Keri Hulme - The Bone People

("Ha bloody ha."

"No truly, I love it. I hung it up in the sittingroom today eh, right above the fireplace. The frame's perfect. I think I'll do the room up to match it eh?"

His high throbbing giggle.

"Yeah," she drawls.

"I mean that too…" she can hear him ripping open a packet of cigarettes, the click and hiss of his lighter. "Well, I was thinking what I could get you. Nothing nearly as good as your gift, but something special-"

"That plait you said you'll be making from Sim's hair will do fine."

"O, I made that already. I stayed up a while last night doing it. I was thinking all kinds of things while I did eh." "I'll bet," she says drily.

Hell, imagine. While I was drinking my way through a sludge of selfpity, there was the earnest Gillayley wearing his fingers down to the bone, up all night regardless of early morning work, to make me a necklet from his son's moonshimmer hair. I'll bet the bugger's lying.

"Anyway, what I was thinking doesn't matter… I bought you this present today, and I was going to give it to you tonight." Pause.

The harsh eager gasp as he sucks in more smoke, and the long soft breath out.

He aha koa iti, he pounamu… it doesn't mean that it is a gift of greenstone, but that it carries the emotional content of jade. The value, the indications of affection and respect, the mana of pounamu.

"All right, you've hooked me… I'll put away me sour mood, and crawl along to the Duke."

"E ka pai, ka pai," his delight makes his voice rise to a tenor pitch. "Look, I'll borrow Piri's truck and come right over, eh?"

"Nah, she's right. I'll ring a taxi. I haven't had much to eat today, and I better get some food aboard before drinking."

He asks with sudden consternation,

"You haven't had one of those stomach attacks, have you? Like at Moerangi?"

"Hell no. It's just been a shit of a day… I went mad and cut my hair, cleaned everything out, slaughtered mice… a sort of dreary combination of the murderous and the domestic, you know?"

Joe, giggling, says he doesn't. "But I'm glad you're all right… her, what does your hair look like? Ah not to worry. I'll see it soon… must be shearing time eh?" Snicker. "I'll chop mine too, and get in on the act. O by the way, Haimona's with the old people. We were on our way to you with this koha, and he nearly had us off the bike, shrieking and pointing and carrying on at some kids. Took about ten years off my life and three inches of rubber off the tyres as we screech to a halt. And the kids all start yelling and dancing bad as Himi, and it's Piri's mob, all of them. So we went into the farm quick and you'd never believe it but Himi and them are all over the top of one another like they're old mates from way back. And I told you how they used to fight, eh?"

"Yeah."

"Piri and Lynn are all over the top of each other too, ur, I mean they're hugging us as much as we're hugging them."

"That did sound very much like double entendre."

"Weellll," and she knows he is grinning. "They were kind of close when we barged in… anyway, that's where Himi still is. The old people are babysitting while we depraved adults go out and booze."

"Lucky Marama. Lucky Wherahiko," intense sympathy in her voice to pervert her words-

16 ounces of beer and two whiskies in ten minutes. A bit much too fast for comfort. Particularly after last night's performance. A momentary giddy swirl.

Polly is saying something.

"I said, you done your hair nice."

"Sorry, I was far away… you like it? I just hacked, but hair like mine grows quickly over catastrophes."

"Huh, you're lucky. You want to have hair like mine. "Polly tosses her head and shuffles cards faster.

My cut hair, lying in a woolly pile on the floor… wondering whether it might be better, more respectful, to bury it — but then, worms, mould, decay… so, as always I burn it, and watch, as always, dismayed to see it shrivel to a sticky mass that charred and disintegrated. A little more of me gone forever-

"Yeah, I'm lucky," she says to Polly.

Joe comes back with another tray of drinks. He whispers in her ear, "Happy you came?"

She nods. "Ah, I'm glad… I'll give it you in private?" laying his hand on her shoulder. Again she nods.

"What're you fellas whispering about?" Piri bawls it out. He is very drunk and very happy, one arm draped about his wife, hugging her tight to him every minute as though he's afraid she'll forget him.

Lynn is smaller than he is, a fine-boned woman with black feathery hair. She reminds Kerewin of a bird in more ways than one, high-voiced, sharp-nosed, full of quick nervous movement. A sparrow of a woman, but without a sparrow's gamin cheerfulness.

"Secrets eh?" says Piri.

"No. I was merely saying this place is filling up." Joe leaves his hand on her shoulder as he sits. The warmth of it soaks through her jacket, through her shirt, warming her skin. "Filling up fast," he says, and takes the hand away, raising his glass to her.

The early evening drinkers are pouring in: the din increases. She can no longer hear what the others are saying, yet through the general uproar some small sounds are abnormally clear. The plic! of a poolball snicking another. The flat knock the shotglass makes when she puts it down. Polly going "Fsss!" under her breath as she plunks down an invincible card. Pi's soft swear. The old lady looks over his shoulder and says, "Hell!", and draws hard on her pipe. It's gone out since the last puff and Kerewin can hear the sucking sound as though it's being played through loudspeakers.

"Umm… my turn to get drinks eh." Standing, the floor seems to withdraw a little under her feet. "What are you all having?"

"Just some jugs and a few whiskies," says Pi. "We can share them round eh?"

"Right you are," steadying herself unobtrusively. "Would you help us with the glasses, Joe?"

"Gladly."

At the counter, while waiting for the jugs and glasses to be filled:

"and what does the bloody borough do? Put 'em through the stonecrusher!"

"Struth mate, at a dollar a sugarsack?"

"And then they plant them in the bloody tarseal!"

"What's all that about?" thumbing towards the group that's doing the talking.

Joe shrugs. The barman shakes his head, eyes on the squirting stream of beer.

"Stones, I think," he says. "They've found a market for those white ones you can pick up by the ton off Bright Street beach."

"Ah they'll be selling the air we breathe next," snarls Kerewin. "First gold, then coal, then all the bush they could axe, and all the fish they could can. And now the very beach-"

"Ah you never know where it'll end," the barman agrees cheerfully. "That'll be four dollars and 91 cents." He whisks the fiver into the till. "I like your hair like that," dropping the change into her hand.

"My donation to this year's woolclip," she says sourly.

"I like it anyway," Joe smiles, helping load the drinktray.

She has clipped her hair very short: the thick mushroom cloud that had bloomed has been tamed to a neat tightcurled cap. Not a sign of singed hair anywhere.

"Ta, mate." She swaps grins with him.

Joe thinks, Hope to hell she didn't hear what else those buggers said, or that'll really screw things up.

"S'all right for some to talk," one of the group had said after Kerewin's remarks. "She's got more money than she knows what to do with they reckon, but how many of us can say that?" And another added, "Yeah. Lucky bastard Gillayley, looks like he's in on it now."

That had hurt. Thinks Joe, I don't want any part of her money. I just want her. He had made his compliment in a loud voice, covering whatever else the group said.

The hell with what they think… but why can't they keep their big mouths shut?

We're a quiet school, she thinks. A little island of peace in all this racket.