Keri Hulme - The Bone People

What does she mean by doing this? She knows he isn't allowed to do that. She's poking shit at me, and saying how little she cares for him? But it doesn't make sense-

His heart is weeping in him.

Another verse from Kerewin, unheard because the chorus has taken the tipsy man's fancy and he hums it out loud, ready to pounce as soon as it comes up again. WhangI as the chorus chord is struck hard and away the crowd goes, rowdy and laughing and upping each other as merrily as anarchists through it.

He is sick to his stomach through all the stamping and applause.

The silence, and her voice, come strangely to him.

"Well okay… this last one," boooo in sustained herd disapproval, "yeah, definitely last, this is cutting into my drinking time," dapple dapple hurr hurr hurr, "this last one is a bit different. Quiet, eh."

A simple chord sequence, D A7 G-

"Tenei mo Haimona, e hoa," and he stares wildly at her.

This is for Simon? But what about the others? When I was young and tree was full, of sweetly singing birds, then full of heart was I with song, o'erpowering great for words,

the key changes, slides into a dischord,

Not so now-

Her voice is unstrained, no longer outshouting the crowd, pleasant alto, easy on the ears,

When me and the tree were older both, and birds had left their young, words for my song I began to find, and to the tune give tongue,

again the wandering eddy of discordancy," With a vow-

Aiee, it's a gentle song, he thinks with thankful wonder. His heartbeat is calming down. Maybe it's just that I've taken it all up wrongly, maybe it's all right-

That all the good would sunlike shine, and beckon me ahead, but in grey age for my past I pine, with years my vow is dead,

the small bitter melody again, Forgotten now-

That's the way it happens, he thinks, we start out bright and something clouds us… if it's for Himi, maybe she's saying this won't

happen to him, this is her warning for him, her lesson- The chord sequence changes, Dm Am E, is hit harder,

Lightning blasted the tree, the birds are fled; Death hovers here for me. Yet not all hope is dead…

a ragged arpeggio, and then slowly the notes wind back to the original tune. Silence all round the bar, spread to the tables beyond.

His heart has eased to its normal beat, past the strain and pound of desire and bewilderment and hurt. He waits for the chance to sing with her.

O when I was young and tree was full,

he joins in, his bass mellowing the song further, and Kerewin smiles to him,

of sweetly singing birds,

then full of heart was I with song,

o'erpowering great for words-

The last chord dies into silence.

"C'mon, another!"

Again the beat of clapping, and the droning choir of "More!" but Kerewin shakes her head. "That's happy hour over for tonight, kiddies," slipping off the guitarist's stool and passing the guitar back to its owner. She joins Joe at the bar.

He slips an arm round her, whispers smiling, "Those were all your songs?" taking the arm away before she can resent it.

"O yeah. Sort of."

Little caches of verse, the hidden hoarded hopes of yesterday, things to sing and savour, saviour verses s'hope.

She takes a deep mouthful of the wine he had poured out ready for her.

Hear it, hum it, hymn it… stuhupid Kerewin.

To her left she can hear Joe bragging, Yeah, all songs she wrote for my son eh."

I did not.

… He's a little bastard," wipes mouth on back of hard brown hand,,but a gutsy little bastard. Wouldn't be mine if he wasn't, he boasts, wouldn't have kept him, eh?"

The man beside him grins. "Yeah? Sounds a good kid…."

From that you can tell? But he is good. Joe's golden boy the sunchild… I wonder if that's what bothers the man? He said

right at the beginning it didn't, but he's changed his tune on a lot of things since… maybe it hurts, everytime someone sees you two together, notes that blondness, and looks you over speculating, "Cuckold? Or so Pakeha a wife your blood can't show…?"

She drinks more wine, orders large whiskies in a row for Joe. "Her?" she hears him say, back to her, "her? NO way, all she's in love with are her bloody paintings." She could be a thousand miles away.

Who knocks

on the rotten boards of my heart?

Let me in, let me in,

It's me — Kerewin-

Too true.

"Scuse me, Joe," to his unhearing ears, and walks to the toilet, each step purposely in line, effortfully straight and steady.

"Deafer and deafer and drunker and drunker," she croons, and the pub recedes entirely away.

A silence like the most intense music-

… the stench of the airfreshener is vilely plastic. She is beginning to feel sick. But outside the toilet she is suddenly caught up in the people swarm. All the tight inner communing with self is given over to the sweep of herd emotion. She stretches her arms, sickness forgotten,

Ae, a wide embrace! A long and broad joying!

At the bar, Joe swipes out with his elbow, catching someone in the back.

"Watch what you're doing!"

"Outa way!" he yells, ignoring the protest, "my lady troubadour is back!"

"Ah to hell!" calling back as loudly, grinning wildly.

The original guitarist is thumping out the coke-song, and all the pub is rocking with the tune.

"And snow white purple doves!" bawls Joe.

"You got that a bit wrong old son," she punches him lightly on the shoulder, still grinning. His shoulder muscles are soft and relaxed. His smile is similarly loose.

"Nice song," he says, slurring it, "very niessh shong."

"Yeah."

It's gone eight o'clock and the after-tea drinkers are swarming everywhere.

Kerewin chattering to herself,

"So ergo, the ego ain't. It's a pervert symptom, a warp of Self. This little warp of human life we weave… what really is the

cockroach individual? A baggage of unthinking urges. A ragbag thing of no account? A freak, a mystery? And does the warring self survive body dissolution? Heaven help us! the ancients' essay and ours to pierce the veil are mere baby meddling, needling into a gloom beyond attempt."

She coughs on a mouthful of wine.

Joe nods.

The man on the right nods. "Go on," he says.

"Come and play darts," urges Joe, which is a suitable comment on the whole, he thinks.

"I can beat you in this state. Let's stay friends."

"Aw, I'd never live it down if you win. Play friendly."

She ponders, the clatter of the crowd growing and growing in her head.

The rainbow end. The phoenix helix. The joyful Nothing. The living abyss… what does he mean, he'd never live it down?

"Aw bullshit. Crap. Shit. Dung. Excreeetia. Processed anything. Come on," dragging herself off the barstool, "I'll give you a game anyway. An I mean, give."

Joe stands up. And promptly sits down on the floor.

"Upsadaisy," says the man on the left, bending down to help.

"Man, that's rude. That's crazy. Upsadaisy s'though I'se Simon's size." Joe is blinking furiously.

"Well downsadaisy then," says the bloke huffily, and lets go his arm.

Joe, on his feet again, pats the man.

"S'okay e hoa. Don' know what'm doin eh. Full right up to here," pointing. He blinks again, tears trickling from his dark eyes. "Honess beer but ah damn deceeful whishky." He sounds as though any moment he's going to break into a full-fledged howl.

"Pissed as farts the both of them," says the rightbarside.

She thinks, Simon.

A start, a wrench, of sickness, deep in her gut. The bright wine flowing in her blood until the blood curdles… ah treachery!

"Joe?" the word treacling out. "Ring a taxi, e mate?"

He looks at her blearily, head bobbing up and down.

"S'okay, sokay."

She clenches her glass for self-control.