Keri Hulme - The Bone People

"I think you've pulverised its skull," Joe is staring at the fish with horrified fascination. Then he shakes himself. "Hoowee, if we'd lost that after all," turning smiling to his son, "I don't know how we'd ever…

"O God," he says in a sickened voice, several seconds later. "Look what he's done."

Put a hook deep in his thumb.

The spine of the groper was severed. It was bled, wrapped in the remaining wetted sack, and stowed under the middle seat. She chopped the trace off, leaving the hook still in its mouth. She cut through the nylon above the hook in Simon's thumb with more care, holding it below her cut so the hook didn't move. She examined the thumb very quickly. "It's in too deep," she said, and put the first aid kit back in the locker.

The boy sat and looked at his hooked thumb. His face was back to being a waxen mask.

Kerewin wound the starter cord round, and the motor started first go. She kept it in neutral.

"Ready?"

Joe picked up his son, saying, "All right, stupid," as he did. But he held him as though the child could break in his hands. "Ready," he answered.

She slipped the motor into gear, and swung the bow round for Moerangi beach.

Joe steps onto the sand, still holding his son.

"Take the car. The keys are on the old bach mantelpiece."

He frowns. "What for?"

"The nearest doctor is at Hamdon. That's too far to walk."

"The nearest doctor he won't fight is three hundred miles away. I'll take it out here."

"Ah, come on, that's minor surgery. He needs a doctor."

She turns round as a wave breaks near the stern of the boat.

Simon swallows. He whistles for her to look, but his throat is too dry.

"Ah, Kerewin…."

She turns back. The boy shakes his head, deliberately, emphatically.

"And that means no doctors eh?"

They stare at her, same set faces, drawn mouths.

"Aue. Well you better go away and do it then." She shrugs and sighs. "I'll put the boat away and fix up the fish."

"You manage the boat by yourself?"

"There's a winch up there. I can do it, easy enough."

"Okay." He turns away.

"Uh Joe…" and he swings back quickly.

"There's a flask of brandy in the top cupboard. If you give him quite a bit, but slowly, it'll probably make things a whole lot easier. For you both."

"Yes." He turns for the baches again. "Thanks."

She removed the gills from the groper head, and put it in a separate bucket. Good for soup, and plenty of pickings in groper cheeks.

She gutted the fish itself and thought in the middle of doing so, "Damn, we should have a picture of it whole. Though if I stick the head back by it, it might give an idea of the size-"

Gutted, and the head off, it weighed over forty pounds.

"Impressive, urchin, impressive."

The gulls that have gathered shift off at her voice.

The cod take longer to process. She fillets each one, and the gulls return, swooping and shrieking over long pink intestines and yellowish glands and skeletons and skins.

She saves a few filleted bodies for cray pots.

The trevally and the terakihi are simple to do: she removes the heads, and flicks out the entrails, and scrubs the bodies clean.

She packs all the fillets and bodies, except the groper, into three buckets, and trudges back to the baches.

Joe is playing his guitar in the new bach. She kicks on the door.

"Ju-hust a minute!" he sings out. "Hello!" he says gaily, opening the door wide, "that didn't take too long."

O star of the sea, who got the brandy?

"No," she says warily. "Would you put these in the fridge," poking at the terakihi and trevally, "and just leave the rest in the buckets? I'll be back in a bit. I've got to collect the groper yet."

She passes the buckets over. "Sim okay?"

"Fine, fine. Grogged up to the eyeballs, and an interesting slice out of his thumb, which, curiously, he seems quite proud of. He wants his fish, I'm not sure whether to take to bed or not." Joe smiles and smiles at her.

"I'm getting it."

"Good." He picks up the buckets and shuts the door.

"That was very bloody peculiar somehow," she says to herself, and stamps away back down the beach.

Inside the bach, Joe pours another glass of mixture, for himself. Port and brandy, horridly sweet, but he swallows it straight down. He's buzzing with anger inside, like a stirred-up wasp nest, but he's determined not to let it out.

She could have thought. She could have offered. If there was two of us, one could have held him steady, and the other cut. Even Himi can't hold himself still while someone's hacking into his hand.

The boy had been passive and giggly with drink when he laid him on the sofa.

"Do what you like, yell or kick me, Himi, anything. I'll be quick as I can." He had held the boy's hand in front of himself, so Simon couldn't see what he was doing. Cut, and hold the cut wide, so the barb pulled out doesn't rip flesh further.

He had thought it all out carefully, coming back in the boat, everything: what knife, which antiseptic, what to staunch the blood with, even how to make butterfly stitches — because he couldn't see either of them using needle and thread to seal the cut.

Blessing the first aid course taken so long ago at Teachers' College, he had got it all in his mind, so they could get it done quickly and smoothly, with as little hurt as possible. But he hadn't thought of Kerewin choosing to ignore them. Or that the hook would be rammed into the soft bone. Two yanks to get the bastard thing out. It makes him sick to remember it, and he can't stop thinking about it.

"Another one for you, e tama?" his voice is controlled, his smile in place.

After four glasses of port and brandy, Simon's nearly out to it. He's feverishly flushed, and his eyes keep closing when he wants them open. He makes a very limp Yes with his right hand. At the moment, all he wants to be is asleep. His left hand aches abominably. He keeps starting to think about why Kerewin wouldn't help, about what she said in the boat — he shies away from the words again, but the voice is back, and the songs are starting to sing themselves in the dark that is growing around.

("You sweet effall useless Clare, you caint do no thing right.")

Joe comes in slow motion, saying something gentle, and holds the glass steady for him to drink from. He smiles hugely at him to show that every thing is allright.

She sneaked back to the old bach for her camera. At the boatshed of the black bach, she arranged the groper corpse so that it looked

intact if you didn't look too closely. She laid a yard rule alongside it, and took shots from three different angles.

"Now you'll have something permanent to show for your efforts, Simon P Gillayley."

As well as another scar, says the snark.

Ah shut up, Kerewin tells it. I don't want to think about that.

She struggles back along the beach, weighed down by the groper, telling herself all the way to forget it, getting more upset and angry with every step. Coward, coward, you can't stand anything else's pain, hide it away, darken it, sweep it outa sight and mind.

Why did the stupid brat have to grab the nylon anyway? I was managing it okay… just when everything is starting to flow nicely, that berloody kid turns it into a disaster area again.

She sticks the groper in the freezer in the new bach boatshed. He wants the damn thing, he can go get it for himself.

She pushes open the door belligerently, daring the boy to make any fuss, the man to make any fuss, anyone to remind her of what happened.

Joe looks up and smiles.

He lays his guitar down and stands.

"Have my seat and I'll make a tea," he offers kindly. "You've been doing all the work."

"Thanks."

She glances at the sofa. The boy's a hump at one end, covered by a blanket.