The Bone People (11 page)

"If the weather stays fine, I'll take a trip out past the heads. Set a pot or two, and then be with dolphins for hours. I'll use the berloody boat for a change instead of having it barnacle up at the mooring."

She pulls the door open: the blue piece of sky is shrinking. The

lowering bulbous rim has edged forward.

"Ahh, bugger it all," but she has lost her anger. She's filled with a soft woolly despair. "It'd figure," resigned,

"go upstairs and sit in your big chair and twirl merrily round. Contemplate your easels. Pretend you're an

artist again. Pah!" spitting.

The spit landed on a dandelion.

It was an even bet it would have. For, regardless of winter frosts, dandelions grow here all year round. They

know where they're welcome. She cultivates them, doping the ground with things dandelions like, and

helpfully spreading seed by blowing the clocks.

Wine. Ersatz coffee. Salad greens. A diuretic, if I need such a thing. Pickles from the roots. Dry the leaves for

a green stock for soup. And tea can be made from the leaves as well... not to mention the superb aureoles

glowing, a feast for the most miserly eyes. What more could you ask from a simple plant?

She apologises to the spat flower, and turns to go inside.

When round the edge of the wall, something. Steps light and limping on the grass.

"God in hell, it can't be."

God in hell, it is.

There stands the guttersnipe on top of her flowers, a grin wide and welcoming on his face.

"Haunted," she says to him, without a hello. "Trailed by ghosts."

The grin becomes a ghost of itself.

"What on earth are you doing here? It's Tuesday and a schoolday."

It's exorcised entirely.

He holds a note out to her, and stands frowning, rubbing a groove in the damp grass with the toe of his

sandal.

"O boy, here was I wondering what to do now I can't go and play with my especial snouted friends, and guess

what turns up?"

She stuffs the note into a back pocket, and holds out her hand.

"C'mon urchin, you're just in time for lunch," and laughs at the double meaning.

He takes the hand but doesn't move, looking up at this lady of the fire, outlined by the retreating sun and full

of a strange gaiety that seems close to despair. He holds her hand more tightly, sweeps his eyes from her wild

flurry of hair down to her bare feet, what is wrong? Where is it wrong? Can I help? up to the odd pendant that

hangs, like his label, in the middle of her chest. Only her pendant is made of a blue stone, carved like a

complex opened knot.

"That," she says, after tracing his gaze, "is a sort of Sufic symbol. Worked quite cunningly in turquoise. The circle is silver."

She takes her hand away to hold it closer for him to see, poised between her forefingers.

She doesn't like holding hands.

He is amused.

"Okay," mistaking the small shark grin, "so I gloat too much on things I like. Inside, Gillayley, before I change my mind and send you away.

"Not really," she says, inside the hall. "I suppose it's a compliment that you want to stay, eh. But only God knows why," and she sighs.

She stands at the bottom of the spiral and chants,

"There is both amber and lodestone.

Whether thou art iron or straw,

thou wilt come to the hook."

She stops, frowning at the silent crucifix.

"Why should that come to mind?" Over her shoulder to the silent child, "From the Masnawi by a poet called Rumi."

Jalal-uddin the Sufi.

Ah hah, back to the Sufic knot. Not to mention fishing. Quid est.

In the living room, he looks round and sighs. Then he turns to her and hunches his shoulders. He stands there,

staring.

The silence, o my soul, is getting awkward again.

She hums to herself, while stoking up the range.

He whistles and she looks round. He sits down, and takes off the dufflebag he carries.

Takes out two parcels, one large and wrapped in very greasy brown paper, the other small and neatly folded

in a black silk wrapping. He beckons.

"Gillayleys bearing gifts?"

She crosses to him and sits down too.

Four mutton birds, plump and pale. "E hoa, I've sent lunch--"

"Succulent. Do you like 'em, boy?"

He nods, and pushes the silkwrapped bundle to her.

"Joy, another whatisit."

It is more difficult to open this one. The wrapper is a scarf, and the ends have been knotted together again and

again.

"This is to keep something in? Or me out?"

There's no answer.

We're not in a very communicative mood today, are we? Sullen urchin.

She resorts to using her teeth on the knots.

"Ah, got it."

A small battered case of black morocco. She sniffs the leather. Under the smell of the hide is a subtle musk,

which grows stronger as she holds the case in her warm hand. "Fascination. Now, how do we get in?"

There is no obvious fastening.

The boy takes it, and presses the two front corners. The top lifts slowly as he hands it back.

"Thank you,"

and all expectant we lift the lid to find, and what she sees is entirely unexpected.

It is a rosary of semi-precious stones. A Christian rosary presumably, because the beads tell decades, lots of

them, each decade separated from the next by large beads carved from turquoise. The decades are

alternatively of coral, the red Italian kind, and amber, and each begins and ends with a bloodstone.

There is no crucifix. The beads trail off from a small gold plaque, and the chain that joins them ends in a

solitary link. There is a ring on the rosary. The chain of beads has been broken and rejoined through it.

She looks at it closely. A signet ring made of very soft gold. 22 carat. There is a curious coat of arms

engraved on the ring. A long-necked bird like a heron, with wings outstretched, is nesting in flames.

"A phoenix, bejabbers."

The bird was engraved over a saltire. There is fine lettering round it, but incredibly, it looks as though

someone has filed that down so it can't be read.

"This is magnificent," holding it up. "Is it yours?"

He shakes his head, pointing at her.

"Mine? Do you mean as a gift? Like hell!"

The boy takes out his pencil and pad.

YOURS

"My dear child, you do mean it as a gift for me?" He nods. "But you -- or Joe -- can't give me something like this. It's beautiful, but also valuable."

She loops the decades round her hand: the beads are cool and smooth. "Superb," she whispers to herself.

"Flame and water, earth and air... amber and coral, turquoise and bloodstone."

She hands it, almost reluctantly, back to Simon.

"It's like, o like something you are offered but which really belongs to a family. Do you know about Te Rangi

Hiroa and the cloaks? No? I'll tell you sometime, but for the meantime, I have touched your gift, appreciated

its richness and your intention, and that is enough for me."

The rosary hangs in her outstretched hand, swaying.

IT IS MINE I GIVED IT TO YOU.

"Gave," she says, her head bent. "You can't, boy. I know it's yours to give, all right," but she's remembering the ring last night, and wondering where this might have come from, "but it is too rich a thing to give to a

chance met friend. I thank you for your thought, truly, but it remains your rosary."

Rosary. He mouths the word, closing his lips on it as though tasting the sound.

"Rosary... you didn't know the name of it? Do you know what it is?"

His face is troubled.

IT'S MINE, thumb jabbed back at himself several times.

"Yeah," she says gently, "it's yours. It's also something you use when you pray. Joe hasn't told you?"

No.

She draws the loops through her fingers, counting off the decades. "Unusual. There's the full fifteen here.

Most rosaries today are really chaplets, and have enough decades for only one set of mysteries." Ah, look at

him Holmes, you're spouting garbage and gobbledygook

as far as he can make out-- "Generally, only those used by religious

have fifteen decades. I've got one myself, a pleasant ebony and steel-linked one, complete with brass

medallion and silver Corpus, obtained long ago from a Cistercian."

This one, gold and gems, seems too worldly for a religious to handle. Her fingers arrive at the plaque again.

Squinting, she can make out a monogram, much worn as though someone has fingered it for years. The

letters flow into one another, but look like gothic M.C.de V.

She can't think of a Latin tag that fits the letters. Mater Compassionem de Virgo? Not only bastard Latin, but

it doesn't sound orthodox.

She turns the plaque over. There's a surprisingly clear intaglio of the icon, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

"Well, well."

She adds after a minute, "The beads keep track of the prayers you say, tell you what kind of prayer to say

next. You ever want to know them, I can teach you."

He makes no move to take the rosary.

She hands it to him again, so close that he can't avoid taking it. He frowns, and writes on his pad. Then he

kneels up and puts the rosary over her head, passes her his note, face tight, mouth tight, all of him condensed

and taut as though ready to spring or explode.

IT IS YOURS I GIVE IT TO YOU

Ah hell, what do we do now? Give it back and precipitate a scene?

because there is a rising flush on the Gillayley face and his tension is becoming almost unbearable.

Instead, she makes the circle of beads into three loops, and settles them round her neck.

'Okay, I thank you very much for your gift."

I can always sneak it back to Joe. Oddly, the rosary feels comfortable and familiar, clinking against

the Sufic maze. And more oddly, the small boy is delighted with himself for succeeding in giving it away.

Relaxed as water now, positively hugging himself for joy of it all.

Nutty child.

"Umm, d'you mind telling me what this is for?"

He shuts his eyes and shakes his head.

"You don't mind me asking? Or you're not telling?"

The pad and pencil are slipped deliberately back into his pocket.

Which reminds me. No more initialling each note. I musta got into the familiar category, or some damn thing.

"Then what's it for?"

The boy goes on shaking his head, so his hair falls screening his face.

The way it flows out with each turn of his head reminds her of the skirts of dancing dervishes as they spin to

ecstasy.

Exceedingly nutty child.

"Her. Well, we'll leave the matter there then." Gets to her feet, and puts the mutton-birds into the range oven, in an unlidded baking-dish.

"Come on," she says to the entranced child, "downstairs and help us collect some puha to go with them."

The muttonbirds turned golden in their own rich fat: the puha steamed quickly in water. Kerewin cut slices of

brown wheaten bread and left them unbuttered. Then they feasted. Muttonbirds have a lot of bones, some

dark, some pale as bones should be. They licked each one clean of flesh and fat, and wiped their fingers and

faces on bread before eating it. Picked up puha in their fingers: its slightly bitter taste was astringently

refreshing. A mouthful of bird, and one of bread, and a fingerful of puha, and then back to the bones.

He had muttonbird fat on his face, in his hair, all over his hands. And breadcrumbs... gone was the neat

precise eating of the weekend. This was hog in and enjoy.

And I probably look as bad, feel as good.

At last she said, leaning back against her chair,

"Do you know what was in that note from Joe?"

Simon sighed happily.

He wiped his mouth on his hands, and his hands on his jeans. Grinned at her while he did.

Then took out his notebook and wrote, JOE PICKS ME UP TONIGHT.

"You know." He has left delicate fingerprints of grease on the paper. "Well, I'm sort of pleased that you like being here, but what precisely do you think you're going to do?"

The little boy shrugged. .....

"Because I'm going upstairs to do some drawing in a minute. Simon licked his fingers, then held up the pencil

and pointed to himself.

Nice economical way to say, I'll draw too, assuming that's what

he means.

She stood, looking at him. The fey swirling mood had ended.

But, a tendency to steal and damage... not all there, said the radiophone voice. Joe had written:

Many thanks for the best night I've had in years. I'll buy a book on chess today and see if I can't beat you

some day at your own game. There's a bloke plays at work -- I'll ask him for a few tips.

Muttonbirds for lunch, and

You know, you got a fan. He thinks you're marvellous (so do I). Want a kid? Going cheap... if he's any

trouble, pack him home. That'll be a better inducement to good behaviour than any hiding I threaten. Bit of

cheek, eh, this letting him go back to you without so much as a word of permit from you. (But it's just before

7, and I don't think you'll welcome a call this early.) Let us know if you're doing something and don't want

him round -- Piri'll pick him up. Otherwise I will, tonight. Natouhoa Joe G. XXX

Very different note from the formal Thank you of yesterday.

But where's the brat been since 7 this morning? And what's all this about? It doesn't feel right. Yet nobody's

stomped on my heart except family, so why am I so mistrustful of people?

A meal, and a chess game or two, and he signs the letter with kisses like a lifetime friend. And this one,

grinning like a gargoyle from his chair where he's kneeling, brings a ring for a ring untaken, and the making

of a garden of prayers. I don't understand it....