Keri Hulme - The Bone People

The budgie hasn't been covered, the milk hasn't been taken in… looks like nobody has been here since this morning… so much for hunches, thinks Kerewin. Anyway, if Joe is happy about him roaming all round the show, why should I worry?

As she walks out to the gate, the smell of the sea comes strongly.

Of course, she thinks, it's only a couple of hundred yards to the wharves.

The smell of the sea was the smell of blood. He didn't know why the two should smell the same, because they were very different, but they seemed to be inextricably mingled.

Where one was, there was the other.

From where he knelt, it was easy to watch the Tower door.

Kerewin had left. Joe hadn't arrived.

He unwrapped the sack from round himself, and stood unsteadily, shivering.

It's all quiet.

Stupid Clare, he says inside himself, as he limps towards the Tower.

He has called himself that, Clare, Claro, ever since he can remember. He doesn't know if that's his name, and he's never told it to anyone. He has a feeling if he does, he'll die.

Stupid Clare, again and again, with each halt step.

If he hadn't thrown the plate, he wouldn't have got the kicks.

On the other hand, if he hadn't thrown the plate, it might have got worse.

As it is, his face is hot and numb at the same time, and he is lightheaded.

I hope it is warm. O Clare, I hope it is warm.

Joe stands beaming at the door.

"Tena koe!" he cries. "Haere mai, nau mai, haere mai!"

Two or three of the regulars look up from their beer.

Shillin' Price says, "Gidday Kerewin." The barman nods to her.

Joe yells,

"Meet Pi! Missus! And Polly!"

There's a group of people in this corner. Shrouded in smoke, the brown faces stare at her with bright unfriendly eyes.

"Tena koutou, tena koutou," she says, "tena koutou katoa." As always, she wants to whip out a certified copy of her whakapapa, preferably with illustrative photographs (most of her brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins on her mother's side, are much more Maori looking than she is). "Look! I am really one of you," she could say. "Well, at least some of me is-"

"Tena koutou katoa," she says again, lamely.

The old lady Joe had called Missus looks at her keenly, grunts, then says "Hell hell hell."

Polly Ackers spares a glance from her cardplaying to grin at Kerewin, glower at Joe.

"Your turn, fuckwit," she says to Pi.

Pi Kopunui (Joe enlarges, "Pi, he's a cousin on my mother's side eh." High pitched giggling. "Most of them are Tainuis of one kind or another") picks up a card, lays a card down.

"Game," he says briefly to Polly Ackers, then turns to Kerewin.

He comes across and hongis. He is warm and big and smells strongly of beer. "Tena koe, kei te pehea koe?" he says, hugging her. "Joe's said a lot about you these past weeks."

He whispers, "He's got a skinful."

A skinful?

O, he's drunk….

Very

He's very glad she came, Joe tells her and the whole pub, six or

seven times.

Kerewin begins to think of many reasons why she should suddenly go back home.

But after another jug, the man quietens, pales, excuses himself. He comes back looking rather more sober.

The old lady grins.

"He puku mate, nei?" Hell hell hell.

She has a husky kind of chuckle, like a mummified laugh.

Joe grins back at her, weakly. "Ae."

a moment later he says, "Kerewin? Like to come have a meal now?" His voice lowers,

"Sorry about all that."

"That's okay." To hell, everyone gets drunk once in a while.

"I was uh worried that you might not want to come out with me."

"I see."

"I've got a meal arranged-"

"Well, we might as well have it then."

He looks round the pub.

"Piri was coming along too, but I don't see him. He must have flaked."

"At the New Railway as a matter of fact."

"O?"

"The phone operator mentioned it. When I asked him to ring round and find out where Simon had got to."

Joe grips the back of the chair.

"O, Himi's okay. He'll be with the Tainuis."

"He won't. They're over the hill. Still. And he isn't at your place either. I checked."

Anger is welling up in her. Joe doesn't give a damn where the child has gone. And he must have known the Tainuis weren't home when he rang her.

O yes, he knew all right.

His head is downbent, and his knuckles have gone pale on the top of the chair.

Pi is looking at him, and shaking his head slightly. The old lady has stopped puffing her pipe. She holds it inches in front of her, poised and still. Polly is frowning, her eyes fixed on the cards.

Joe sighs, relaxes his grip on the chairback, shrugs.

E hoa, I'm used to him going off, remember. He knows how to look after himself. That's why I'm not worrying much. Everyone Knows him, eh… hell, I expect Morrison or Trover any moment."

There's a forced cheerfulness in his voice.

The other three are all looking at him now.

"Don't you worry, he'll be okay." He reaches for her shoulder, laying his hand there. "But thanks very much for taking a look for him."

She hasn't watched his face fully. She has been looking at Pi and Polly and the old woman. They have all looked at each other and then down at the table, and avoided looking at Joe again.

She has a strange feeling that a chance has passed, but she could not describe the nature of the chance, or even why she feels there was one.

For the first time since they met, she feels alienated from Joe.

All the while she ate and drank and talked smoothly, inconsequentially, the feeling that there was something very wrong between them grew and grew, until there was a wall up.

A glass wall: she talked, watched him respond to the words, watched his words come at her, made a suitable reply. Nothing communicated.

She was glad when Joe said with embarrassment that it ah was rather late, and uh, he would have to get up very early to check on his son's whereabouts, and ah-

His face looks slack and debauched and aged.

"Right," she said cordially, not looking again at his ruined face, "thanks for the evening. I'll see myself home, and if the boy turns up, I'll let you know."

The door is shut.

She had left it pulled to, with the handle on halfcock.

She knows he will be inside.

"Sim? You there?"

Her voice echoes.

No whistle. No fingersnap. No sound.

She shucks off her jacket, and goes silently up the stairs.

No sound yet.

The fire has died down. The coals are coated with ash and little light escapes, but there is still enough for her to see the shape of the child kneeling on the sheepskin mat, head on his arms, arms resting on the hearthbox.

"Haimona? Simon?"

He doesn't stir. His breathing is even, but somehow thick.

Stupid kid, out all day and caught himself a cold I'll bet. And that's a damned uncomfortable position to sleep in. But then he's got a knack of going to sleep at peculiar angles.

She lights the lamp, stirs up the fire, moving quietly.

The child doesn't move.

At last she says, "Hey Haimona," taking him by the shoulders.

Bed for you, boyo, and berloody oath, that means I get the sleeping bag and the floor again, and

Shit and hell.

The child looks up at her, and there's the ghost of a grin on his battered face.

O hell, you haven't been asleep-

Then he turns away, his hand holding hers, and his hand is shaking.

"O shit and hell," she says aloud, but this time she moves, crouching down beside him.

"o hell, boy, what've you been doing to yourself?"

As gently as she can, she turns his head back, hand under his chin. He doesn't resist but he keeps his eyes closed.

His eyelids are swollen, buddhalike, and purple. His lower lip is split, and blood has dried blackly in the corners of his mouth. Bruises across the high boned cheeks, and already they're dark.