Keri Hulme - The Bone People

She doesn't appear to move with haste but her left hand has captured the fly, killed it, and flicked it at her adversary in a split second.

"Ah Kerewin," from Joe, and the silence becomes more intense.

To the onlookers, that jade-laden hand has become frightening. Any comedy about the rings has died.

Dave says haltingly, "Ah some drink?"

She turns to him, smiling. "Yeah. Say a couple of half g's?"

"Right!" The relief makes his voice ring out.

Joe moves in by her, leading Simon now. "I'll get it, e hoa… everything okay?"

"O yeah…" her smile gone.

"He-ell," says someone behind her. "What is she? Some kind of prizefighter?"

"Dunno, but it looks like it… I wouldn't like to get in the way of a punch that fast, woman or no woman," and someone else adds, "With that set of knuckledusters, hell no…" and everything else is drowned in a rising tide of talk, as the regulars regroup round the bar.

There's a gap left either side of the carpenter.

He stands, staring in at his glass where the dead fly lies.

He hasn't moved since it arrived.

"You okay now?"

"Yeah."

She stands with folded arms, watching the waves crest and break, crest and break.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for us to ignore you and that. It just happened."

"S'okay. I was in a bitch of a mood anyway. I wouldn't have been any kind of good company."

"You sure you're all right now?"

"Mmm."

He shivers. "You aren't cold?'

"Na… I'll be in in a few minutes. I just want to look at the sea

awhile.' "Right. I'll go back and see Himi doesn't steal all the grog."

"Unlikely."

"O, he's helped himself to a glass already.'

"Struth, that brat's got an unhealthy eagerness to enter into lushdom. He looked like he had some back at the pub too."

"No, that was just high spirits… the unbottled kind eh?"

There is pleading in his voice, Laugh with me?

"Pretty good." She makes an effort and smiles at him. "I'm really all right, fella. This bad temper'll wear itself out soon. It's just, o I don't know. I keep on thinking about the things we used to do here, build fires, share dreams, play wild and weird games, all together… and it all came to nothing, meant nothing," she ends bleakly.

He hugs her shoulders. "E Kerewin, e Kerewin." He takes his arm away. "We could do some of those things too-"

"Yes."

He sighs.

"I'll get some tea ready… we'll see you soon?"

"Very soon."

The waves march in.

Three herring gulls lift with each breaker, settle back on the sand again as the sea streams out. An old black back carks and skrees, fossicking along the tideline. The shags sit by their hollow mud nests on Maukiekie. Nothing else is moving. Sometimes, the waves grow hushed, but the sea is always there, touching, caressing, eating the earth-

She can hear Joe singing in the bach behind her. Then the rise and fall of his voice talking, with pauses for the child's answers.

At the horizon, the sky has turned smoked and red: the sea out there looks as though hot blood diffuses the water.

A cloud of midges comes weaving and dancing through the evening air, and she is suddenly precipitated back to the day she had gone floundering in Taiaroa estuary, and fallen asleep, and woken to find nudges round her face.

The day she came home to find a mute frightened child in her window.

It seems like years ago.

Years… and it's not much more than a couple of months since he came into my ken. I know him well, and yet I know so

very little about him. He's been horribly scared by something in his past. He may understand some French. He's maybe scared of needles; he was definitely scared when he realised I was listening to him sing… a frightening secret, a thing he had kept hidden. I wonder what else he keeps hidden from me. Even from Joe. Maybe more from Joe than me- I know he has his own kind of courage, wry humour, an abnormal compassion, a great capacity for love, and yet-

The colour has faded out of the sky. It is grey, becoming darker as the world turns herself round a little more. The clouds are long and black and ragged, like the wings of storm battered dragons. Or of hokioi… huge birds-

The bird he killed… was it beyond help? Might he have a dark streak in him, as Joe seems to think? And that is why the violence? Flicking matches, throwing things… ah, I don't know. I don't know much about him at all.

For that matter, how much do I know about Joe? Only what he's said, and what he's done. And what he's done is a confused mixture of the congenial and the unpleasant. Gentle with his son, and brutal. Drunken boor and sober wit. Too much of the past riding on his shoulders, I think. With too much of an emotional stake in the boy to ever see him clearly, dispassionately… maybe. I don't know.

It is becoming night. Pale stars show through the gaps in the clouds.

Betelgeuse, Achenar. Orion. Aquila. Centre the Cross and you have a steady compass.

But there's no compass for my disoriented soul, only ever-beckoning ghostlights. In the one sure direction, to the one sure end.

She shivers. She is beginning to feel very cold.

But wait here a little longer, think about it a bit more. You're involved with two strangers, different and difficult people. You're different and difficult yourself, but strangely enough, you all get on well together. To the extent that there can be a real fight, and forgiveness and renewed friendship after.

To what end, my soul?

Remember how horrifyingly painful it was when you and the family broke apart? So much so, that a brief meeting with one member is enough to put you in despair. The pain is back. Be wary. Keep it a cool friendship. Look out for the child by all means — it's the least you can do as a human being — but don't let them get too close.

And as if he were waiting for that cue, Simon takes her hand. It takes all her self-control not to pull violently away. To wait

until the sudden pound of her heart slows to normal, to wait without

yelling abuse, until she can say, almost evenly, "I didn't hear you come up. You been here long?" A finger pressing once. His eyes glint as he looks at her. "I've been watching the sea and thinking about things." He has drawn her hand against his chest. She can feel the steady

clock of his heart. He hasn't made any other move, but she feels

as though he's saying something.

Very careful, Holmes… that's an aura-watcher, remember? It's visible to him, the electric perimeter of yourself, the waxing and waning moon of your soul. All the skeins and flickers of your energy, he can see… but how the hell

trying vainly to douse the anger she's feeling

do I project calm ease of spirit when all I feel is misery?

"Get inside eh. I'll be in soon."

The single silent pressure again.

"Hey, inside when you're told," voice sharpened, making no effort to contain her anger now. His heart is beating hard against the back of her hand, and she feels him start to shake. It comes with unpleasant certainty that he is scared of her… me? Kerewin the goody, the answering service, the white knight of the ready fist? He is, and how… but despite his fear, he still holds her hand against his chest.

Ah hell, what am I doing?

She sighs hard.

"Hai, fella, let go my hand eh? I'm really coming in soon, but I need to be alone a little longer. Okay?"

He lets go, reluctantly. He leaves her, reluctantly. He goes slowfooted back to the bach, so she can hear each unhappy step.

She calls after the child,

"E Sim, don't worry… tomorrow's another day, and it'll all work out. You'll see."

Alone in the dark, drug-induced sleep near, he thinks

But it's not going to work out, and there's nothing I can do about it.