Keri Hulme - The Bone People

you a hand with tea. Then we'll play a chess marathon, and you can have the pleasure of wiping me out piecemeal and tidy every game."

He grins. "I'm not a very good player."

Kerewin grins back. "I am," she says.

We came on the bike, he'd said. Him in front, because then I can be sure he's not going to fall off. He's good at falling off things-

The bike was parked on the other side of her bridge. He had a

what he called 'Morning after emergency kit' there-"You know

how it can get, you wake up feeling like yech, so I carry the basics with me. Washing gear and a spare shirt, and gear for Himi in case it's needed."

He went into the night to get it, carrying his son.

She was taking the skeletons out of the flounders, wielding knife and scissors with practised skill, when the man arrived back in the kitchen level, child leaning against one shoulder, a dufflebag over the other.

"Nice walk," he says gaily. "It's still drizzling though."

"Yeah, I can see it on the window there eh."

They look on with interest.

"You a cook or something?"

"Or something."

She is filling the flounders with neat little mounds of pale green celery and yellowish pineapple. "Really I'm just a brilliant amateur. In everything," she adds sourly.

"It looks very nice. Though I never seen that done to a flounder before," watching her sprinkle parsley on top of the fish.

"O, it's past caring what happens to it now."

She slides the flounders into an oven dish and the butter sizzles round them.

"Twenty minutes or so, and they'll be done."

"A hint, tama. Come and show us where this shower is. I never had a Tower shower before," giggling as they go out.

Overpowered, he cowered, glowering amidst the flowers,

and she sits by the fire spinning-over compositions for the sheer hell of it. That's an odd child. And an odd man.

The coal sinks down in its red bed, and the little violet flames run flickering over it.

She wanders across the room and lifts her golden guitar down from the wall. It is easy, leaning over the ambered belly, to put thought through a filter of slow-picked arpeggios.

An odd child, with its silence, and canny receptiveness.

Orange-red sparks climbing in skewed lines to die out in the glimmer dark pile of the soot.

An odd man, looking so bitter until he smiles. A harmonic bells out under her fingers.

Why the wariness and drawn-eyed look of the child?

Why the bitterness corrupting the man's face?

And why, above all, the peculiar frisson of wrongness I keep

getting from some of the conversation?

O it's riddles, and no thing of mine,

and she quickens her chording to a heavy downbeat strumming.

In the bathroom, Joe can hear the guitar, the rhythm of it rather than the chords: the walls are too thick for more.

"She can play… dry yourself," to the boy, as he begins putting on his own clothes.

His body is squat and heavily muscled, except for his legs, thin-calved and spindly.

A long pale scar runs over the brown skin, from his right shoulder blade down in a curve across his ribs.

"You've been lucky as hell this time," watching the boy dress, grimacing at the child's thin body. "Behave yourself, Haimona. Don't let's spoil it, eh."

He says meditatively, "It would be nice to have a friend again, somebody we could talk with who wasn't a relation."

The boy raises his eyebrows.

"Out, and be careful of your heel."

When the boy has gone, he looks round the bathroom. He gathers the used towels — she's dead keen on this dark green colour, everything's it — and as he picks them up, something falls ringing to the floor.

A broad gold circle with an inset stud of greenstone.

"O shit, o sweet Christ."

Simon had stood there, dressed himself there, and that had fallen from Simon's pocket.

"O you bloody little sod."

He thinks a minute, rubbing the back of his neck, We done already? Because bloody Himi can't keep his hands off anyone else's gear? and then he leaves the ring on the sill, next to the basin.

The boy slid in through the doorway, and went over to the fire. Kerewin, armed with knife and spatula, was maneuvering whole flounders on to plates. Joe came in, holding out the towels. "Chuck 'em on the floor there, I'll see to them later," and she

gets the last fish out without breaking off so much as a sidefin bone.

"That smells like good food. We timed it nicely, eh?"

"Perfectly."

"Would you mind if I put something on his foot first? I've got something to say to him too, but it'll only take a minute."

"Fine, go ahead," and handed him the first aid box.

He went to the boy and spoke in a low voice, so low it was almost covered by the rattle of the crockery and cutlery she was laying out.

But it was still loud enough to hear:

"E noho ki raro. Hupeke tou waewae," and the boy sat quickly, looking at his father wide-eyed. "E whakama ana au ki a koe."

Kerewin was wide-eyed too by now, shuffling the plates discreetly louder.

Really? You're ashamed of him? And more pertinent, why? And I don't think I'll disclose meantime that I can speak Maori.

"Kei whea te rini?"

She stole a surreptitious glance.

The boy flushed violently, reached for his back pocket, and then the colour drained out of his face.

Joe bandaged his foot, and didn't say anything more until he finished and the child stood. Then he hit him hard across the calf of his leg. The sound cracked around the room and Kerewin looked up sharply.

"Kaua e tahae ano," as the boy staggers straight, and then Joe turned to her saying,

"That was just…."

She says evenly,

"The ring was borrowed more likely. I have so many I wouldn't miss one or two. Still, thanks for caring. This dinner's getting cold while the beer gets warm."

He stands openmouthed.

Well, you've certainly got all your teeth.

"E korero Maori ana koe?"

"He iti iti noa iho taku mohio," she answers blandly.

"I don't know whether to be delighted or horrified," his heavy shoulders fall. "I don't know whether he was going to bring it back or not, but it fell out of his pocket when he was getting dressed, I think. I'm very sorry, but I left it upstairs and I hoped you would…."

"Don't be. Hell, you want to see what I used to pinch as a child. It's not stealing properly. It's just something takes your passing fancy, so you take it to amuse yourself with for a while."

"He will learn not to steal," says Joe, his mouth tightening.

"Yes." She turns round, hearing the slipping step come up behind

her, and looks into eyes that are now intensely green. "Help yourself to fish or fandangles here, I don't give a damn. But tell your father first. Saves trouble, eh?"

It wasn't the stealing that bothered him, or the blow she'd bet. It was being found out.

But the grin he was offering was pure bedevilling merriment.

"So okay," Kerewin shrugs, "and how about tea?"

Simon poured the beer: the head took half the glass.

"Spoiler," said Joe.

It settles down, a hundred thousand bubbles snapping out, cream diminishing to clear brown liquid.

"I'll pour my own, thanks" she said, and did, ignoring the child's pained expression.

She settled comfortably back, hand curled round her glass, and watched the chequered board.

Joe was the sort of player he said he was, not very good.

"A while since you played?"

He smiled ruefully. "I used to play at college. Then I played my wife a few games, after I quit there. I haven't played since she, for a while."

The hesitancy, the catch in his phrasing. He doesn't like mentioning her death.

She considered her next move for two seconds before making it.

"O hell." Joe screwed his eyes shut. "I should have seen that two moves back." He opened his eyes and sighed. "Sim, get my smokes from your bag, eh." He looked at Kerewin,