Keri Hulme: The Bone People

Rich red ash on the ledge of the fire. There are bones under it. They begin to inch forward, wriggling like maggots. She prods them back, but there is a suffocating weight on her chest and she falls under it. She recognises the weight as a head, Joe's head, his black hair curling dreamily round the sawn bloody edge of his neck.

Something screams.

Her family stand with bird spears, laughing and chattering, and poke at her in the pit. Fat bubbles break around her ears, cracking with rich shit voices that sneer You? You? You? She calls to her mother, her brothers, Help me out! her sister, Give me a hand! but the bone tips of the spears pierce as they push her under.

Something screams.

The seagull cry, the world wound.

God!

It's not the gullcry that perturbs me but all the waves falling on the sand….

in the quiet, the dream sea resounds like a wind, crying round the hills.

Eighthly

I feel obscurely wet.

It is very very cold.

That little toadstool over there, the one with the pale grey cap? Look at the perfection of its gills… see? Delicate, shadowed, full of subtle silent life… it tastes watery. In fact, it doesn't taste damnall.

There are little pearls all over this grass!

More toadstools over there.

Come on, c'mon, no need to cram. They grow in circles, you can get plenty if you crawl right limberly.

Somehow I can't get warm. I feel cold to my very bones.

But I haven't got bones now. They're fired, dissolved, earth to earth again.

"But if I had bones mister, I did say if, what would they show in the cold? The skeletal leftover… and she was rough flesh, blunt and gentle and silver-refined. Above all, she was incredibly incurably sense-able. To all modes, declensions, conduits and canticles of feeling — she would never, could never, stop being conscious. And thinking of herself. Her gift and her burden. Not bones."

"What do you love?"

"Seriously, my only lonely love, what do I love?"

(Dreamily smothering the drops of frozen pearls over her body.)

"Hey you! You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"What do I love?" musing on it.

"Very little. The earth. The stars. The sea. Cool classical guitar. Throbbing flamenco. Any colour under the sun or hidden deep in the breast of my mother Earth. Ah Papa my love, what joys do you yet conceal? And storms… and the thunderous breaking surf. And the farout silent waves… and o, dolphins and whales! The singing people, my sisters in the sea… and anything that displays gentle courage, steadfast love. The still brilliance of garnet, all wine, water of life and bread of heaven and grave shimmering moon-"

"Yes — can you stand?"

"Sure, anything. Whoops! Those pearl things are berloody slippery y'know."

Chanting,

"Rain jetting, whirl of gut, cut and shielding skin, let me in, let me in, o it's me, Kerewin — "

Steady on her feet, bare arms spread, stopped in surprise, "but not me alone. He's the bright sun in the eastern sky, and he's the moon's bridegroom at night, and me, I'm the link and life between them. We're chance we three, we're the beginning free."

She sighs.

"It don't make sense but it's the only sense, and o lady of the southern land, dear dear to me are my loves."

"Yes. That is good."

Of a sudden, crystal distilled clarity. A small dark person, all etched sharp. She blinks and it splinters. "I can't see you any mind more." She murmurs it sleepily.

"You will." "I have just discovered," says Kerewin. And fell.

Life is lonely.

Foe we all are,

one apart from the other.

There is a time, when passing through a light, that you walk in your own shadow.

Lastly

All fall down. But gone on up. A funny feeling. Light as a balloon, light as a cloud. She raises herself easily on an elbow, floating upright, and looks toward the fireplace, and there, poking through the ashes, is a thin wiry person of indeterminate age.

Of indeterminate sex. Of indeterminate race.

Browned and lined, and swathed in layers of old blanket weathered and sundyed. Silver hair. Silver eyebrows. A massive burnscar for half a face, with mouth and eyebrows wreaked and twisted by pink keloid tissue.

Watery eyes. Snaggle teeth.

It says, coming over and bending in by the bunk,

"You can understand now?"

The whispery hoarse voice has no accent: a flat papery enunciation of words.

"Kkkik," says Kerewin, meaning Yes.

Her mouth and throat are webbed with mucus, strings of it, thick and partly dried.

She swallows, but it isn't much better.

The odd head vanishes.

"It doesn't contain your, hur, additives."

She takes the profferred cup with a shaking hand. It takes seconds to steady her hand, more to bring the cup to her mouth. She drinks deeply-A

sour brew. Red currant juice? Here? After she drains the cup she holds it out.

"Thank you."

Questions are swivelling round her like small green bats. She is half-inclined to swat some of them.

"That's okay." It takes the cup carefully. "I'll be going now."

"Who are you though? I owe you sanity, if not life, I think."

"O, you'll live long enough," it answers. "And your mind would have straightened, you're lovestrong enough. I just cleaned up a bit." The snaggletooth grin. "My name wouldn't mean anything, now or later. You're an artist by the look of things. I saw your sketches. And your writings. So paint me down, write me down. That'll mean something."

It pulls the blanket wrappers closer, and glides towards the door.

"There isn't any debt of gratitude. I didn't really do anything."

It chuckles, a croupy bubbling wet-level version of. its speaking voice.

"See you round," and vanishes into the misty outside.

She drifts back to lie down in the sleeping bag again.

Her body is a fined down version of itself, but itself alone.

The thing that had blocked her gut and sucked her vitality is gone.

A growing fire of joy flares through her as she sinks into sleep.

it

It's a dismaying face, encompassed in a pocket mirror. Thin and rigid under layers of peeling skin. Panning the mirror down, migod whatta sight. Wizened dirty skin.

The great muscles gather and stretch under my foul hide, feeling a way out. Slack belly… folds of flab, but better than deadly mounds… and breasts dangling, not in the natural aging curve though. All the fat flesh has melted and left bare gland in a flap of skin.

"A bit close to the skeletal for comfort, my soul."

And,

"Hell, this place stinks." Sniffing again. "Correction. I stink. Like an old fart or stale stale."

Away with the mirror and the horrid scrutiny, and arrange a spring clean. Even though it's getting on for summer.

Bless the dear little soul. As well as cleaning up the shit, it's filled the tank. And stop calling it 'it': yer got yer one great invention,

remember Holmes? The neuter personal pronoun; ve/ver/vis, I am not his, vis/ve/ver, nor am I for her, ver/vis/ve, a pronoun for me, (slopping another tin of water out ready).

She boils the water and scrubs herself down while the stones heat,

mess tin of hot to. billy of cold, nice lukewarm blend to which we added schloop, a dash of disinfectant and generous amounts of soap-

By the time she's clean, the stones are ready, not hangi-hot but hot enough. She piles armloads of manuka on them, and then pours a bucket of water over the pile at a time, while she stands on the springy bed.

The steam is hot and aromatic.

An illusion, dear heart, but it feels like all my individual pores are unplugging and gulping it in. And what they're sweating out is nobody's business,

rubbing herself down with a cloth and sweating on gleefully.

Can you get drunk on manuka steam? O pungent o resinous o beautiful plant, none of your tender buds which died today died in vain-