Keri Hulme - The Bone People

Aue-He would be better off dead. Better by far that he had never woken again.

The rain begins to fall that night, the first heavy rain for nearly six weeks. She weeps with it, stirred to tears for the first time since the night of horror.

Maudlin Holmes, o tear besotted soul… think on the bright side. He may be all right. (What? Frozen deep in his terror, waiting for the next nightmare to happen?) Besides, we use only a, what is it? tenth of our brain? So, if he's lost a bit, it's not to say that he is subnormal, ineducable. (The tenth of the brain theory is estimation and unprovable… and who's going to bother to educate the urchin now?)

It's a question she has steadfastly been avoiding since she first heard from Piri that Joe had been charged with assault on the child, and doing grievous bodily harm. She knows with intuitive certainty that the one thing the court will do is order a change of custody. That Joe will lose his child for good, for ill, but definitely forever.

She works in the cold drizzle, helped by whisky, piling wood in a high teepee. Dribbling fuel oil over it, and ladling out kerosene. It takes all day to build the fire. It has to be done carefully, for in the centre, in a small chamber all of its own, she has set the tricephalos.

Like unto the phoenix laying its egg, I have laid me down the last work and monument I'll ever make. May this pyre burn it to terracotta. A very hardshelled triumph… and who knows what will rise if it hatch?

She pours the rest of the whisky on the completed fire-nest.

She is tired nearly to death.

Her weakness is frightening now. She stands by the cunningly piled wood, wondering that it has taken her ten hours to do what would have been accomplished in two a month ago.

If I'm going to burn out this quickly, it might not be worth taking off. It might be better to stay here, and just lock the door towards the end… but it's too late now. I've done my wrecking… besides, someone would have come here eventually and discovered one hell of a mess. I will go away to a quiet desert place and make a skeleton of me in peace and solitude.

What a pity, she thinks, as she drops the bottle at the woodpile's edge, that we humans don't have aesthetically pleasing skeletons. None of the elegance and beauty of your humble mollusc. Just a knobbily serrated jumble, headbone connected to de breastbone etcetera etcetera. On the other hand, maybe just as well… something might decide to start collecting us-

She goes inside, seeking more whisky to warm the still-living body she owns.

The moon's up, and inching round the world.

It's outside the window when Joe gets back.

He comes straight across the room and kneels down beside her.

"You feeling bad?"

"Quite. Goood. Act-u-ally," looking at him through bleary eyes.

He looks harassed and tired, and the sick greyness is back in his face, and yet for seconds he grins at her, merry and charming as ever he was.

"O ho. Fair enough. In a few minutes, I'll join you. I'll just have a shower and get changed. Trim my hair so I look less of a hard case and outlaw." His grin vanishes, and he is tired and old-looking again. "There's some news," he says gently. "Bad news."

"Sim?" her heart jars suddenly.

"No, no… Marama's had another stroke. They've taken her to Christchurch but they don't think she's going to last the night." He sighs. "Just as I was shutting the house, Piri came round and raved at me, and said I was to blame for it. Maybe I am… o dear Christ, I'll miss the old lady if she goes-"

"Aue," she says thickly. "So'll I."

One up, one down, and one to go-

He's shaking his head. "I dunno, things happen all of a heap, don't they?"

"Yeash."

"I got your telegram… thanks from my heart for it… I've been talking to Elizabeth — she came back this morning, and she thinks Himi'll make it now. Morrison says the two charges are the only ones they're preferring, and he thinks I'll get a year. I get the feeling he'd like it to be a century."

Kerewin laughs harshly.

"You wanna hear some of the things Morrison said to me, e hoa. He do not like you, my friend Joe, he do not like you at all."

"I can imagine." He stands. "Anyway… can we talk a lot tonight? Because I don't think we'll get the chance for quite a while."

She lets her head fall back so she's staring up at him. Both of him.

"I think that's a good night idea." She shakes her head and both Joes slide into one.

"I mean, a good idea for the night."

"Good," he says drily.

He puts down his briefcase. "There's some stuff in there that's yours… and a bottle or two I got in hope of talk. O, and I've left some of our gear," he hesitates, "my gear," in a low voice, "down in the hallway. If it's okay by you, I'd like to store it here."

Shurrely." She pushes herself up off the hearthrug and stands unsteadily.

"S'matter of fact, I'll put it away for you if there's nothin you don want now?"

"No, I've got all I need in a handcase." He looks across at her quizzically. "You sure you'll be all right?"

She punches out at him, very slowly. A feather punch, but even so, body memory nearly has him lurching to one side to avoid it.

"It's a dire excuse to get still more whisky from me cellar, my sweet covey." She sucks in her breath. "Wow, I drunk a little too much today," eyes closed, head loose, swaying slightly on the balls of her feet. When she opens her eyes however, she looks quite sober. "You want a different drink to help heal the woes of the world?"

"Nope. Whisky's what I brought."

"Goodoh. Have yer last Towershower for the duration, and I'll shuffle down and put away your gear, and shuffle back, and between sober sips, examine whatever it is in there." Momentarily befuddled again, "What is in there? I never left anything at your place-"

"Things Himi stole."

A string of moneycowries she'd used long ago as worrybeads.

A silver religious medal on a too-fine silver chain.

The talisman knife, Seafire.

Seven Cuban cigars, still in their cedar-veneer wrappings.

About 200 paper clips.

A small piece of machinery she had stolen for herself from the first factory she worked in: it had a fascinating and now totally useless action. Press the top button and a thin spiked disk the size of a five cent slid out, spun round, whirred to a halt, and retreated back into the housing. You could do it again and again, the disk never got tired. It never varied either.

An agate from the heap of polished stones she used to keep on her desk.

The miniature travelling chess-set.

A tiny bottle of the patchouli-scented oil she uses to perfume her hairbrushes.

Three felt pens and an oblong block of Chinese ink.

A heavy silver thumbring with a bezel of turquoise.

And a wad of the visiting cards she had used in Japan (engraved with three dolphins going deiseal round the Southern Cross, her name in Japanese and English, and the proud boast, Artist, which she had been then.)

Some of it she had known to be missing.

Except for the knife Seafire she didn't miss any of it.

O my strange little filcher, the magpie child, what in the name of hell did you want with all this? Not that it matters now, but I have a suspicion that, despite Joe's efforts, you never

had any sense of property, just that of need, and you thought everyone else was really the same way too-

She swept all the junk back into the brown paper bag, keeping aside her knife. She put the bag in an envelope, and sealed it, stamped it, and addressed it to the child, care of the public hospital. She didn't send a letter with it. She went down the stairs in a skittering hurry, while Joe was in the makeshift shower, and left the envelope out in the letterbox for the postman to collect next morning.