The Bone People (21 page)

thanking the child in a loud voice as she does so, until Simon P is stamping any old where in despair.

"Hey!" she calls at last. "I've got enough. E tenderheart, it's all over, the massacre. You can stop protecting them now."

She giggles over the full kete, and he comes back dumb with rage and glowering, and hits at the bag.

"Go easy, fella. You'll damage yourself, doing that."

He shakes his head fiercely, and begins crying.

"Whatsamatter? You crying for them? Believe you me, this is what their mothers brought them up for--"

Tears dribbling down, channeled toward his pointed chin, Kerewin, you piss me off. She grins at him,

standing there hunched and miserable in the winter sun.

"Hell, I wasn't trying to upset you. Much, that is."

He doesn't smile.

"Berloody oath... look boy, to the best of my knowledge, and that's

considerable, it doesn't hurt shellfish to be eaten straight from the shell. Not as it would hurt us to be gobbled

up whole. I believe the scientific expression is, the shellfish receives a terminal negative stimulus, okay?"

And I hope the multisyllables intrigue you enough to stop your weeping because I'm beginning to get some

kind of guilty indigestion.

He sniffs, sighs resignedly, crouches down by her, and pats her shoulders. Then he holds out his hand.

"O?"

Points to his mouth, and the kete.

"You wanta pipi? After all that bloody fuss?"

She gives him two, ready shelled. He eats them slowly, screwing his face up and weeping all the while. He

begs for more when he's finished.

"I do not understand kids," says Kerewin to the world at large, and gets up, to hunt for more pipi.

She lay back on her elbows and watched him wander along the beach. He fossicks, picking up tide debris,

bringing it back to her.

She assumes he wants to know what they are, so identifies each object.

"Gull's feather. Wouldn't hazard a guess as to the species."

"That's a segment of sea biscuit. Not for eating, you silly little bugger. It's an echinoderm."

"Um, lamanaria of some kind... lessee, this is the Coast, and it's a roughish beach and the weed's got no side-

spikes. Yep. Lessonia variegata for your information, boy, and get it to hell away from here. Sandflies love it

for a breeding ground."

"Fishbone. Haven't the faintest idea as to what kind of fish, but the bone's a vertebra."

"That is part of an electric light bulb. Probably chucked overboard by a marauding squid boat. I wouldn't

bother keeping it, unless you want to go in for some kind of revengeful voodoo. Then I'll help you."

"O those. Co-eye, kor-fie, alia same tree."

He wrinkles his nose, Yeah?

"That's part of a poem, believe it or not. These are seeds of a tree, golden seeds for golden flowers, seaborne to make more sea-trees. Well, it's a coast-dweller, anyway."

He's still puzzled.

"The kowhai is a tall thin tree, with greybrown bark. It blooms in the earliest part of spring, with flowers that the tui and korimako love. It likes coastal areas, and lets its seeds fall into rivers and the sea. And they are

carried to other beaches so the kowhai blooms

through the land. A sea-tree emblem for a sea-people, only the people haven't woken up to the fact they are a

sea-people yet... anyway, co-eye English pronunciation, kor-fie Maori pronunciation, alia same tree, getit?"

He reaches over and pats her on the shoulder again. It is a curiously adult gesture from a small boy. He smiles

as he does it. Don't get upset, Kerewin, I believe you.

Romance on.

Kerewin lifts her eyebrows until they disappear into the brown bush of her hair.

"And the same to you, urchin... collect as many as you can, and I'll show you how to make a necklace from

them. Made so you can plant the seeds at a later date, if you want."

He comes back with a handful and puts them carefully in her pocket. Wanders off down the strand again.

The wayward brat... she squints at the winter sun, and closes her eyes. She keeps seeing scarlet patterns that

jiggle and flash.

A touch on her hand.

She stiffens, then relaxes.

"What's up?" closing her eyes again.

He blows in her ear gently, and she shudders at the unexpected breath.

"Meaning?"

He sits back on his heels, and smiles with half-closed eyes, shaking his head all the while.

He'd thought,

knowing names is nice, but it don't mean much. Knowing this is a whatever she said is neat, but it don't

change it. Names aren't much. The things are.

Laughing secretly at himself. Because you can't say names, Clare. But he'd come back anyway, and blown

into her ear.

A whole stream of names that is. Do you like them? Segment-lamanaria-vertebrae-lessonia-variegata-

marauding-voodoo-korfie and ALL.

Her eyes flicked open quick again, and were as sharp and threatening as glass splinters.

It was just air, see? he'd thought hurriedly, my hand was more real, see? But Kerewin didn't ever get really

wild. She just sat there, frowning at him.

She'll get to know it, one of these days.

He'd sat, smiling his know-all smile into the sun, until, tired of making explanations for words, he lay down

and went to sleep.

The first thing he saw, right by his eyes when he wakened, was the sea biscuit shard. He took his time about

waking, doing it slowly

(because it is Kerewin sitting there, still squinting at the sun, still dreaming) until he was clearheaded and

calm. Then he picked up the shard: still lying sprawled, he started building. The sea biscuit in the centre, a

network of dry marramgrass stalks on top, the feather, a sliver of driftwood, a seaweed bladder, a pipi shell...

putting them together neatly, quickly, and it seemed to Kerewin's bemused eyes, inevitably... it finally stands

about six inches high, sturdy yet delicate, an odd little temple, a pivot for sounds to swing round--

He moved a few inches to lie down beside it, ear nearly touching the thing.

Slowly his eyes closed, and his mouth loosened, opened. His expression was one of rapture.

Is it being trusted? She tamps the tobacco into the bowl more firmly.

It's almost a feeling of protection I have... because he's leaving himself so wide open? I could sneer, or scold,

or stomp on it, or him... but he seems to have decided I'll do none of these things. So that's him trusting me,

and this, this peculiar sensation that tightens my chest and throat is the spinoff.

The snark says, Maybe he's discovered how to use a new kind of soundwaves. You know what happens with

subsonics--

Ah shuddup--

The child is motionless. If she listens very carefully, she can hear his breathing. It is abnormally slow.

Simon P. Gillayley, no wonder you're considered an oddball. Emotionally disturbed, not all there, says the

grapevine... do you do it often, lie before what's essentially a rubbish pile and fall into a trance? What with

that, and fighting, and stealing, and absconding from school not to mention home... and anything else I

haven't heard about yet?... the hat fits. The reputation's deserved. And yet...

Unbidden the thought drifts in, Why does he trust me?

Why should he trust me? I don't trust anyone, I've never trusted anyone. Not even as a child, when everyone

is supposed to be innocent enough to trust the world. Maybe I became too early aware of myself, aware of the

shivered base that we all have to build on.

knew too much. The smarter you are, the more you know, the less reason you have to trust or love or confide.

So this one is very stupid?

Simon touches her hand. His eyes are wide open and sparkling, and he's grinning fit to split his face.

"E hine!"

She comes to the car.

"Joe'll be here in a minute."

"I know. How are you? Well in every respect?"

"Yes. I'm fine."

"That's good." He sits back into the shadows a little, his hands folded in his lap.

His face is tired but his eyes are stern, aloof. He is not a friendly looking man.

His wife, smiling and nodding with every phrase he says but not so far venturing a word herself, is small and

plump and full of friendship. She had waved out before the car stopped, snared Simon and cuddled him,

crooning over him while the old man sat stiff and straight and unsmiling in the back.

Wherahiko Tainui asks, "Was it a good two days?"

"Fair enough. The weather was good."

"And what do you think of him?"

"Who?"

"Joe's boy, Haimona."

"o, Sim." She rubs her forehead thinking, This is an inquisition and so far they haven't even bothered to

introduce themselves. Well, Joe said over his shoulder, This is Kerewin, before catching his child up, but

neither of them had acknowledged it. She says coolly, "He strikes me as being older than his supposed years,

and sort of wild."

"Wild?" Wherahiko pounced on it as though it was an insult, "wild?"

She shrugs.

"As though he is growing up wild. Fey."

Marama says comfortably, "I think I know what Kerewin means, love," beaming at her. "He seems older

because he doesn't act like most kids, and he seems wild because he does unexpected things."

"That's more or less it. Wild in the uncontrolled sense."

Wherahiko grunts. Marama says,

"We've heard so much about you, dear. Why haven't you called in?"

"Well...."

"You were probably waiting for an invitation," says Wherahiko, and all of a sudden he smiles, and the

wrinkles and creases cause his face to lose all its fierceness. "Now you've got it," he adds, and Marama says,

"Anytime you'll be welcome, any time at all."

"Well, thanks. I will call in." Within the next decade, she thinks, still cool at being treated in what she considers to be a rude and casual manner.

"Tomorrow," says Wherahiko.

"What?" She is startled.

He stabs a finger toward Joe and Simon coming over the lawn. "We want to talk to you, or at least, I want to

talk to you... Marama can have you after," he grins again. Then his face falls back into its ordinary severity.

He whispers, "I need to talk to you about them both."

And she turns bewildered, to watch Joe and Simon laughing and sparring in the sunshine. Two days apart,

and they make it seem a year of bitter separation by the way they carry on reunited.

"Tomorrow then dear?" Marama is saying. "Any time you like, Kerewin love," and the two old people flash her smiles.

"I'm invited to the Tainuis' tomorrow," she says to Joe, "and I'm buggered if I know why."

"O, they been wanting to meet you for a while now." He shrugs one shoulder. "I thought they'd never get round to asking you though. They're both very shy."

"That's one thing they didn't strike me as being... I'm a shrinking flower in my own fashion, so what're you

doing tomorrow?"

"Avoiding Marama or Wherahiko, I hope," and he says, after her startled "What?" "O there's been trouble between us that goes back to Hana's death. We had a proper -go coming back over the hill." He shrugs that

uneasy one shoulder lift again, as though he is hunching to take a blow on his body instead of his face. "It

started when I wouldn't let them have Himi to look after when Hana died. They never forgave me. They still

think I'm making a pissawful job of bringing him up. Whatever I do with him is wrong... they'll probably tell

you some awful lies about him and me."

Kerewin laughs.

'As though I'd believe them... I've seen enough to know you're doing a great job. You've got patience and

time and love, and that's what he needs."

He looks at her quickly,

"Yeah, that's what he needs... would you mind if I didn't come with you then?"

Okay. I might see if I can invent an excuse for not going anyway." He looks unhappy, but he smiles gently at

her.

Jesus, thought Joe, this whole thing is going to explode and come I crashing down round my ears, but what

can I do? What in the name of heaven can I do?

It's not wrong, he tells himself. Well, not bad wrong. What else is there to do?

He won't listen, he won't behave, he won't do as I say, what else ] is there?

He hugs himself, deriding the movement of self-sympathy as he makes it (Ngakau, you're as bad as he is).

The feeling of roosting in a false calm, knowing that the mother I of all hurricanes was about to break loose

and destroy the world,} was getting stronger daily.

You should explain it, he says to himself forlornly. She'll probably! understand... if they just tell her

pointblank... he shudders. I can't tell her yet, it's not the right time. She doesn't know us well enough, know

me well enough. Anyway hell, it's not wrong.

He dreads tomorrow.

She remembers the afternoon as a golden easy haze, wound through with talk and laughter. A sweet three

hours with the only jarring note her own conscience.

And you were going to turn them down cold.

Drinking the wine Marama bought especially for her visit ("We don't drink," says the old lady, and

Wherahiko adds, "The doctor told her and me if we boozed, we'd keel straight over. I don't believe him," he chuckles richly, "but I'm not dead keen to prove him right, eh"): eating the food that had been especially prepared for her ("Ben killed the pig last night when we got home, eh. Nothing like really fresh pork for a

roast, though I'd choose to hang him for a while if I wanted him for a pickle.").

And you were going to say you had to see a man about a dog or some such--

She recalls suddenly, while Wherahiko is showing her the family photo album (there is a wedding picture of