Keri Hulme - The Bone People

"Ah c'mon Simon honey, don't break your heart… Morangi? Nobody's suggested there. Where is it, north or south? I'll try and find her, I really will because I been looking allover already, truly now," watching tears trickle down into the gutter of the child's smile.

"Fuck me, why can't they see you're missing your home so much?"

Calm down man, everything works for the best… made an impression on Greeneyes here though. That smile is rueful and knowing and about two hundred years old. Who's the child?

He leans over and kisses the boy quickly and tenderly, and then sits up.

"Look Simon P Gillayley, I'll work on things from my end, but you'll have to be doin something too."

You'll get hung, man, this ever comes out… inciting rebellion and riot in minors, shithot!

"It's like this. If you settle down and get happy in this place they're sending you tomorrow, that's fine, it makes everyone happy, they were right, you see?"

He says Yes like an ancient, still crying noiselessly.

"But if you show you aren't happy — and I don't know how you goin to do that, everyone will start to see they've made a mistake, okay?"

Standing, looking down at him stranded on the bed.

"So don't hold everything in, honey. Don't behave like you've been doin here, all quiet and good and do as you're bid. If you stay biddable, they goin to ignore you, right? They'll think you're happy, right?"

The odd eyes hood. The boy gathers himself up, and curls round his pad as he writes. He holds the note out to Sinclair, sitting still, one shoulder hunched higher than the other, head angled against it, staring at the man.

His eyes might be washed by tears but they're hard and bright, the pupils retracted to points, emphasising the glittering sea-colour.

I WAS NOT GOING TO BE GOOD. I WAS GOING AWAY.

Sinclair laughs, his black eyes full of fire.

"Great souls suffer in silence, and us great minds think alike? Simon child, they don't know what they've taken on!"

Right, thinks Simon, right.

ii

"The one that smells like a two-bit whore? The one with the hippy jewellery? Brother, you've got to be kidding!"

Brother Keenan leaned back in his chair.

This isn't a good idea at all, he thought tiredly. Who else can we ask though?

He said in a mild voice,

"I don't know about the whore part, but yes, he's the child who wears the earring and the necklace. He does use scent, but it has some meaning for him we haven't been able to find out. It is not because he is particularly effeminate."

The other man snorts. He still looks affronted.

What had Brother Antony said? "Pat O'Donaghue," the brother has a rich Irish brogue, and the congenial syllables fairly melted from his mouth, "he's oh, a shortbacksides man I suppose. But a good man, now, a good man. A sergeant in the North Africa and Italian campaigns, rugby player once, now a referee. A father of seven, all good children and most of 'em married, but always room in his heart, God bless him, for a foster child or two. Pillar of the local church," says Brother Antony, "Holy Name society, parish council, Legion of Mary, and good for a tithe of whatever he earns."

Not the sort of person I would pick myself for this child, thinks Brother Keenan, but who else, who else?

The other man is saying,

"Beats me how you let him get round like that. I mean, you could take it off him."

"What? Scent, or jewellery?"

"All of it! Struth, he looks a proper little queer, untidy hair and scruffy jeans and all that muck on him."

Brother Keenan presses his fingertips together, and looks at them fixedly.

"I mean, there's all the kids in uniform and looking smart and healthy, and there's him… and you expect--"

"We don't expect anything of course, Mr O'Donaghue. Brother Antony thought," emphasis, "thought you might be able to help."

He lets the chair rock forward.

"You see, it's not a case of letting him go round, or taking his things away from him, or making him wear what the other boys wear. It's a case of giving him enough love and security for him to realise that he doesn't have to behave outrageously for people to notice him. We don't think we can give him that. That's why we are looking for a suitable foster home."

The other man nods.

"You know a lot of our children are disturbed. You've looked after some of them yourself," another nod, "so you can appreciate that disturbed behaviour takes all kinds of forms. This child insists on carrying as much of his past around with him as he can lay hold of, at all times. In a self-destructive fashion, he invites our criticism, our disapproval. It reassures him that we notice him, even if only in a punitive way."

He leans the chair back again.

"When he came to us from the Masterton Hohepa home, we knew he would be a difficult child to look after, and to place."

He reaches into a drawer, and takes out a file.

"He was sent to Masterton from Christchurch hospital in October. He ran away the second day after he arrived. He didn't get very far on that occasion — he has difficulty in walking distances — but one week afterwards, he was picked up twenty miles out of town. He'd apparently hitched a ride. During the next three weeks, he set fire to a garden shed, provoked several fights with other members of the Hohepa household, destroyed quite an amount of their play equipment, and absconded a total of seven times. On the last occasion, he was picked up on the Picton ferry, and nobody knows how he got that far, or how he got on it. He's an uncommonly resourceful child — in what he thinks are his interests. But the Hohepa people, understandably, can't appreciate that kind of resourcefulness. They have the rest of their people to consider, so they gave up. The Social Welfare sent him to us."

"Sounds a charming sort of a boy."

Brother Keenan looks at him. "Curiously, he is. Or can be, on occasion. However, he is totally uncontrollable."

("An uncontrollable seven year old? Aw, come on Brother!"

"This is a seven year old who is very different to any other seven year old I have ever encountered. And I have been involved with children in church organisations for nearly thirty years. I have seen a great many seven year olds."

"But there must be dozens of ways you could put a bit of pressure on him, to make him toe the line. For his own good, he needs to nave a bit of…."

"May I tell you what has happened since he's arrived here? So you will be completely in the picture, and can make a wise decision?"

"Oh sure, Brother. Fire ahead."

"He's been here a month, yes, arrived November the fifth. He was wearing the shirt and jeans and jacket and gear you've seen him in. As always, we removed those and gave him one of our uniforms. He didn't protest at first. But the following day, he simply took off all the new clothes, and refused to wear them. We explained, we cajoled, we even threatened — to no avail. We thought, he needs a little time to settle in, and after that he'll accept the uniform quite happily when he sees he is differently dressed from everyone else. He is quite happy to be differently dressed from everyone else, however. He still refuses to wear any clothes other than the ones he arrived in. When they're being washed, he wears nothing. And if they look a little scruffy," peering at the man opposite him, "it's because they're apparently the clothes he was admitted to hospital in, or was given there, and he's been wearing them ever since. We attempted to trim his hair. He tried and nearly succeeded, in stabbing Brother Antony with the scissors, and when held, screamed himself rapidly into hysteria. We haven't tried to cut his hair again."

"Aw, but good heavens, what's a bit of an uproar when — "

Brother Keenan interrupts,

"You haven't seen or heard him scream." He adds drily, "It's quite a performance."