Keri Hulme - The Bone People

How to pass across one nearly comatose brat who is quite

securely entwined round my vertebral column?

His arms are anyway, scores the snark snidely. A child as a

muffler? Come now-There was a young lady, from Munich

I think, who anxiously said, with embarrassment pink, I can see that you're staring, at the scarf I am wearing. Well, it's kidstuff arranged in a rink.

Ooouuhh.

She stares into the fire as Joe takes the child to bed.

The last time I kissed was with my elder brother, before the big breakup. His kiss tasted of rum. That one's kiss tasted of raspberries, from the drug to keep away dreams. What sort of dreams does he have that are so terrible?

Jetsam, she ponders. The old meaning was goods thrown overboard to lighten a ship… dreams of being left, bereaved, dreams of drowning while your people sink in the hungry waves?

"Joe," as he comes back and closes the door, "do you mind me asking about what you said last night?"

"Not at all. What was it?"

"When you said, apropos of Simon's age, meet some jetsam?"

"O that. Well, it was strictly true for one thing. It'd take a while to explain… are you really interested? I haven't had anyone aside from people in pubs to talk about my odd child for months and months and months."

"I like listening. I we got time. And I'm curious to know what makes him dream nightmares at his age."

"Don't ask him," he says seriously. "He can't explain it to himself, let alone me, and he hasn't enough words to tell other people about

"

He stretches.

"Ooooweee… e, would you like some more wine while I talk? There's a bottle left still, and I meant it all to go with dinner." He stands waiting. "O, and just in case you think I have bad designs, I don't think you do, but just in case and with apologies for raising the subject, I'm not intending to take advantage of you in any way. You know," he has darkened with embarrassment, and fumbles for more words.

"I didn't even think it."

You lie in your teeth.

"You said tea, Joe. It was delicious. My mind ends at my stomach anyway, but I certainly didn't think you were playing some underhand game with it. Like the old-fashioned Drink is the downfall of many a nice girl," she throws back her head and laughs. "Besides, I think I could drink you under the table where wine is concerned. I've had lots of practice."

"So have I," says Joe sadly, "but you'd like the wine?"

"A very good idea."

He lay on his back on the floor,' his arms crossed over his face, and talked. Or rather, recited, as though he had memorised what he wanted to say a long time ago. "Three years back, in early spring, we had a storm of unusual intensity. That's what the radio called it. We called it a bastard. Quote: The town of Whangaroa in the South Island was lashed by a storm of unusual intensity today. Several houses lost their roofs, and a garage near the centre of the town was totally demolished by fierce gusts. Two people are believed to have drowned when a launch was driven onto the southern tip of Ennetts Reef about two miles north of the township. The police are seeking information on the survivor of the wreck… That's getting ahead of things, so I'll unquote." Joe smiled over his arm. But they also mentioned that one of Ben Tainui's prize heifers was; a casualty. They raise Charolais, y'know.".Yeah really?"

Yeah, really. Anyway, about four that afternoon, one of the s round the Head phoned the police to say a launch was in

difficulties off the reef. The sea was rough but the coppers asked a friend of mine, Tass Dansy, if he'd take the boat he used on the Chathams run, and go and have a look. See if he could get a line to her. There were no other craft here anywhere near as good as Dansy's for heavy seas, eh. They tried, Tass and his mate, and two coppers, for over two hours. Tried to get close enough to send a line over for a tow, and by that time the wind had reached sixty knots and was still rising. Eventually, the launch banged into the end of the reef. The coppers and the mate saw three people go overboard, a man holding a child, and a woman. But Tass swears to this day that he saw another man slip over the bow, and he thought there might have been someone else as well. He was in the wheelhouse and had the best view, so he's probably right. But we only found three. They put out a call for volunteers to search the beaches after the launch went down. I went. Hana was seven months gone at the time, but she was okay, and I didn't worry about leaving her alone in the storm. This old place'll stand up to more than that sort of wind."

He sighs.

"Here I am, walking the beaches in a bloody howling gale with seven other mugs, and wondering what on earth possessed me to do so. We were strung out in a long file along the shore. Trover, he was a constable here then, shouted out after about half an hour. I never heard him above the wind, but I saw his arms wave us in and came running. He had found the man, and a very obvious body he made, too. His head had split open on a rock when he came tumbling through the surf. The cap of his skull was sliced off and his brains washed out. It was like a cup, his open head, with the face still there on one side."

"Grisly." She begins to see why the child might have nightmares.

"O Himi wasn't with him," Joe somehow catches the tenor of her thought. "Anyway, this bloke. His face was nice, pleasant, open. Relaxed somehow, as though he didn't care about dying. He was tall and beautifully muscled, a body like an athlete's. He was naked, his clothes probably torn off during his passage in, but none of them were ever found. I never saw his eyes open. Trover radioed the copshop to say we'd found one, and the station 'phoned for an ambulance to come from 'Wera, and we kept on looking. You know my cousin, Piri Tainui?"

"I've met Piri for five minutes, when he picked up Simon on the weekend."

"Yeah. Well, he found the woman. She had drowned apparently. The other constable, some foreign name like Kosinski or something, but he was a nice bloke, tried artificial respiration. It didn't work. Because the lady had a broken neck aside from anything else, the pathologist said. She was partly clothed in a loose blouse thing, with a thonged sandal somehow still on her right foot. Her toenails were

painted black. She was well-shaped, but flabby. I remember thinking, God help me, that she looked a right tart, lying there spread among the weed. Her hair was hennaed. It might have been blond at some stage. The bloke had black hair, by the way, but crewcut. The woman had blue eyes and they were wide open, staring as though she couldn't believe she was dead. She had a watch on her right wrist, which is a bit unusual. The glass was smashed, and it proved useless for identification purposes. Her clothes weren't any help in that line either."

He sits up, and lights a cigarette.

"About half after seven, I was sent back along the beaches, while the others went to scour the far east of the headland. It was dark, very dark, and the wind hadn't dropped any. I had to fight to keep on going, to stop myself from being blown backwards. I hadn't gone that far when I saw something at the water's edge. I thought, ahh Ngakau, it's a weed tangle again, get going. The shore was littered with them, and it wasn't the first time I'd mistaken one for a body, eh. You started seeing bodies everywhere, you know?"

He looks down at the stream of smoke flowing out of his cigarette, shaking his head. "Then I saw his hair… long then, even longer than it is now. He was thrown mainly clear of the water, but a high wave from the receding tide would drag at him. He was front down, his face twisted towards me as I ran skidding over the sand and weed. There was sand half over him, in his mouth, in his ears, in his nose. I thought, I was quite sure he was dead. But I cleaned out his mouth and nose, and pressed water from his lungs, and breathed for him."