Keri Hulme - The Bone People

The boy looks at him, eyes glinting in the firelight, saying nothing. Then he smiles, and leans over, and bites Joe's hand, hard as he can.

"Shit!" the man gasps, hissing with pain, and pulls his hand to his mouth. "Bloody brat, what's that for?"

Aroha, mouths the child, grinning, aroha, and his smile is wickedly broad.

Joe sucks his hand until the ache dies, then holds it out in the firelight.

"Look at that, you…."

Neat set of teethmarks, halfmoon on one side, quarter circle on the other.

"Aroha my arse, utu more like," says Joe ruefully. "Drink up your milk, and we'll go to bed."

Lying awake in the night when no-one else is, warmed by the boy at his side. (Simon is asleep, face down on the man's arm. Kerewin hasn't stirred from her close inviolate solitude.)

My hand hoods, holds your head against my palm. Shifting his arm a little,

You are still too thin, but you've always been slight… and

it's been better since Kerewin arrived. Well, not so much arrived

as you discovered her… I wonder what she really thinks of

us?

Me?

She never shows anything much.

She's still wary of you. I can't imagine her cleaning up after

you… what'd she say if I mentioned you wet the bed every

so often. Probably be very cool and polite about it. "O really?

Well, lack of control over micturition in children Simon's age

isn't uncommon, particularly in moments of stress." Taha,

Ngakau, you're putting words into her mouth. You don't know

what she'd think.

He lets his hand fall, away from the child's head.

Himi, what are we going to do? It's all very well for you to tell me to hush up, but what am I going to say tomorrow? How am I going to look her in the eyes now? Same way you been doing it before, you great pretender.

He reminds himself, It's been okay today. Been all right this week… when did she find out? And how? He wouldn't tell, because of what he said, it makes him look as though he's been wicked.

He is, sometimes.

Flicking matches, and stealing.

And when he loses his temper, he can get vicious… what had

Piri's kid done to him? I was the one doing the teasing, and

who nearly got his brains bashed out? Timote, the bystander…

yeah, but who treats Himi viciously when they lose their

temper?

He shifts uneasily in the sea-hushed dark.

There's trouble at school… I don't know what it is, but there's trouble going on… Jesus, why does he have to go to school? He's smart enough to do without it. If Kerewin would only have him for a while… or I could stay home… it's too much of a struggle to get him along there every day, even though everyone seems sympathetic now. Even most of his classmates.

O but he learned early on that his handicap made him peculiar, and having only one parent wasn't normal, and not knowing his

original parentage or background or even his proper name, was downright wrong.

And how've I helped with all that? mourned Joe. Not going to school triggered off the first time of all.

The air is sweet, but his lungs hurt as he takes in great gulps of air. There is no other sound than the persistent ringing chorus of treefrogs. No lights. No questions. No more cries. O, what did you do that for?

You must be sick, man. He says it aloud, experimenting with a statement of guilty excuse. I must be sick, but who can I tell? And abruptly his noisy breathing changes to sobbing. A grown man down on his knees beneath the cool moon, crying out the pain in his heart and the guilt in his hands, with no-one to hear him anymore.

("Except me now," whispers Joe. "Neatly two years later, I can hear me cry-")

It left a gap. It made a wound, for all the child's reacceptance of him. He'd gone back inside and cared for the boy as best he could, all apologies and endearments and tender loving care… and curiously Simon hadn't reacted with his earlier extreme fear at being held or thwarted in anything. It was almost as though he had been expecting it for a long time, and was now dully relieved that the worst had happened. The odd marks, the man remembers, the marks which had puzzled the people at the hospital… maybe even before… but he looked at me without resentment or fear, just looking. Observed me without communicating, He seemed to understand that time, how close I was to breaking point… but now? He must think it's just me taking all my woes out on him. That's not what it is, but he gets punished so often he probably doesn't believe I'm belting him just for wrongdoing. Or does he think he's that wicked? Good for nothing else?

She'll know I'm bad.

And is he now waiting for Kerewin to assault him too?

Joe shudders.

At the moment he'd rather cut his throat than hurt his son, but he knows from broken past resolutions, that come the morning if the child is sulky or rude or baulks at doing what he's told, he'll welt him with a cold and righteous intent. You've been bad, tama, and you're sure as hell going to learn… do I hate him then? But how can you hate someone and not know it? I love him. I just get wild with him every so often. Like I told him, it doesn't even seem "he him I'm hitting. His disobedience or something, I don't know.

Ah, you're screwed up in the head, Ngakau… and elsewhere, but it all comes back to the head.

His penis is erect, proud under his hand. He begins to relieve himself, cautiously but mechanically. He can hear Kerewin's quiet breathing, a woman asleep a yard across the way. A mile away.

God, what makes her tick? She must feel like this sometimes… but she never shows it. She's as distant as a stone. I've never seen her excited by anything except odd colours and archaic words… and she hates touching. She even avoids Haimona's hugs and kisses, and as for mine… ha! Yet Hana was as ready as me, strong for love any time, right to the night they took her away from me… someone, sometime, must have hurt Kerewin. Like I've been hurt and putoff. But hassles with Himi aren't because of lack of sex. I was celibate for that year before I met Hana and anyway, I can get it now when I like… not that enjoyable, just bodymeeting, but it shouldn't make me cruel. I was never cruel to anyone then.

He shudders slightly and then relaxes, eased.

The child hasn't stirred. Still as if he's fainted. Still as if he's dead.

What happens if I damage him badly? Or kill him?

He clenches his teeth.

Like when I fought that shit Luce over his sneer that Himi would get to prefer the boys too, under my influence. "The look in your eyes, Hohepa, when you talk and kiss, my god, it's hot enough to turn me on at twenty paces distant, let alone the pretty child himself. There's something very appealing about the half wild and the half broken-in — and you know what I mean by that, sweetie. And the way he kisses back… did you teach him? From Taki? Not from Hana, I guarantee,

that puha mouth couldn't kiss-"

"Shut your mouth about Hana. And shut your mouth about Taki. That's dead past and not to be spoke-" "O, I told him, dear. And do you know? He giggled. Fondly. Dear old Daddy, he loved the idea. Positively deelighted in — "

Wham. Straight into Luce's fine high nose.

And afterwards, he had gone home and yelled Simon awake. He had begun by scolding the child, but angered by his sleepridden look of bewilderment — deliberate, he's hiding behind it, I know his slyness — had finished by belting him until he fainted. Staggering then into the kitchen, sick from the party, sick from the fight with Luce, sick with this. But the only way to be less sick is to drink more, so the best part of half a bottle of whisky, searing down his

throat. Muttering "Fallen boy, fallen boy," and remembering the sad sweet months with Taki. I knew it was wrong, I know it was unnatural, but he was gentle, he was kind, I loved him and it was good.