Keri Hulme - The Bone People

The gear Joe spoke of is three suitcases and a forlorn carton of books and jugs and old shoes. A small pair of sandals on top. Two guitars, one cased, lean against the suitcases. That's all.

She piles it on top of one of the large packing cases of books, stowed round the border of the cellar.

It's a large cool vaulted room, the cellar: before, she could wander round and admire all the wine and liquor, the basic preserved food she had stored away. Now it is full of cases and trunks and furniture, and there is little room to move.

They travelled lightly, the Gillayleys, not loaded down with trivia. But then, in the end we all travel very lightly indeed. Nothing to carry more substantial than memories… and maybe that's the heaviest baggage of all-

Philosophising while partially embalmed with whisky never does produce much more than a whining little tribe of cliches-

She picks up the lamp and plods sadly up to the livingroom.

Time, time, it's all running out and it could have been a season of rare vintage, this coming summer. Now it has sunk to this vinegary lees,

up a step, another step, up yet again,

my cask hollow light, the rich wine about done. Ah come on, me chortling ghoul… we'll hold a premature lyke-wake, and make merry for the bitterhearted man… God, his mother named him true, Ngakaukawa to the very marrow I'll bet he is… he's looking a bit grey tonight, I'd better check he hasn't split a stitch or a gut… shall we reveal about our gut, ghoulie? Piti (one step) piti (two step) potara (three) a… the top… nah, we go away because we have a simple ulcer, and because we are tired/depressed/rundown as all aforesaid. Because we want to build up strength again… mother of us all, the lies we tell to salve hearts. So be it, I go on my mythical painting safari for recuperation, and yeah Joe, we'll meet again next spring if you're sprung by then-

She lays out the last of her smokes, cheroots and bidis and Kreetax,

pipe tobacco and the last quarter-ounce of Coast gold grass. She ranges the two bottles of whisky and the squat little flask of Drambuie by the selection.

Should do us… and do is the right word-

She washes her face and head in cold water, and sits back down by the fire, feeling cool and high and relaxed.

She lies on her side, head propped on hand: the hardness in her gut is felt less that way. Water from her wet curls drips steadily down her supporting arm: the soles of her kaibab clad feet, turned to the fire, are already hotter than is comfortable. She moves one leg at a time slowly out of range, back again into the fiery shadow, out-

He thinks,

She has this curious heavy grace, like something out of its element making do in a thinner medium. Like she should be living in water. If only I could lie down beside her and tenderly, by firelight-

"Joe, do us a favour please?"

"Whatever you want."

"Pass us the guitar down… I seem to have grown roots here."

As he lifts the instrument down, she hears him grunt with pain.

He brings the guitar back and lays it by her: his face is rigid.

"Fretting you?" she brushes the air by her belly in a gesture the child could have made.

"Sometimes it twinges."

He pours himself a strong whisky and swallows it like medicine; pours another, and groaning, settles his length by the other side of the fire.

"Kia ora," lifting the glass briefly to her.

"Kia ora." She rearranges herself, back supported by the side of the fireplace, guitar cradled in one arm, bottle conveniently close. She sips whisky slowly. No more throwing down drams, she thinks. It's time for quiet considered drinking.

He says,

"If I could start from the beginning — not my beginning, but from the time we became just me and him, when Hana and Timote died — you know what I'd do? I'd stop work. Stay home most of the time. I was thinking yesterday, what a waste it all was… I'd worked hard, pakeha fashion, for nearly six solid years, making money to make a home. And the one thing I never made was a home… now it's sold, finished, and all I'm left with is a few thousand dollars. Maybe nothing else at all. Do you think they'll let me keep him?"

The question comes jolting out, bare as a bone, sharp as a razor.

"No," She says it very softly. Then more firmly, "No, they won't.

dear heart, if there's one thing certain, it's that they'll remove from your custody tomorrow. I hate to say this, but if he was natural son, they'd be reluctant to make him a ward of the or whatever, even now. If he was properly adopted, it'd be the same as if you'd sired him. But you said things were never finalised-'

He's nodding, the silver tears sliding down his cheeks.

"So in view of the evidence of all the past, um, past abuse on his body, they'll be making very sure you don't get another chance to dole out more of the same."

She takes another sip of whisky.

"Look at it through their eyes: you no longer have a wife, and you've hurt him badly, in the past as well as this time. As far as they're concerned, he's not looked after properly, he plays truant, and he's a vandal… they'll think people who don't know him will make a better job of bringing him up. They think."

Her voice is as level and uninflected as though she's discussing shell nomenclature or how to make mead.

"The pity of it all is that they're wrong… I've been fascinated by you two these past few months. You've got, you had genuine love between you. You've given him a solid base of love to grow from, for all the hardship you've put him through. You've been mother and father and home to him. And probably tomorrow they'll read you a smug little homily, castigating you for ill-treatment and neglect. And they'll congratulate themselves quite publicly for rescuing the poor urchin from this callous ogre, this nightmare of a parent… you got your lawyer clued up on on all the background? The real background, the one that counts? Being both parents to him, helping him over his bad dreams, picking him up from all round the countryside, going along to school to find out what the matter is this time… it all shows you cared deeply. In a negative way, so does the fact that you beat him. At least, you worried enough about what you considered was his wrongdoing to try and correct it."

Joe says dully, "I told him a bit."

"Tell him all of it, if there's still time… and if he's good, it may just swing things far enough for the court to appreciate the pressures on you both."

She's been using her voice deliberately, pitching timbre and tone to comfort him. Not giving false hope, or weeping with him. Not praising him or denigrating him or the boy. Trying to inject a little objectivity, a little distance, to make the matter a little less hurtful.

"Jesus, I feel so bad about it all." The tears are rolling down unheeded. "I feel so bad."

"I feel as bad. As guilty. As criminal."

"But you didn't do anything-"

The tapu on 'if only' is hereby lifted, soul-

"No? Two things, Joe. Sim came here and kicked in my guitar as you know, but I provoked that. I kept interrogating him, no other word for it, as to where he'd put my damn bloody knife. When I think back — and I've been avoiding doing that — but now it comes to mind that he was very upset over something and I never bothered to find out what it was. Just harped on about the knife."

"School," says Joe, staring into his shot glass. "He was in deep trouble there. He had a note on him from Bill Drew saying they were thinking about expelling him."

"It was something, certainly… anyway, when he finally broke under my barrage of questions, he went to hit me. He did, actually, and it was so unexpected it hurt for a moment. Did I remember what you said, that he'll eventually fight when he wants you to understand? Did I, hell. I punched him so hard he was down on the floor a minute catching his breath again. It was only after that, he kicked my guitar. You finished it, but I started it… if I had shown more understanding, he wouldn't have tried to start a fight with me. He wouldn't have gone away and vented his anger on the windows. He wouldn't have been picked up by the cops. He would have been home with you… point two, I started the next stage too. I flayed him with words, and I've got a vicious tongue… you know what particularly sticks in my craw?"