The Bone People (51 page)

responding to very much at all."

"O God."

The tinny voice grows stronger.

"He isn't reacting to sounds, and it appears he has difficulty in focusing on anything. We're not sure how

much he can see, but he can move his limbs. And he did more or less co-operate when the neurologist carried

out a simple test. He can understand some things I think."

The operator has obviously been fiddling with the connection. The line is now clear, free of all hums and

buzzes.

"No idea how much?"

"No, though I personally think he's aware of where he is, for instance, and what's happened to him."

"Others don't think so?"

"Well, they don't know Simon's reactions as well as I do, and you know how difficult it can be, trying to

understand him."

I never found it that hard...

Saying aloud,

"He doesn't recognise you at all?"

"He doesn't, but that kind of amnesia is normal after the sort of head injury that's involved here. And as I said, we don't know how much he can see or hear."

"Do you reckon it'd do some good if Joe caught the late flight and came?"

"No," says Elizabeth decisively, "and dissuade him if he has any idea of visiting. Aside from the fact that the police are sure to object, I think the child is terrified by the possibility of this happening. We're doing our --"

"He's terrified of hospitals, that'd be --"

"In this instance, we are all sure that the source of Simon's very evident fear is a recurrence of what has

already happened far too often." Cold, authoritative, brooking no disagreement, and implying that Kerewin is

somehow guilty for being involved.

So I am, she thinks dully, and I'm probably wrong for thinking Sim would want Joe to help him now. Would

I want someone after they had done such damage to me? Even if I loved them? No way....

The conversation ends in small talk, goodbyes.

She thumbs the operator recall button. He says anxiously, "Is everything all right? I was very upset when I

heard what had happened."

"Not half as upset as I was," says Kerewin drily. She sends Joe a long telegram in Maori, and then settles down to drinking in earnest.

The boy entombed by deafness? Possibly blind? Mentally deficient?

Aue--He would be better off dead. Better by far that he had never woken again.

The rain begins to fall that night, the first heavy rain for nearly six weeks. She weeps with it, stirred to tears

for the first time since the night of horror.

Maudlin Holmes, o tear besotted soul... think on the bright side. He may be all right. (What? Frozen deep in

his terror, waiting for the next nightmare to happen?) Besides, we use only a, what is it? tenth of our brain?

So, if he's lost a bit, it's not to say that he is subnormal, ineducable. (The tenth of the brain theory is

estimation and unprovable... and who's going to bother to educate the urchin now?)

It's a question she has steadfastly been avoiding since she first heard from Piri that Joe had been charged with

assault on the child, and doing grievous bodily harm. She knows with intuitive certainty that the one thing the

court will do is order a change of custody. That Joe will lose his child for good, for ill, but definitely forever.

She works in the cold drizzle, helped by whisky, piling wood in a high teepee. Dribbling fuel oil over it, and

ladling out kerosene. It takes all day to build the fire. It has to be done carefully, for in the centre, in a small chamber all of its own, she has set the tricephalos.

Like unto the phoenix laying its egg, I have laid me down the last work and monument I'll ever make. May

this pyre burn it to terracotta. A very hardshelled triumph... and who knows what will rise if it hatch?

She pours the rest of the whisky on the completed fire-nest.

She is tired nearly to death.

Her weakness is frightening now. She stands by the cunningly piled wood, wondering that it has taken her ten

hours to do what would have been accomplished in two a month ago.

If I'm going to burn out this quickly, it might not be worth taking off. It might be better to stay here, and just

lock the door towards the end... but it's too late now. I've done my wrecking... besides, someone would have

come here eventually and discovered one hell of a mess. I will go away to a quiet desert place and make a

skeleton of me in peace and solitude.

What a pity, she thinks, as she drops the bottle at the woodpile's edge, that we humans don't have

aesthetically pleasing skeletons. None of the elegance and beauty of your humble mollusc. Just a knobbily

serrated jumble, headbone connected to de breastbone etcetera etcetera. On the other hand, maybe just as

well... something might decide to start collecting us--

She goes inside, seeking more whisky to warm the still-living body she owns.

The moon's up, and inching round the world.

It's outside the window when Joe gets back.

He comes straight across the room and kneels down beside her.

"You feeling bad?"

"Quite. Goood. Act-u-ally," looking at him through bleary eyes.

He looks harassed and tired, and the sick greyness is back in his face, and yet for seconds he grins at her,

merry and charming as ever he was.

"O ho. Fair enough. In a few minutes, I'll join you. I'll just have a shower and get changed. Trim my hair so I look less of a hard case and outlaw." His grin vanishes, and he is tired and old-looking again. "There's some news," he says gently. "Bad news."

"Sim?" her heart jars suddenly.

"No, no... Marama's had another stroke. They've taken her to Christchurch but they don't think she's going to

last the night." He sighs. "Just as I was shutting the house, Piri came round and raved at me, and said I was to blame for it. Maybe I am... o dear Christ, I'll miss the old lady if she goes--"

"Aue," she says thickly. "So'll I."

One up, one down, and one to go--

He's shaking his head. "I dunno, things happen all of a heap, don't they?"

"Yeash."

"I got your telegram... thanks from my heart for it... I've been talking to Elizabeth -- she came back this

morning, and she thinks Himi'll make it now. Morrison says the two charges are the only ones they're

preferring, and he thinks I'll get a year. I get the feeling he'd like it to be a century."

Kerewin laughs harshly.

"You wanna hear some of the things Morrison said to me, e hoa. He do not like you, my friend Joe, he do not

like you at all."

"I can imagine." He stands. "Anyway... can we talk a lot tonight? Because I don't think we'll get the chance for quite a while."

She lets her head fall back so she's staring up at him. Both of him.

"I think that's a good night idea." She shakes her head and both Joes slide into one.

"I mean, a good idea for the night."

"Good," he says drily.

He puts down his briefcase. "There's some stuff in there that's yours... and a bottle or two I got in hope of

talk. O, and I've left some of our gear," he hesitates, "my gear," in a low voice, "down in the hallway. If it's okay by you, I'd like to store it here."

Shurrely." She pushes herself up off the hearthrug and stands unsteadily.

"S'matter of fact, I'll put it away for you if there's nothin you don want now?"

"No, I've got all I need in a handcase." He looks across at her quizzically. "You sure you'll be all right?"

She punches out at him, very slowly. A feather punch, but even so, body memory nearly has him lurching to

one side to avoid it.

"It's a dire excuse to get still more whisky from me cellar, my sweet covey." She sucks in her breath. "Wow, I drunk a little too much today," eyes closed, head loose, swaying slightly on the balls of her feet. When she

opens her eyes however, she looks quite sober. "You want a different drink to help heal the woes of the

world?"

"Nope. Whisky's what I brought."

"Goodoh. Have yer last Towershower for the duration, and I'll shuffle down and put away your gear, and

shuffle back, and between sober sips, examine whatever it is in there." Momentarily befuddled again, "What is in there? I never left anything at your place--"

"Things Himi stole."

A string of moneycowries she'd used long ago as worrybeads.

A silver religious medal on a too-fine silver chain.

The talisman knife, Seafire.

Seven Cuban cigars, still in their cedar-veneer wrappings.

About 200 paper clips.

A small piece of machinery she had stolen for herself from the first factory she worked in: it had a fascinating

and now totally useless action. Press the top button and a thin spiked disk the size of a five cent slid out, spun

round, whirred to a halt, and retreated back into the housing. You could do it again and again, the disk never

got tired. It never varied either.

An agate from the heap of polished stones she used to keep on her desk.

The miniature travelling chess-set.

A tiny bottle of the patchouli-scented oil she uses to perfume her hairbrushes.

Three felt pens and an oblong block of Chinese ink.

A heavy silver thumbring with a bezel of turquoise.

And a wad of the visiting cards she had used in Japan (engraved with three dolphins going deiseal round the

Southern Cross, her name in Japanese and English, and the proud boast, Artist, which she had been then.)

Some of it she had known to be missing.

Except for the knife Seafire she didn't miss any of it.

O my strange little filcher, the magpie child, what in the name of hell did you want with all this? Not that it

matters now, but I have a suspicion that, despite Joe's efforts, you never

had any sense of property, just that of need, and you thought everyone else was really the same way too--

She swept all the junk back into the brown paper bag, keeping aside her knife. She put the bag in an

envelope, and sealed it, stamped it, and addressed it to the child, care of the public hospital. She didn't send a

letter with it. She went down the stairs in a skittering hurry, while Joe was in the makeshift shower, and left

the envelope out in the letterbox for the postman to collect next morning.

The gear Joe spoke of is three suitcases and a forlorn carton of books and jugs and old shoes. A small pair of

sandals on top. Two guitars, one cased, lean against the suitcases. That's all.

She piles it on top of one of the large packing cases of books, stowed round the border of the cellar.

It's a large cool vaulted room, the cellar: before, she could wander round and admire all the wine and liquor,

the basic preserved food she had stored away. Now it is full of cases and trunks and furniture, and there is

little room to move.

They travelled lightly, the Gillayleys, not loaded down with trivia. But then, in the end we all travel very

lightly indeed. Nothing to carry more substantial than memories... and maybe that's the heaviest baggage of

all--

Philosophising while partially embalmed with whisky never does produce much more than a whining little

tribe of cliches--

She picks up the lamp and plods sadly up to the livingroom.

Time, time, it's all running out and it could have been a season of rare vintage, this coming summer. Now it

has sunk to this vinegary lees,

up a step, another step, up yet again,

my cask hollow light, the rich wine about done. Ah come on, me chortling ghoul... we'll hold a premature

lyke-wake, and make merry for the bitterhearted man... God, his mother named him true, Ngakaukawa to the

very marrow I'll bet he is... he's looking a bit grey tonight, I'd better check he hasn't split a stitch or a gut...

shall we reveal about our gut, ghoulie? Piti (one step) piti (two step) potara (three) a... the top... nah, we go

away because we have a simple ulcer, and because we are tired/depressed/rundown as all aforesaid. Because

we want to build up strength again... mother of us all, the lies we tell to salve hearts. So be it, I go on my

mythical painting safari for recuperation, and yeah Joe, we'll meet again next spring if you're sprung by then--

She lays out the last of her smokes, cheroots and bidis and Kreetax,

pipe tobacco and the last quarter-ounce of Coast gold grass. She ranges the two bottles of whisky and the

squat little flask of Drambuie by the selection.

Should do us... and do is the right word--

She washes her face and head in cold water, and sits back down by the fire, feeling cool and high and relaxed.

She lies on her side, head propped on hand: the hardness in her gut is felt less that way. Water from her wet

curls drips steadily down her supporting arm: the soles of her kaibab clad feet, turned to the fire, are already

hotter than is comfortable. She moves one leg at a time slowly out of range, back again into the fiery shadow,

out--

He thinks,

She has this curious heavy grace, like something out of its element making do in a thinner medium. Like she

should be living in water. If only I could lie down beside her and tenderly, by firelight--

"Joe, do us a favour please?"

"Whatever you want."

"Pass us the guitar down... I seem to have grown roots here."

As he lifts the instrument down, she hears him grunt with pain.

He brings the guitar back and lays it by her: his face is rigid.

"Fretting you?" she brushes the air by her belly in a gesture the child could have made.

"Sometimes it twinges."

He pours himself a strong whisky and swallows it like medicine; pours another, and groaning, settles his

length by the other side of the fire.

"Kia ora," lifting the glass briefly to her.