Keri Hulme - The Bone People

Jesus oath, says Simon to his heart, what was that?

Frightened to look, but looking anyway, twisting his head off the floor until his neck creaks.

But there's one hell of a blur hereabouts. . caint see no thing Claro.

Shrug, shrug, kneeling up, and shuffling on his knees to the cupboard, hip aching like it's fresh hit. That's beer. I don't want any damn beer. Sniffs in the next bottle he pulls a top off.

Again. Delicious.

He nurses this bottle carefully to the cup's rim, and pours a bit

in.

Chocolate. Thick and syrupy and sweet.

So clink! knocking the bottle, cheerful again, here's to you Kere and to you Joe he says kindly, silently, sprawled against the cupboard held by his arm, clink, and that's for me eh Clare, and he drinks to them all.

Kerewin stares.

You wouldn't believe it. You couldn't.

You come in, feeling clean and straightened out and high on holiness, and what awaits?

One drunken kid, lying hunched and untidy all over the floor. Snoring like a bluebottle.

Two bottles overturned, and alcohol rife through the air.

O hell, look at the window!

She shakes her head in disbelief.

Two hours and he does this much damage?

Man alive, a six year old debauchee-

Her heart mourns the window (but I can buy another one).

She walks across to the cupboard, avoiding the puddles (O tatami, you weren't got for this… to be good and golden for bare feet not to be… I hope that's drink… still, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always turn it over…) and digs him in the ribs with the toe of her foot.

No response. Not so much as a blink or an off key snore. He dreams on oblivious, sound in his stupor.

It would be kind to let him sleep it off. I'm not kind.

So she picks him up, her heart kicking with a kind of misgiving at his lightness, and climbs the spiral to the shower, and turns the water on at needlespray and coldest. For a minute he lies under the blast, limp as a skin in her hold.

Then he jerks, and screams.

Highly startled, she drops him. She has never heard him scream before.

"He screamed, my God could he scream. He's a fluent screamer-"

It's a fierce high agonising to the ears sound. The child goes on screaming. He starts to fight the cubicle walls, the floor, the water, in a blind panic to get anywhere out. She watches, pulled back clear of his flailing arms.

He's not seeing where he is. He's terrified.

Then, understanding part of his terror, she reaches in and turns the spray off.

The boy crouches in the inch of water, shuddering and retching and sobbing. He is sickly white, and he hasn't opened his eyes yet.

"Simon."

It stills him a little. More shivering and gasping, but the screaming panic is done. So she repeats his name again and again, kneeling down by the shower stall.

Conversationally she says,

"Did you think that was the sea or something? The same water where you almost drowned? I'm sorry, it was a foolish thing for me to do… I didn't think deeply, you see. I just said to myself, the urchin's riddled out of his mind. So many sheets in the wind there's none left to steer the ship with. So get him sober fast. And how to do that? O easy… like in the song, you know it?"

Singing softly,

"What shall we do with a drunken sailor,

ear-lie in the morning?

Put him the scuppers with a hosepipe on him-"

"Only, there's just a shower here. No scuppers, no hosepipe… but it wasn't the wisest thing in the world to do, I admit that now."

He is nearly quiet, only the occasional whimper, though his breathing rushes yet.

She sighs,

"Actually it was a bloody stupid thing to do, eh?"

Godgodgodgodgod, thinks Simon.

It is a beat in his head in time with the drips. With the steady

splat of water running on to the cold steel floor under his hands.

In time with the aching pulses in his thighs and back and

chest and legs.

But listen: snap. Cigarillo case. It is Kerewin.

Scrape of match, and a flare of flame.

The water is nearly all out of his ears.

There's a rattle as she puts the matchbox away.

"So hokay? You know where you are now? Third floor the Tower, all over the shower… or are you still a bit under the weather?"

He puts out his hand, groping blindly, and Kerewin takes it, holds it gently.

"Sorry about that, Haimona. I sure as hell didn't mean to frighten you… wake you up in a rough fashion, yes. I was nasty, I meant to do that. But not to scare you, really."

He shakes her hand, goes to shift upright, and his other hand slips under him and he skids forward on the shining steel floor nearly chinning himself before Kerewin's grip pulls him up short.

"Sweet hell, boy, easy."

She leans in and lifts him to his feet, steadying him out the door.

Rat-tail hair and soaked clothes, a sodden sorry sight.

"Struth fella, talk about a joygerm… but I don't suppose you feel like smiling."

She has conned that the tears are still running off his face mixed with water. He can feel it, the way she's looking.

"I think you'd better have a proper shower," says Kerewin gentle voice "Then you'd better go to bed for a while… I forgot about that bloody flu you're smote with. Help us undone with your clothes, e Sim."

It is because I am tired, he weeps helplessly. I can't stop. I can't say. I can't.

We've had it, he thinks. It's finished and it's all my fault.

He is shaking again.

He can't remember when he last felt this sick.

He makes no protest, gives no resistance. He even helps undo buttons and slide off clothes.

And Kerewin didn't say a word.

Except when he was naked, she took one of his hands, and turned him round carefully, supporting him so as not to make his head spin more, and then she tipped his face up towards her, and stared into his drowned eyes, as though she were seeking a meaning to it there.

"Why didn't you say anything?" There was pain in her voice, "Why did you keep quiet?" but he shook his head.

And that was all she said.

Day into Nightmare.

What the hell do I do now?

O I know what I'm supposed to do. Ring up Child Welfare and report the bloody mess he's in.

"Excuse me, I know a small child who's getting bashed… it looks like he's been thrashed with a whip (but I hope to God not)."

I can just hear it.

"You've known him how many weeks and you never suspected

he was getting so badly treated?"

"Uh, well, he's very good at hiding his pain."

I can just hear it.

She is furious with herself, not only because she must have hurt

him.

Joe, you good kind patient sweetnatured gentlefingered everloving BASTARD.

But I knew all along, herr Gott. Something always felt wrong.

No, I didn't. I had suspicions when he was here with his face battered.

But he never said it was Joe, and Joe didn't admit it was him. I've seen him slapped.

Hell, everyone slaps kids.

I really didn't know. I really didn't. Just the nagging feeling that something was wrong between them, right from the first. Christ, no wonder he always sleeps in that twisted fashion.

Joe.

(No more chess.)

(No more gay and grogging nights.)

(No more joking ritual of meals.)

(No more sweet and drifting conversation.)

(No more heart-sharing.)

(The end of the dream of friend.)

Joe Bitterheart Gillayley, what on earth possessed you to beat up Simon?

I mean, Simon.

That's Haimona, cherished and cuddled and kissed.

That's Haimona, quickwitted laughing eyed and bright all ways.

That's Haimona, all three feet nothing and too few pounds of him.

So okay, he can be a fair little shit at times, but you know why he is.

God in hell, even I know why he is. It's the sick twisted secrecy of it.