The Bone People (47 page)

She'll make Joe a good wife, nei?" nodding her head firmly, headscarf aflap, and she exits. "Jesus holy, I'm gonna have to kill that idea fast... first Lynn, now her eh?" Kerewin grins broadly to Joe.

Aiiee, I should have guessed... who would want to take him

on? But I was sure she liked him. Cared for my child. My only

son.

("Did she like you?"

NO.)

But if that's what it is, why didn't she say so the other night?

Instead of all that business about not being ordinary, and not

liking sex?

He says, ignoring her smile, his voice shaking, "We'll go and drink by the bar eh? Have a song or two before

we go?"

Singing is the last thing I want to do.

Aue, cry and cry and cry... why didn't I see it before?

And what am I going to do now? What now, God?

He stares into his empty beerglass. The broken latticework of foam there begins to blur. "Okay man," she is saying. "Singing might stop the swirl in my head, eh?" Picks up the two thirds full bottle of port and forces her way through the crowd to the bar. She bores past anyone blocking her, not hearing protests. She stiff arms

a space for Joe to come beside her.

The guitarist is playing, "It's A Long Way To Tipperary," thunka thunka thunk, and the people round are

bellowing out the words. She joins in, her strong voice roughening as she tries to outshout everyone.

Farewell Piccadilly! and a germane part of her drink-unsteady mind begins a strange battle paean,

Ho! the godly scarlet crump of newborn bomb craters resounds above the gleeful whistling bullets wheel and

the gurgling of cheery throttlings going on and on--

Goodbye Leicester Square!

... a tuneful chrrkchrrkkk of thumb-blocked throats serving as a discreet melodic line below the sshpluck! of

impact and the Ur! of pained surprise... ahh, rustling crumpling figures, blending folding fugueing (hands

spreadfingered clutching Why?? delicate belly entrails flopping softly o he he he!) a resonant yet subtle

percussion...

It's a long long way to Piccadilly

...o splurge life! Encorporate cheerful death! Enjoin dismemberment! O! blissful! ahh! happy war!

but my heart's right there!

But then General Joy had never been considered quite sane, quite healthy, even by his nearest and dearest on

skin....

"Sheeit," she hears herself say to Joe, "Why do they want to go on singing those sorta songs all the time? War songs?" her voice booming out.

The oompa-oompa march strains fade away.

There's a big blond man standing next to her, and a greasy little fellow with buck teeth and hair styled like it

was still the rocking fifties, beside him.

Blondie turns and sneers at her,

"What's wrong with war songs, tit? What do you ignorant young grab-arses know that's better? Yahhh,"

turning to his companion, "they get round with bloody Mahries and behave worse than they do."

She feels Joe tense beside her.

The alcohol fog leaves: she notes and hates the nasal accent, the RSL stickpin in the blazer lapel. She says

icily,

"Pig ignorant old Australian bastards should get back where they belong. To their dead-hearted, deadbeat

offal-catering country. Not parasitise here, littering up Godzone."

The guitar group is gone quiet, collectively grinning. The guitarist plays little riffs, as though thinking about a

song.

"What'd you say?"

"You heard, poof."

"I won't take that from...."

"You'll have to," there's no slur in Joe's voice now either, "because between us, we'll have your guts for garters."

"And goodness knows what we'll do with your balls," says Kerewin.

Mild guffaws from the group. No one makes a move to help or hinder, though several are edging away from

the bar. A ring of space miraculously occurs.

The Aussie stands, going tunk! tunk! tunk! on the bartop with a 20 cent piece, a nasty little tocsin of

imminent violence.

"Stow it, c'mon stow it," says the fifties-greasy. "They'll do you. Turn it off yer fuckin idiot."

The other man stands uncertainly now, looking at Joe's very broad shoulders, at Kerewin's long tensed hands.

He can see curious callouses all down the edges of the palms. His eyebrows stand out silver against the

growing flush of his face.

"Arr," inarticulate with indecision.

Kerewin giggles.

His meaty lips twitch.

"Arr yourself. Push off. Get lost." Joe turns deliberately round to the bar. "Fill 'em again Bill. Nother bottle for Kere too, eh."

The Aussie mutters something foul under his breath and rounds on his companion.

"Let's move. Outa this fucking dump."

He stalks away, his heavy paunch taut before him, fists ladling air at either side. The fifties-greasy grins

apologetically, downs his beer, and scuttles off after.

"Ahh, fresh air," calls Kerewin loudly.

"Easy, e hoa. Be gentle now. They're gone."

"I," she says sweetly, "am as full of fight as seaweed, and hardened as the unshelled snail... lend us that guitar, would you mind?"

"Nah, sure, glad of a break," says the guitarist, bringing the strap over his head, and passing the instrument to her. "Here you go."

She checks the tuning swiftly, harmonics lingering in the air until she cuts them short with the flat of her

hand.

On the open strings she picks a quick tune, says to Joe laughing, "I call this Simon's Mead Reel, though you

don't know about that," chords A minor, while he shakes his head in bewilderment, and then she sings,

E wine,

puts a fog upon the mind,

drowns down those hard old memories

to a thin blear line,

e wine--

Fingers dancing over the strings, changing the tune an octave lower:

E wine,

through the cloud I see

him walk away from me,

but I'm gone beyond the caring time,

zing, and up again,

E wine, e wine...

a reeling tune, lightfooted, lightheaded, only just catching its balance as it slips and dances:

E wine,

just a shade that's left behind

caressing this hard bottle as I please,

drinking my shadow blind,

E wine... e wine... e wine...

voice trailing away, the quick picked tune going lighter and lighter and lighter it's gone-- Clapping and hoots

and "E bloody neat!'"s.

She grins round at them, belly of the guitar close to her, strong hands spreadfingered over the strings.

What did she mean, Simon's mead reel? Mead's a drink, reel's a dance, but what does Haimona have to do

with them?

"Come on, give us another! More!" they start to drone, "More!"

"You really want another?" her grin sharp, and into the chorus of Yes, Geddonwithit, she strums a series of major chords. The crowd quietens fast, and she says, eyes glinting and very blue,

"This is a song for a friend of mine, same one I mentioned before as a matter of fact. You might know him,"

a note jangles, seemingly mispicked, but it comes again and again, until all ears are hearing it more than the

surrounding chord.

"He's the son of Joe Gillayley here," twang, "a little kid, but very sharpwitted," a higher note has started to ring against the first jangle, "Hell, mimin' Simon caint talk, but hell he, got hands aint he?" zang/ping, zaang/piing, they duel back and forth, and the steady throb of the chords goes on underneath.

"Other words, he uses his hands to talk with, this small friend of mine, and this song'll let you do that too, if you want. But not at me, okay?"

Rustle and murmur all round: here and there heads swivel to look surreptitiously at Joe, and see how he's

taking this introduction.

His heart is beating painfully hard, the thud going against the rhythm of the guitar, faster and louder in his

ears.

Ah God, sweet Jesus, look at her... leanwristed, leanankled, but strong thickhipped body, ripe for bearing

children no matter what she says... Lord, I could have more children by her... narrow waist I could put my

hands around. Swaybacked she says, a draught mare, she says, paunched before I'm forty, beerbellied and

wellbellied, she says, laughing her head off... laughing at me now, and having a go at Sim, that's not fair, he'd

be hurt, but why? Why God? I love her, and she won't let me close. Either of us close. Any of us close--

The song has been going on but his ears have been deaf to it. The chorus has been caught up by the people

round him, and is boisterously chanted complete with the gesture.

O spirals are spirals and sweetly curled, but two straight fingers can vee the world,

'Vee ther world!" bawls a voice in his ear, and the man, full of tipsy good humour, punches him lightly on the

shoulder. It's all he can do, heart quaking, fists clenched, to smile tightly at him.

What does she mean by doing this? She knows he isn't allowed to do that. She's poking shit at me, and saying

how little she cares for him? But it doesn't make sense--

His heart is weeping in him.

Another verse from Kerewin, unheard because the chorus has taken the tipsy man's fancy and he hums it out

loud, ready to pounce as soon as it comes up again. WhangI as the chorus chord is struck hard and away the

crowd goes, rowdy and laughing and upping each other as merrily as anarchists through it.

He is sick to his stomach through all the stamping and applause.

The silence, and her voice, come strangely to him.

"Well okay... this last one," boooo in sustained herd disapproval, "yeah, definitely last, this is cutting into my drinking time," dapple dapple hurr hurr hurr, "this last one is a bit different. Quiet, eh."

A simple chord sequence, D A7 G--

"Tenei mo Haimona, e hoa," and he stares wildly at her.

This is for Simon? But what about the others? When I was young and tree was full, of sweetly singing birds,

then full of heart was I with song, o'erpowering great for words,

the key changes, slides into a dischord,

Not so now--

Her voice is unstrained, no longer outshouting the crowd, pleasant alto, easy on the ears,

When me and the tree were older both, and birds had left their young, words for my song I began to find, and

to the tune give tongue,

again the wandering eddy of discordancy," With a vow--

Aiee, it's a gentle song, he thinks with thankful wonder. His heartbeat is calming down. Maybe it's just that

I've taken it all up wrongly, maybe it's all right--

That all the good would sunlike shine, and beckon me ahead, but in grey age for my past I pine, with years

my vow is dead,

the small bitter melody again, Forgotten now--

That's the way it happens, he thinks, we start out bright and something clouds us... if it's for Himi, maybe

she's saying this won't

happen to him, this is her warning for him, her lesson-- The chord sequence changes, Dm Am E, is hit harder,

Lightning blasted the tree, the birds are fled; Death hovers here for me. Yet not all hope is dead...

a ragged arpeggio, and then slowly the notes wind back to the original tune. Silence all round the bar, spread

to the tables beyond.

His heart has eased to its normal beat, past the strain and pound of desire and bewilderment and hurt. He

waits for the chance to sing with her.

O when I was young and tree was full,

he joins in, his bass mellowing the song further, and Kerewin smiles to him,

of sweetly singing birds,

then full of heart was I with song,

o'erpowering great for words--

The last chord dies into silence.

"C'mon, another!"

Again the beat of clapping, and the droning choir of "More!" but Kerewin shakes her head. "That's happy hour over for tonight, kiddies," slipping off the guitarist's stool and passing the guitar back to its owner. She joins Joe at the bar.

He slips an arm round her, whispers smiling, "Those were all your songs?" taking the arm away before she

can resent it.

"O yeah. Sort of."

Little caches of verse, the hidden hoarded hopes of yesterday, things to sing and savour, saviour verses

s'hope.

She takes a deep mouthful of the wine he had poured out ready for her.

Hear it, hum it, hymn it... stuhupid Kerewin.

To her left she can hear Joe bragging, Yeah, all songs she wrote for my son eh."

I did not.

... He's a little bastard," wipes mouth on back of hard brown hand, ,,but a gutsy little bastard. Wouldn't be

mine if he wasn't, he boasts, wouldn't have kept him, eh?"

The man beside him grins. "Yeah? Sounds a good kid...."

From that you can tell? But he is good. Joe's golden boy the sunchild... I wonder if that's what bothers the

man? He said

right at the beginning it didn't, but he's changed his tune on a lot of things since... maybe it hurts, everytime

someone sees you two together, notes that blondness, and looks you over speculating, "Cuckold? Or so

Pakeha a wife your blood can't show... ?"

She drinks more wine, orders large whiskies in a row for Joe. "Her?" she hears him say, back to her, "her?

NO way, all she's in love with are her bloody paintings." She could be a thousand miles away.

Who knocks

on the rotten boards of my heart?

Let me in, let me in,

It's me -- Kerewin--

Too true.

"Scuse me, Joe," to his unhearing ears, and walks to the toilet, each step purposely in line, effortfully straight and steady.

"Deafer and deafer and drunker and drunker," she croons, and the pub recedes entirely away.

A silence like the most intense music--

... the stench of the airfreshener is vilely plastic. She is beginning to feel sick. But outside the toilet she is