Keri Hulme - The Bone People

It overwhelms him, a sudden flood of despair. There's nothing I can do.

The little brown man from the floor smiles sadly at him. He seems to be at the edge of the bunk.

Can you do anything?

No, he can't. He's not really here,

but the ghost is singing

E tama, I whanake I te ata o pipiri

He is falling asleep and the words are muddled with grief Piki nau ake, e tama

It sounds thinly in his ears as the roaring night comes nearer still

ki tou tint I te rangi

The lullaby is the ghost's goodbye. He doesn't see the man in the floor again.

Three days to go, and already they're souveniring. She grins to herself wryly

At least they'll have substantial mementoes. All I've got is a load of smoked fish, and the fog wiped off my memories.

The boy has scoured the beach, gathering shells and seasmoothed glass; tidewashed bones and old seagull feathers; poppable pieces of bladderwrack and dead dried crabs. And stones… the kind with holes in them, bored by pholad or piddock, or ground out by other stones. Wounded stones, losers in the tidal wars, soon to become sand except for the urchin's intervening hand.

She had asked, What are you going to do with them?

Not take them home, says Joe, you've got about a hundredweight.

Just some, the boy points, a few.

Don't throw the rest out then. They're Maori sinkers.

Joe: O yeah?

"That's what we say… we got a pile of them in the black bach. We figure when the rest of the world runs out of lead, the Holmes tribe will still be able to go fishing."

Blowing a raspberry, "That's going to be my contribution to future family comfort here. Simon's stone collection."

The boy, ordering his finds in piles and patterns, looks over his shoulder. His face reads, O yeah?

Well, I might get them, and I might not. I certainly won't get

Joe's souvenir.

Talk about a man in love with a stone-

He'd come back from the south reef, whistling. The whistle was strained, and when he stopped it, his lips kept twitching as though he was smothering smiles.

"What's up with you?"

"O, nothing…."

But he didn't want to keep it a secret, just dress the stage.

"Look!" kneeling before them, and holding out his hand.

Slender, coloured like the deep sea, a rich translucent green-

Already, he's planning how to suspend it round his neck. My own greenstone, my own pendant, he says all the time. Given me by the sea, on one of your beaches… ah Kerewin, the place loves me!

So I won't tell him about the graves up on the cliff, and how that probably got washed out with its former owner… sour him off if he knew the smell of bones went with it eh? He can be happy with his her matau… because the old ones might have given it to him. They gave mine to me-

She told them, when the celebrating died down.

"That's the fourth piece I know that's been picked up round by the south reef. One of my brothers found two adzes — they're in the Otago museum now. And I found Tahoro Ruku."

"Whale Diving? Is it a mere? A family mere?"

She grinned. Very polite way to say, Obviously you wouldn't keep a named heirloom if it didn't belong in your family-

"No, it's a weird kind of pendant. I don't know whose family it belongs in. I made enquiries round all of my relations, and most Ngai Tahu hapu. Memory of it is lost. Or maybe," thoughtfully, "they've changed the name of it. You see, when I picked it up — I was just going onto the reef for pupu and a wave uncovered it at my feet — when I picked it up, there seemed to be voices all around me saying 'Te tahoro ruku! Te tahoro ruku!' It was bright sunlight, I wasn't drunk, and there were people further out on the reef who didn't look round or anything, so the voices must have been in my head. But they were loud. They echoed…."

She shivered.

"I picked it up, and the voices went on and on, and I got scared. I said, maybe inside myself, "E nga iwi! Mo wai tenei?" and there was silence. Only after a little while, one voice returned, an infinitely Old voice whispering, Tahoro ruku, tahoro ruku,' — you know what?"

"No." He whispered it.

I didn't ask anything more. I just picked it up and ran back to the baches. I didn't show it to anyone for weeks, and then,"

I know I shouldn't look shamefaced, but I always do, "I didn't exactly say where I got it. That came out later."

"I think I would have left it…."

She sighed.

"I don't know what I should have done… I argued with myself, for long enough. The sea wouldn't have given it to me if it hadn't been meant for me. The ghosts of the old people, or whatever the voices were, didn't say it wasn't for me. I asked who it was for, they didn't say. I didn't do anything wrong and nothing bad came of it, so it must have been all right. I just had some strange dreams for a while."

Joe nodded gravely.

"They were about Maukiekie out there. Sometimes I saw a hole in the ground. Sometimes I entered it, and in the heart of the island there was a marae. Tukutuku panels and poupou carved into the living rock… there was never anyone to welcome me, but there was always breathing. Slow huge breaths… it was several dreams before I realised it was breathing, and not an underearth wind. I thought, It's the island breathing, or Papa herself. I don't know."

He just sucked his breath in, Ssseee.

"The dreams were trying to tell me something but I couldn't understand them. I still don't. In the last one, the breathing stopped, and the marae suddenly lightened like something lifted the covering rock off, and a great voice, not human, cried, "Keria! Keria!" Bloody strange way to end a dream, eh?"

She laughed. "I woke my brother up yelling, 'Dig what?' and he thought I was nuts."

"It was the call of peace, the ancient one…."

"I know. I learned that later. But I still don't know what the dreams meant… I've got Tahoro Ruku safely, and it's dear to my heart. Even though I often feel I'm merely its guardian, and someone else is meant to have it-"

"You don't wear it?"

"No. For one thing, it's too big. For another, I haven't got a suitable cord. Anyway, you can see it back at Taiaroa, and tell us what you think."

He looks at the pendant in his hand. "I'm glad this didn't have voices with it… you ever dig on the island?"

"Yeah. I got a yard of guano and a chipped shovel. Maukiekie is as solid as a bloody rock."

The dreamhold island.

Shags slide off its top with reptilian grace.

Bullkelp weaves and snakes by the base.

Rimu rimu tere tere e-

Why should I feel sad?

My memories are refurbished. They've got their souvenirs. It's been a good holiday. I've enjoyed most of it. They seem to have enjoyed most of it.

So why should I feel sad?

She doesn't know.

She stares at Maukiekie a long time before going back inside the baches.

The wind rises to gale force, the day before they leave. Seas drive hard up the beach, and out on the reef the blowhole booms above the roar of the waves.

"Winter's back with a vengeance," says Kerewin, and calmly goes on packing.

She has turned the old bach inhumanly tidy. The sand they've trodden in, is swept away and the floor polished. All the familiar dead flies are dusted off the sills. Even the spiderwebs that hung in jointed cables round the lamphooks, and grew in furry webs in the corners, spangled with sucked-dry corpses — even the webs are gone. The bunks are made for the final time, but all the clothes they had hung from convenient projections — top of ladders, bunk ends, or slung over chairs — are sorted and folded into three piles. "Yours, and yours," she says, and goes down the beach, dodging waves, to clean and lockup there. She scrubs down the dinghy, o keep safe till I come back, and stacks the oars, and anchor, and all the fishing gear. Bars the boatshed door, and puts shutters over the windows. The black bach is eyeless again, blinkered against its enemy.