The Bone People (19 page)

he's never told it to anyone. He has a feeling if he does, he'll die.

Stupid Clare, again and again, with each halt step.

If he hadn't thrown the plate, he wouldn't have got the kicks.

On the other hand, if he hadn't thrown the plate, it might have got worse.

As it is, his face is hot and numb at the same time, and he is lightheaded.

I hope it is warm. O Clare, I hope it is warm.

Joe stands beaming at the door.

"Tena koe!" he cries. "Haere mai, nau mai, haere mai!"

Two or three of the regulars look up from their beer.

Shillin' Price says, "Gidday Kerewin." The barman nods to her.

Joe yells,

"Meet Pi! Missus! And Polly!"

There's a group of people in this corner. Shrouded in smoke, the brown faces stare at her with bright

unfriendly eyes.

"Tena koutou, tena koutou," she says, "tena koutou katoa." As always, she wants to whip out a certified copy of her whakapapa, preferably with illustrative photographs (most of her brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins

on her mother's side, are much more Maori looking than she is). "Look! I am really one of you," she could

say. "Well, at least some of me is--"

"Tena koutou katoa," she says again, lamely.

The old lady Joe had called Missus looks at her keenly, grunts, then says "Hell hell hell."

Polly Ackers spares a glance from her cardplaying to grin at Kerewin, glower at Joe.

"Your turn, fuckwit," she says to Pi.

Pi Kopunui (Joe enlarges, "Pi, he's a cousin on my mother's side eh." High pitched giggling. "Most of them are Tainuis of one kind or another") picks up a card, lays a card down.

"Game," he says briefly to Polly Ackers, then turns to Kerewin.

He comes across and hongis. He is warm and big and smells strongly of beer. "Tena koe, kei te pehea koe?"

he says, hugging her. "Joe's said a lot about you these past weeks."

He whispers, "He's got a skinful."

A skinful?

O, he's drunk....

Very

He's very glad she came, Joe tells her and the whole pub, six or

seven times.

Kerewin begins to think of many reasons why she should suddenly go back home. .

But after another jug, the man quietens, pales, excuses himself. He comes back looking rather more sober.

The old lady grins.

"He puku mate, nei?" Hell hell hell.

She has a husky kind of chuckle, like a mummified laugh.

Joe grins back at her, weakly. "Ae."

a moment later he says, "Kerewin? Like to come have a meal now?" His voice lowers,

"Sorry about all that."

"That's okay." To hell, everyone gets drunk once in a while.

"I was uh worried that you might not want to come out with me."

"I see."

"I've got a meal arranged--"

"Well, we might as well have it then."

He looks round the pub.

"Piri was coming along too, but I don't see him. He must have flaked."

"At the New Railway as a matter of fact."

"O?"

"The phone operator mentioned it. When I asked him to ring round and find out where Simon had got to."

Joe grips the back of the chair.

"O, Himi's okay. He'll be with the Tainuis."

"He won't. They're over the hill. Still. And he isn't at your place either. I checked."

Anger is welling up in her. Joe doesn't give a damn where the child has gone. And he must have known the

Tainuis weren't home when he rang her.

O yes, he knew all right.

His head is downbent, and his knuckles have gone pale on the top of the chair.

Pi is looking at him, and shaking his head slightly. The old lady has stopped puffing her pipe. She holds it

inches in front of her, poised and still. Polly is frowning, her eyes fixed on the cards.

Joe sighs, relaxes his grip on the chairback, shrugs.

E hoa, I'm used to him going off, remember. He knows how to look after himself. That's why I'm not

worrying much. Everyone Knows him, eh... hell, I expect Morrison or Trover any moment."

There's a forced cheerfulness in his voice.

The other three are all looking at him now.

"Don't you worry, he'll be okay." He reaches for her shoulder, laying his hand there. "But thanks very much for taking a look for him."

She hasn't watched his face fully. She has been looking at Pi and Polly and the old woman. They have all

looked at each other and then down at the table, and avoided looking at Joe again.

She has a strange feeling that a chance has passed, but she could not describe the nature of the chance, or

even why she feels there was one.

For the first time since they met, she feels alienated from Joe.

All the while she ate and drank and talked smoothly, inconsequentially, the feeling that there was something

very wrong between them grew and grew, until there was a wall up.

A glass wall: she talked, watched him respond to the words, watched his words come at her, made a suitable

reply. Nothing communicated.

She was glad when Joe said with embarrassment that it ah was rather late, and uh, he would have to get up

very early to check on his son's whereabouts, and ah--

His face looks slack and debauched and aged.

"Right," she said cordially, not looking again at his ruined face, "thanks for the evening. I'll see myself home, and if the boy turns up, I'll let you know."

The door is shut.

She had left it pulled to, with the handle on halfcock.

She knows he will be inside.

"Sim? You there?"

Her voice echoes.

No whistle. No fingersnap. No sound.

She shucks off her jacket, and goes silently up the stairs.

No sound yet.

The fire has died down. The coals are coated with ash and little light escapes, but there is still enough for her

to see the shape of the child kneeling on the sheepskin mat, head on his arms, arms resting on the hearthbox.

"Haimona? Simon?"

He doesn't stir. His breathing is even, but somehow thick.

Stupid kid, out all day and caught himself a cold I'll bet. And that's a damned uncomfortable position to sleep

in. But then he's got a knack of going to sleep at peculiar angles.

She lights the lamp, stirs up the fire, moving quietly.

The child doesn't move.

At last she says, "Hey Haimona," taking him by the shoulders.

Bed for you, boyo, and berloody oath, that means I get the sleeping bag and the floor again, and

Shit and hell.

The child looks up at her, and there's the ghost of a grin on his battered face.

O hell, you haven't been asleep--

Then he turns away, his hand holding hers, and his hand is shaking.

"O shit and hell," she says aloud, but this time she moves, crouching down beside him.

"o hell, boy, what've you been doing to yourself?"

As gently as she can, she turns his head back, hand under his chin. He doesn't resist but he keeps his eyes

closed.

His eyelids are swollen, buddhalike, and purple. His lower lip is split, and blood has dried blackly in the

corners of his mouth. Bruises across the high boned cheeks, and already they're dark.

He has been struck hard and repeatedly across his face.

She looks at the hands still holding hers. Unmarked.

"Joe hit you?" her voice as neutral as she can make it.

He opens his eyes. No, he says silently, No.

"Who then?" anger running in a hot flood through her. "Bloody who?"

He stares through the slits of his swollen lids.

"Who, Sim?"

He moves his head reluctantly, side to side.

"Someone at school?"

The fingers say, No No No--

"Damn it, someone you know? I know?"

The child is still.

"Ah sheeit, kid...."

She stands, balling her fists, raises them in the air, lets them fall.

"You don't want to talk about it, okay. I'll just get you a doctor, ring Joe, and they can take it from there."

He gropes for his pad, not shifting his head. As Kerewin moves to the radiophone he holds a hand up, and she

stops, still looking at him in that cold angry way.

NO DOCTOR JOE OK IM OK

"I'll bet," she says.

He holds his clasped hands up.

"You begging?" asks Kerewin sourly.

The hands come undone as he makes an affirmative.

"Well, don't. What's wrong with getting a doctor? You need one. You scared of them or something?"

A limp finger fall

She realises Yes isn't really an answer.

She looks down at him, shaking her head grimly.

Supposing nothing's broken inside, his skull okay and none of his face bones cracked, then it's only cuts and

bruises. It won't scar him. He'll heal well and quick enough. And it's late to call a medic out. But what if he's

got... fractures, concussion, deeper damage?

"Joe can decide," and the child actually smiles.

Not very much, but enough for her to decide it's a smile rather . than a grimace.

"I don't know, boy, I really don't--"

The operator is surprised.

"Well, I never," he says chirpily, "at home all the time eh?"

"Not quite home, and not quite all the time... leave that in till Joe answers, will you?"

The burr-burr goes on for minutes.

"Anyhow, how'd you know he was here just from me ringing Joe?"

The operator giggles.

"Feedback. One of the good things about this job, y'know. Tass Dansy, you know him?"

"Yeah, by repute."

"Well, he saw Simon staggering along the road near your turnoff, and when he made a toll-call a coupla

hours ago, I asked him, he told me, you know how it is?"

With you, I can imagine.

"Mmmm, what do you mean, staggering?"

"Tass's word, not mine. Is the boy all right, or is something the matter?"

"He's okay. Just a minute, please--"

She turns the sound down, and tells Simon, "Come over here." No please about it. The anger still burns.

He has folded himself back over the hearth box He stands awkwardly, and she can hear him hissing with the

effort.

Staggering isn't quite the word, but he's limping badly... sweet hell, if I can get hold of the person who's

knocked him round, I'll make them rue the day they were--

"Hello?" says a voice in her ear.

"Hello Joe?"

"Uh, Kerewin? Uhh," she hears him rubbing his face, and the discreet clit! as the operator gets off the line.

"Sorry to wake you up man, but you can guess who's turned

up.'

"Uh. Good.'

Even allowing he's tired, stupid with sleep, and still heavy with drink, that is one hell of a pause.

He asks hurriedly into her silence, "Everything's all right?"

"No."

Another silence. She hears the sound of his fingers massaging his face again.

"Has he done something wrong or something?"

"Or something. Joe, you didn't by any chance mean, when you said earlier that you'd had to play heavy

father, that you'd bashed him?"

More silence.

"O no way," but the denial sounds wavery. "Sure, I hit him a couple of times, but --"

"Where?"

"Where you normally hit kids."

His breathing has quickened, and the slur from sleep and drink in his voice has gone.

"Not across his face?"

"Hell no... is he hurt there?"

The deep voice has sharpened with concern; the denial is positive. Now it sounds like Joe as she knows him.

"Well thank God for that."

"E?"

"Ah sorry, e hoa. For a horrid moment I thought, well, someone's been playing amateur gestapo, and I

thought, I mean--"

"O God... is Himi right there? Can I speak to him? Now?"

The child is weeping. He takes the mike, and taps it three times.

"E Himi, what's the matter? You all right?"

The small click of the child's nail tapping the receiver once, wait for it, twice.

"I'm glad," says Joe simply. Then he scolds, "Why didn't you come home? Why did you bother Kerewin?

Why'd you--"

It seems the tinny distant voice berates the child for minutes.

Kerewin, still wild at an unknown assailant, tires of the scolding quickly.

Why bawl the brat out, when maybe it's not his fault, when maybe it happened near here, when he's hurt, and

especially, when he can't answer?

She leans over and plucks the mike out of the boy's unresisting hand.

"You're being boring, Joe."

He stops, shocked. "O Kere, I didn't realise that --"

"Shit, man, he's hurt and all you can do is fill his ears with a diatribe? Be a bit realistic... do you want me to get a doctor?"

He says quickly,

"He's very scared of them. I don't think that'd be a good idea Unless he's hurt badly?"

"Weelll, he's bruised. Bruised a lot. I don't think anything's really damaged though. You want to risk waiting

for the morning?"

"That'd be best," says Joe promptly. "I'll pick him up before I go to work tomorrow, and we'll go see Lachlan then. For some reason, she's less of an ogre than the others."

"Okay. It's your kid... you want to tell him goodnight? He's not looking particularly happy."

In fact, he's still crying, leaning against the wall in a sagging hopeless fashion.

"Ae. E pai ana, e Kere, e pai ana."

"That's okay," but the thanks in Maori don't, this time, draw the normal emotional response. He could be

saying The moon, the moon, going by what she feels.

"Here's Simon," she says.

"I'm sorry," says the man, "I'm truly sorry. I didn't mean to upset you, when you've been in trouble, to hurt you. I'm really sorry."

The little boy nods, apparently unconscious of the radiophone.

"Take care of yourself, e Himi, and we'll see you tomorrow morning, early. E moe koe, e tama, and kiss

Kerewin goodnight for us. E moe koe."

The child holds the mike, staring into it through the blur of tears for quite a time after Joe has hung up.