The Bone People (18 page)

guinea-pig or two, and have a vegetable garden about six acres square. Then one night, while I was still in the

planning stages, I sat down on the beach and thought, Holmes, what do you want? Because all these were

other people's ideas... nothing wrong with them, but they didn't really fit me."

She lights her pipe, the flame glowing orange in the dim room. She can see Joe relaxing, his gaze now turned

to her.

"I decided I didn't want livestock, because they demanded care and involvement... and anyway I'd never

wanted them, just eggs and milk and meat. I could get that elsewhere. I'm a fisher, a forager, a hunter-

gatherer, not a farmer. I don't grow much, though I like my herbs--"

"And dandelions!" The man is smiling again.

"Wow, you've noticed... I'm probably the only person in the country who nurtures the dear golden souls."

Simon is still standing, left in the dark, rigid and lonely.

She does something she hasn't done before, turns and reaches to him, sitting him down on her knee. For a

moment he stiffens, looks at her quickly, his eyes shuttered.

"You're making the place look untidy, wickedness," says Kerewin easily, but she won't smile at him.

Something flickers in Simon's eyes, then he smiles tentatively, folding his lids over the light come back.

Don't look in. Nobody look in.

"Mind you," continuing as though she hadn't moved, "I also look after a stand of mushrooms hereabouts, and my patches of puha and my karengo beds are very carefully tended."

"Aue," Joe shakes his head. "E hoa, ka pai."

"What for?"

He stands up, and stretches, and doesn't say why. Just, "My turn to make coffee?"

Kerewin shrugs. "Okay. Good idea."

As he goes past them towards the bench, he reaches out and taps Simon's face. The boy flinches, but the tap

can't hurt him.

"Lucky," says Joe, and continues on his way. For a moment, the boy is tense, then he smiles weakly at

Kerewin -- a lame duck grin, I'm wrong and I know it -- and twists sideways, and leans against her.

"You going to sleep?"

He glances up, then puts his thumb in his mouth and starts sucking it.

"Yerk," says Kerewin, grimacing, but makes no other comment.

She says to Joe,

"This place is almost self-sufficient. The range can live off driftwood. There's a coal seam on the property I

could mine, and extract kerosene for the lamps if I needed to. I've got four solar panels providing hot water,

and two that charge the nicad batteries... only the stereo and the drawing light need the electricity anyway."

"Why the emphasis on self-sufficiency? Do you believe in the millennium or something?"

"Nope. I just like to be able to do most things for myself."

"I've noticed that too," says Joe.

Later that night he said, "You're very tactful." "Peaceloving is the word. There seemed to be a fair sort of row brewing there." He sucked in his breath. "It was a bad thing he was going to

do."

The child is back in his arms, and sound asleep.

"There is a vicious streak in him, Kere, and I'm frightened it might be bred into him." Face full of gentle sadness, "I don't know what to do sometimes."

"Buggered if I would either. Probably pick up the nearest hunk of four-by-two and wallop him with it if he

ever does flick a match at me. Warn him." She chuckled.

"Mmm... it's okay for adults, we can hit back, but he'll take on kids, and kids smaller than he is too. Like he fights a lot, when he's at school."

"Candidly, there can't be too many there who've smaller than he is."

"Maybe not... but he starts the fights I'm told. And he fights dirty."

"He likes fighting?"

"I don't think so... well, I don't know. Every time there's trouble, and I go along to find out what started this lot, I get about fourteen conflicting stories. But fairly often, Himi's started it. It's not always the others

picking on him."

She puffed quietly on her pipe.

"You, uh, put a slightly different emphasis on a similar statement when you first came here."

He quirked his eyebrows and grinned, impishly. He looks so like Simon for a second that it's funny.

"I couldn't tell you all the bad bits at once."

She laughed.

("All things considered, I don't think he's too bad a kid." O true," said Joe quickly, "I mean, it's so bloody awkward for him not being able to talk out loud. He gets to screaming pitch very quickly with anyone who

doesn't bother to try and understand him. Hardly anyone bothers. You're the rarity, eh."

"Yeah, rara avis all right," she kept her face straight.

"He, well, as for the others... they start off with good intentions, I think, but then they get embarrassed, or say he's cute, or put words into his mouth--"

"Hassles," said Kerewin equably.

But she thought about it.

Just for an experiment, she went into Taiwhenuawera, where she hadn't been before, and spent the day as a

mute.

She smiled at questions in pubs, and wrote down answers. She went into shops and bought things by listing

them or pointing. She had quite a time getting a bus ticket back to Whangaroa.

It was infuriating. Everyone she met talked more loudly than normal, as though the volume would penetrate

the barrier of her silence. Many people stared and whispered to each other behind their hands. And some,

kind in manner, simplified their speech and repeated key words, as though she were dumb as well as mute.

it

On the Friday night of bad memory, she had gone into her cellar, cultivated spiderwebs and all, and selected

a bottle of dandelion wine, first of the vintage she laid down a year before.

She is just sitting down to admire the bottle, 1979 says the label, Estate bottled, when the radiophone goes.

It's Joe.

"Tena koe," he says.

His voice sounds odd, hesitant, timid.

"Tena koe."

Pause.

"Uh, Haimona there?"

"No, haven't seen him today. I thought he was going to school?"

"He was, but I've just met Bill Drew and he says Himi didn't turn up."

His voice has returned to normal.

She can hear the background clamour now.

Joe adds, "There was a bit of fuss this morning. He wanted to go and see you, and I insisted he went to

school."

"Fair enough. He hasn't been all week."

"He didn't think so. I had to play heavy father." Pause. "Looks like he skipped it, anyway."

She hears a door bang, and the noise of voices and laughter becomes louder.

"Just a minute, Kere--" Muffled sounds. He's covered the

speaking end. "You still there?" he asks a moment later.

"Of course."

"That was Polly Acker, eh." He laughs. "You know, the lady with Pi Kopunui?"

"No, I don't... wait a mo, is she the one they call the half-nhalfer?"

"Yeah! Half-and-halfer!" He sputters. Now he sounds drunk. "Anyway she just said she saw Haimona at

Tainuis' this afternoon. By the gate. So that settles that, eh?"

"Mmm."

"Probably didn't want to go to you because he thought you'd tell on him eh."

She is obscurely hurt by that.

"Bloody hell, Joe, I'm not your son's keeper. I don't give a damn what he does and where he goes, as long as

he doesn't annoy me. I'd no more tell on him than--"

"Easy, e hoa, easy. I was just joking sort of... uhh, what's the time?"

"Close to six." It's getting dark, outside.

"You doing anything important? Because it's my turn for tea, ne?"

"Well, nooo..."

The fire's bright. Bream is playing Recuerdos d'Alhambra in the background. Half a dozen potatoes, still in

their jackets, are baking in the oven. She's made garlic butter, and has two ham steaks ready to fry. The dusty

bottle waits, wine glinting golden inside.

The first bottle... to drink and eat in peace, in music. She's had little enough of her own company these past

few weeks, and she is beginning to hunger for solitude.

"Look, what say you come here? I'll send a taxi, you have a night out, meet some of my friends? I'll arrange

for a meal."

"What about Sim?"

"O him, he'll be okay at Tainuis'. Marama and Wherahiko think the sun shines outa his arse excuse me. He's

the whitehaired boy round there, literally. You'll come? Please?"

Goodbye potatoes in their jackets, ham, and Bream, and dandelion wine... because who's the only live and

caring chessplaying friend you got round here?

"Okay man. I'll see you say, in half an hour?" Joe says O hell good, that's good. "You at the Duke?"

"Course!" The background racket blares up again. "God, here's Pi. Looking for his missus." Giggle. "See you Kerewin." Clunk. She stands looking at the radiophone.

Dammit. I don't want to go out. I don't feel like it at all. On the other hand, for a friend he don't ask much...

he's given

more than he's got, even taking childminding -- if I can in all conscience call my casual overseeing 'minding'

-- into account.

She puts on her denim jacket, scraping a fishscale off one sleeve, then asks the radiophone operator to get her

a taxi. It's the talkative one. Old Eyes-and-Ears. Not to mention tongue. "Hear you and Simon Gillayley have

hit it off?" "He's a much maligned child." "And Joe too, they say." "They say what?" "O, just that you've been to his place, and he's been to your place."

He adds hastily,

"They say it nicely."

"They couldn't say otherwise, considering."

"Your taxi's on its way. Uh, considering what?"

"Innocence, built-in chaperone, and the laws of slander," says Kerewin curtly.

The operator choked.

"Of course," he says in a neutral tone. "Of, course."

"Would you put in a call to Wherahiko Tainui please?"

"Well, they're still over the hill at the moment--"

"No they're not. Simon's round there now."

Silence.

"He might be with Piri Tainui, would you mean Piri Tainui?"

He's speaking very cautiously. "I'm sure the old people aren't back

yet."

She frowns at the mike, "You're positive?"

"I've had a telegram to ring through to them as soon as they got back. I've been trying their number every

quarter of an hour."

"That's very odd. Would you try Piri then, please?"

The operator breathes heavily.

"I'd like to, but I saw him down at the New Railway just before I came on shift, and I don't think anyone

could raise him at the moment."

"But you said--"

"I meant the boy could be at his house. And that hasn't got the phone on. It's the sleepout on Tainuis' farm.

Lynn and co used to live there with Piri, and Simon used to go there a lot. Before."

She ignores the invitation to gossip.

"Well, that is berloody odd. I wonder where he's got to then?"

"Uh o," says the operator. "We've been expecting this. You like me to ring Sergeant Trover?"

"No. I'll check with Joe first. Thanks all the same." You incredible busybody you. „

"That's all right," says the operator happily. "Have a nice time.

Click. The taxi driver was taciturn. He said Good evening. Yes to her directions, and nothing thereafter.

She walked up the driveway of the Tainui farm, shivering.

Another frost....

Two dogs in a wire run began to yelp and snarl as she came near the house. There weren't any lights on. She

could see the dark bulk of the sleepout: no lights there either. She knocked on the door of the house. No

answer. Walked to the sleepout and yelled,

"E Himi! You there?"

The dogs barked louder.

Nothing else stirred.

"Ahh to hell," and walked back to the taxi.

"Pacific Street now."

The taxi driver grunted.

It was darker and colder by the time they arrived at Pacific Street.

There was milk in the box at the front gate. She collected it, checked the letterbox for mail, and tramped up to

the front door.

It stood slightly ajar,

"Simon?"

She stands in the hallway, listening.

No sound.

She walks into the kitchen and switches the light on. There's a plate on the bench by the sink, and another in

pieces on the floor.

"You just throw whatever's handy when you get wild?"

"Uh huh. From your tea to a certain half gallon of beer on

a Saturday morning."

Breakfast too, by the look of things... she puts the milk in the fridge, and then examines the floor. The plate

had been partly filled with porridge: there were splatters of the stuff all over the place. She picks up the

broken pieces of plate and puts them on the bench, and cleans up the rest of the mess. She notices that while

Joe has left it, he has rinsed his own plate.

The budgie hasn't been covered, the milk hasn't been taken in... looks like nobody has been here since this

morning... so much for hunches, thinks Kerewin. Anyway, if Joe is happy about him roaming all round the

show, why should I worry?

As she walks out to the gate, the smell of the sea comes strongly.

Of course, she thinks, it's only a couple of hundred yards to the wharves.

The smell of the sea was the smell of blood. He didn't know why the two should smell the same, because they

were very different, but they seemed to be inextricably mingled.

Where one was, there was the other.

From where he knelt, it was easy to watch the Tower door.

Kerewin had left. Joe hadn't arrived.

He unwrapped the sack from round himself, and stood unsteadily, shivering.

It's all quiet.

Stupid Clare, he says inside himself, as he limps towards the Tower.

He has called himself that, Clare, Claro, ever since he can remember. He doesn't know if that's his name, and