Keri Hulme - The Bone People

"That's the helmet's worry… look, truly, I'll go slow. There's not likely to be any traffic till we get to town. And we stick Sim in front as usual. I get caught," shrug, "I get caught."

Okay," she says dubiously, and slides the helmet gingerly over her head. She puts on her denim jacket as they go through the

entrance hall. Sounds are distant and muted through the fibreglass. Joe is talking to Simon, and she can see Simon answer, but she can't follow what's being said. She gets smiles from both of them, whenever she looks their way.

Even behind the man's broad shoulders the wind struck into her face. Swept across her eyes, stinging them to tears, and whipped round those curls stranded outside the helmet. And it was cold. The blow of air against her face bit through her lips and chilled her teeth. The lack of balance she felt, no control over speed or direction, made her feel unaccustomedly small and powerless.

She shut her eyes until the bike stopped, because seeing only the dark was better than the blur that rushed past previously. Not fast, the man had said: then what was speeding like?

"Sheeit," says Kerewin, standing unsteadily. "Remind me to buy a car." She takes the helmet off: her mass of hair is crushed and subdued.

"You know what?" she asks the grinning Gillayleys. "My teeth are numb. What the hell does pork taste like when eaten with numb teeth?"

Unanswerable-

So here we go, walking creepfooted into the Gillayleys' den, following the hand-in-hand two of them.

A neat lawn bordered by concrete paths. No flowers. No shrubs. The places where a garden had been were filled with pink gravel.

The hallway was dim, an unshaded bulb dangling from the ceiling, no carpet. There was not a suspicion of dust anywhere, nor any sign of flowers.

Joe sprouted from a doorway.

"Kitchen," he says. "Come in."

The kitchen is gas-heated, square and bare, almost institutional in its unadorned plainness. Table and four straightbacked wooden chairs. Battered fridge with chipped enamel; stainless steel sink and bench; a scarred clean cooker. There's a decrepit Coronation tea caddy on a shelf over the bench, with a saucer holding soap and sink plug beside it, and at the end of the bench, there is a canvas-covered birdcage on a stand. She is surprised by that, although she can't say for why.

Joe invites,

"Sit down, make yourself at home," and goes on busying himself with the pots on the cooker.

Simon slides round the door. He has a way of edging into a room very close to the doorpost furthest from anyone. He goes to the birdcage, slips off the cover, and snaps his fingers. Joe looks round automatically, and the boy gestures to the cover. "I forgot, and it's your job anyway. Feed him while you're at it."

The bird is a budgie of inquisitive green: it has no sense of occasion or time, cracking its beak and twittering as though the day has just begun.

She looks at it politely while Simon deftly slips in seeds and shows where it runs up and down a ladder, and looks at itself in a mirror. She dislikes birds in cages.

"Get a bottle out of the fridge Haimona, and give it to Kerewin to open, eh."

A semidry white wine: the top snaps off and a very small cloud of whitish vapour oozes out.

Simon makes a noise like Frrrsh, flinging a hand way in the air.

"You'll go frrsh in a minute if you don't give us a hand," says Joe, coming over with a pile of plates and cutlery.

"Sorry. Forgetting my manners," says Kerewin. "Can I give you a hand with the spuds or something?" and Joe smiles, remembering his own offer.

"Nope. Just nourish up your appetite."

"Rightio."

"Haimona!"

So the boy brings the salt cellar and the pepper grinder. A butterdish. Mustard already mixed in a pipkin. A dark sort of sauce, smelling of plums. Pulped apple spread on a wooden plate. A bowl of salad greens that sends fingers of scent stealing all round the room. Garlic, a mild vinegar, lettuce, and is that chicory?

"This appetite is in danger of becoming uncontrollable."

"Zoom," says Joe, and whips across the room with a haunch of basted brown pork on a platter. He waves it back and forth directly under her nose. "Kapai?"

"Ahhh," mock swooning off her chair to be an untidy heap sprawling on the floor, and he nearly drops the lot, giggling.

She must enjoy this. And if bloody Haimona doesn't wreck things, maybe she'll want to come back again.

He scurries back to the stove, an incongruous movement for his wide-shouldered figure, and begins ladling out the corncobs.

Simon is already kneeling on his chair, sharpening his knife and fork together.

"Quit "at," growls Joe when the boy does it in earnest, making a sharp metallic squealing that sets all their teeth on edge. Simon stares back insolently, but stops the racket.

We'll fix you, tama, you keep behaving like this.

But he fills the three glasses smiling, and goes to his seat, and still standing, gives the toast. "Kia ora koe," to Kerewin. "Kia ora korua," she says in reply. While the wine goes down, she thinks

What's strange? No pictures, no flowers, no knicknacks I can see? Maybe, but not all homes have that sort of thing. Is it the barren cleanliness, the look of almost poverty? Contrast that with the brandnew 750 c.c. bike he's got and this wine liebfraumilch doesn't come cheap.

The pork is meltingly well-cooked, full of the sweet slightly gamey flavour of a beast fed in the backbush all its short life. The salad is excellent, and the corn good enough for frozen stuff.

"You're no amateur when it comes to cooking, eh?"

He is strangely bashful. He mumbles under his breath, and Simon mouths SPEAK UP SPEAK UP so obviously that Kerewin sputters and chokes on her wine.

"Shuddup," he pushes his child's hair all over his face. "No more wine for you, smartass."

The boy's been drinking with them glass for glass, although his glass is considerably smaller. Still, his face is flushed and his eyes too brilliant.

"I like cooking," says Joe, "so what do we have for tea? Mainly fishnchips… I'm generally feeling too tired and it's a helluva lot quicker and easier. No dishes either. But every so often, I like to do something special, like this. I learnt how, off Hana. Man, could she cook-" his voice trails away, and he stares over Kerewin's head, his eyes glazing. Shakes his head sharply after a minute and says roughly,

"You touch any more wine and I'll belt you, guest or no guest."

Simon had sneaked himself another glassful, grinning conspiratorially at Kerewin.

Now he subsides to the back of his chair and scowls sulkily at his father.

O dear. It'd spoil the meal if they fight-

She belches quietly, and says, peacemaking,

"That is the best meal I've had since lunchtime, bar none. Seriously, Joe, it was splendid."

Joe brightens, stops scowling back at his child.

"You liked it truly?"

"Man alive, it was, he, kapai"

He squares his shoulders, and the sour expression vanishes.

"I'm glad. It is a small thing to offer you, but I hoped you'd like it."

"So much I'll even offer to do the dishes, and that, friend, is unheard of from a Holmes. At my place, I leave 'em for a month or so until I run out of plates."

"Uh uh. That's my job, and his," jabbing a finger at Simon.

He stands, slightly unsteady, they've drunk three bottles of good German wine between them.

Well, you've got a relief for tonight." She heads for the sink. "E!" he calls out. "We'll leave them for the morning. Let's go sittinroom. I've built a fire. The room'll warm in no time."

to the sittingroom.

He shows her over the house first, the child beside her, holding her hand again, and making surreptitious comments with his fingers. All of them are lost on Kerewin who is using most of her attention to stay straight and look sober.