Keri Hulme - The Bone People

The silence, o my soul, is getting awkward again.

She hums to herself, while stoking up the range.

He whistles and she looks round. He sits down, and takes off the dufflebag he carries.

Takes out two parcels, one large and wrapped in very greasy brown paper, the other small and neatly folded in a black silk wrapping. He beckons.

"Gillayleys bearing gifts?"

She crosses to him and sits down too.

Four mutton birds, plump and pale. "E hoa, I've sent lunch-"

"Succulent. Do you like 'em, boy?"

He nods, and pushes the silkwrapped bundle to her.

"Joy, another whatisit."

It is more difficult to open this one. The wrapper is a scarf, and the ends have been knotted together again and again.

"This is to keep something in? Or me out?"

There's no answer.

We're not in a very communicative mood today, are we? Sullen urchin.

She resorts to using her teeth on the knots.

"Ah, got it."

A small battered case of black morocco. She sniffs the leather. Under the smell of the hide is a subtle musk, which grows stronger as she holds the case in her warm hand. "Fascination. Now, how do we get in?"

There is no obvious fastening.

The boy takes it, and presses the two front corners. The top lifts slowly as he hands it back.

"Thank you,"

and all expectant we lift the lid to find, and what she sees is entirely unexpected.

It is a rosary of semi-precious stones. A Christian rosary presumably, because the beads tell decades, lots of them, each decade separated from the next by large beads carved from turquoise. The decades are alternatively of coral, the red Italian kind, and amber, and each begins and ends with a bloodstone.

There is no crucifix. The beads trail off from a small gold plaque, and the chain that joins them ends in a solitary link. There is a ring on the rosary. The chain of beads has been broken and rejoined through it.

She looks at it closely. A signet ring made of very soft gold. 22 carat. There is a curious coat of arms engraved on the ring. A long-necked bird like a heron, with wings outstretched, is nesting in flames.

"A phoenix, bejabbers."

The bird was engraved over a saltire. There is fine lettering round it, but incredibly, it looks as though someone has filed that down so it can't be read.

"This is magnificent," holding it up. "Is it yours?"

He shakes his head, pointing at her.

"Mine? Do you mean as a gift? Like hell!"

The boy takes out his pencil and pad.

YOURS

"My dear child, you do mean it as a gift for me?" He nods. "But you — or Joe — can't give me something like this. It's beautiful, but also valuable."

She loops the decades round her hand: the beads are cool and smooth. "Superb," she whispers to herself. "Flame and water, earth and air… amber and coral, turquoise and bloodstone."

She hands it, almost reluctantly, back to Simon.

"It's like, o like something you are offered but which really belongs to a family. Do you know about Te Rangi Hiroa and the cloaks? No? I'll tell you sometime, but for the meantime, I have touched your gift, appreciated its richness and your intention, and that is enough for me."

The rosary hangs in her outstretched hand, swaying.

IT IS MINE I GIVED IT TO YOU.

"Gave," she says, her head bent. "You can't, boy. I know it's yours to give, all right," but she's remembering the ring last night, and wondering where this might have come from, "but it is too rich a thing to give to a chance met friend. I thank you for your thought, truly, but it remains your rosary."

Rosary. He mouths the word, closing his lips on it as though tasting the sound.

"Rosary… you didn't know the name of it? Do you know what it is?"

His face is troubled.

IT'S MINE, thumb jabbed back at himself several times.

"Yeah," she says gently, "it's yours. It's also something you use when you pray. Joe hasn't told you?"

No.

She draws the loops through her fingers, counting off the decades. "Unusual. There's the full fifteen here. Most rosaries today are really chaplets, and have enough decades for only one set of mysteries." Ah, look at him Holmes, you're spouting garbage and gobbledygook

as far as he can make out- "Generally, only those used by religious

have fifteen decades. I've got one myself, a pleasant ebony and steel-linked one, complete with brass medallion and silver Corpus, obtained long ago from a Cistercian."

This one, gold and gems, seems too worldly for a religious to handle. Her fingers arrive at the plaque again. Squinting, she can make out a monogram, much worn as though someone has fingered it for years. The letters flow into one another, but look like gothic M.C.de V.

She can't think of a Latin tag that fits the letters. Mater Compassionem de Virgo? Not only bastard Latin, but it doesn't sound orthodox.

She turns the plaque over. There's a surprisingly clear intaglio of the icon, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

"Well, well."

She adds after a minute, "The beads keep track of the prayers you say, tell you what kind of prayer to say next. You ever want to know them, I can teach you."

He makes no move to take the rosary.

She hands it to him again, so close that he can't avoid taking it. He frowns, and writes on his pad. Then he kneels up and puts the rosary over her head, passes her his note, face tight, mouth tight, all of him condensed and taut as though ready to spring or explode.

IT IS YOURS I GIVE IT TO YOU

Ah hell, what do we do now? Give it back and precipitate a scene?

because there is a rising flush on the Gillayley face and his tension is becoming almost unbearable.

Instead, she makes the circle of beads into three loops, and settles them round her neck.

'Okay, I thank you very much for your gift."

I can always sneak it back to Joe. Oddly, the rosary feels comfortable and familiar, clinking against

the Sufic maze. And more oddly, the small boy is delighted with himself for succeeding in giving it away. Relaxed as water now, positively hugging himself for joy of it all.

Nutty child.

"Umm, d'you mind telling me what this is for?"

He shuts his eyes and shakes his head.

"You don't mind me asking? Or you're not telling?"

The pad and pencil are slipped deliberately back into his pocket.

Which reminds me. No more initialling each note. I musta got into the familiar category, or some damn thing.

"Then what's it for?"

The boy goes on shaking his head, so his hair falls screening his face.

The way it flows out with each turn of his head reminds her of the skirts of dancing dervishes as they spin to ecstasy.

Exceedingly nutty child.

"Her. Well, we'll leave the matter there then." Gets to her feet, and puts the mutton-birds into the range oven, in an unlidded baking-dish.

"Come on," she says to the entranced child, "downstairs and help us collect some puha to go with them."

The muttonbirds turned golden in their own rich fat: the puha steamed quickly in water. Kerewin cut slices of brown wheaten bread and left them unbuttered. Then they feasted. Muttonbirds have a lot of bones, some dark, some pale as bones should be. They licked each one clean of flesh and fat, and wiped their fingers and faces on bread before eating it. Picked up puha in their fingers: its slightly bitter taste was astringently refreshing. A mouthful of bird, and one of bread, and a fingerful of puha, and then back to the bones.

He had muttonbird fat on his face, in his hair, all over his hands. And breadcrumbs… gone was the neat precise eating of the weekend. This was hog in and enjoy.

And I probably look as bad, feel as good.

At last she said, leaning back against her chair,

"Do you know what was in that note from Joe?"