asks it, writing on the pad they gave him (it isn't paper, but a square of plastic with a transparent sheet on top. You can write on it with your nail if there's nothing else, and when you lift the transparency, the words vanish.)

WHEN AM I GOING HOME? SP to all and sundry.

"You're writing very well today, Simon," and the male nurse hurries away.

WHEN DO I GO HOME? SP

"When you're better, dear, I expect." The wardsmaid smiles, and goes out, shutting the door on him.

WHEN DO I GO HOME? SP

"As soon as you're walking properly, we'll be thinking about that… excuse me, Nurse Campbell, would we have…" the pediatrician called Fayden lowers his voice and he can't hear any more.

WHEN DO I GO HOME? SP

"I don't know, Himi, only the doctors can say that," Lynn shakes her head and smiles and cries at the same time. "Your hair's growing nice… you like those grapes eh?"

Chatter chatter chatter and say nothing. It's her third visit, and her last one, because they're taking Marama home this weekend.

("Don't tell him we won't be seeing him again. . Jesus!" he says explosively, "I'd rather see him with Joe again than stuck in a home. He'll rot there."

"I still don't see why they won't let us have him — " "Because we haven't got much money and we're Maori and we're not really relations and we got four kids already and another one on the way. . ahh Lynnie, don't cry, I didn't mean it like that," Piri trying his consoling best.)

WHEN DO I GO HOME? SP

"Come off it, young man. This is getting past a joke."

Ploy number two: if they won't answer you, don't answer them properly until they do.

So, seven times the audiologist has asked, "Do you hear that?" and each time he has handed back the pad with the same question on it, a bland expression on his face.

The man is red in the face, and saying things under his breath.

Simon watches the muttering with interest. As well as getting to hear quite a lot with the help of the amplifiers he wears, he's got fairly good at lipreading.

"You're well on the way to becoming a first class bloody nuisance," says the head nurse of the children's ward the next day.

He's been showing an interested group of ambulant children how far you can piss if you really set your mind to it i.e. right down the stairwell. He doesn't look apologetic.

He writes, WHEN DO I GO HOME? SP (Plot three: be a nark.)

"As soon as I can arrange it if you keep on behaving like this!" she snaps, and is instantly aware that that was the wrong thing to say. There is a demoniac glint in the crooked green eyes.

Now there's nothing else for it, she thinks, or God knows what he'll be up to next.

"I think you'd better come into my office a minute, Simon. I have something very important to tell you." She holds out her hand.

He ignores it, but follows her, heart beating hard.

It had dawned on him days ago that They didn't have any intention of sending him home. And the suspicion has been steadily growing ever since Piri and Lynn stopped coming, that They don't want him to have anything more to do with the people he knows. Both things would have broken him before, but today's child is way harder than the gullible soft-hearted Clare of four months back, he thinks.

They stare at one another.

The woman:

It should be Fayden doing this, he can handle you. . why do I always feel uneasy? Your appearance? Thin so your bones show,

eyes vividly alive now despite the bruised-looking sockets, hair regrown to a spiky aureole concealing all the damage except for that crooked face… you don't look child-like, more a shrunken bitter adult… or is it the way you move, that lurch, a drunken sort of scuttle when you want to get out of our way? Or the way you refuse to accept us? You're a cool arrogant bandit of a child; you don't owe us obedience and you show it hourly, by the minute if you can… and Fayden jokes about it, eggs you on… can't he see you need a good stable place to grow up in, a place of kind authority, a normal background at last? Can't he understand as we do, that "home" means, "When am I better?" — not really going back to that, that ghoul-

Simon keeps his mind blank. He just stares at her.

She takes a deep breath.

I know we're right, and Fayden's wrong.

She checks that the door is shut, and switches on the Don't Disturb sign. She pitches her voice more loudly than normal.

She explains, using simple terms, why Joe was sent to jail, what custody is, why he has been removed from Joe's custody.

"He was never really your father, you know, it was never properly finished, you see?"

She explains what a handicap is, what multi-handicapped means, what normal means.