The Bone People (64 page)

"You know I'm Doctor Fayden, right? Well, my real name is Sinclair, Sinclair Fayden,"

Sinclare? Clare? My name?

"so forget the doctor bit for a while, and think of me as a helpful fellow called Sinclair. Okay? I think I can be helpful... with your help. And this," tapping the little ivory card with a casual forefinger.

It's the magic word all right, the golden key, the open sesame.

The boy's unwinding from his unholy huddle. Propped by his elbows, head back, he stares up at the man as

though it's the first time he's seen one.

It's strange how discomforting the askew green stare can be, but Sinclair grins it away.

"It's going to take some time to explain all this. It's about you, and your dad, and this lady, Kerewin Holmes, uh huh?"

Pause: wait for it: we get a Yes.

Sinclair mentally rubs his hands.

This ain't gonna be a disaster area after all.

There's other people in it too, and there's places... what's up?" he's only turning over to pick up his pad.

By the ineffable name, I think he's finally gonna risk it, break that record and actually SMILE for the first

time... not quite a smile, more like a twitch... nuts, nobody here to corroborate

(he's smiling frantically back).

QUESTIONS? scarred thumb jammed back to himself like it's a cocked trigger.

"You wanna ask me questions, boy? You ask all the questions you like, and I will answer them truthfully as I

can. Cross my heart and hope to die," giving him the cross on the heart and chop across the throat, that the

kids seem to take more seriously than the words themselves.

"You askin now?"

The boy shakes his finger, wriggling up to sit closer, still watching him intently.

Fuck, it's like someone threw a switch. He's a different child altogether.

None of the brittle defiance, and none of this horrid apathetic docility we've been getting lately either. Alive

again, naturalleee,

all the while he says aloud,

"Okay, anything you want to know more about, stop me and we'll talk. Now, I think I'm right when I say you

want to go home, and home means your dad?"

He retreats before the avid hunger in the child's eyes.

"It means this lady Kerewin Holmes, too?"

It does, it does. He's shaking with Yes's, fingers and head.

Sinclair says blandly.

"I see. Well, y'know they're all convinced here that you've been scared and hurt too often to want to go back

to your dad... what do you call him?"

JOE

"Makes sense. How do you... hey, d'you know what I was just gonna ask you? How do you say Joe's second

name?" high giggling, and the boy, we didn't know about this, joins in with a strange throaty chuckle.

I CANT WRITE IT ASK PIRI

"Yeah, I'll do that... anyway, the other doctors and nurses think they're doin you a big favour sending you

away. They haven't asked you about it, but they know they know best. So off you go to a Hohepa home,"

watching the child frown. "I found out that means Joseph... ironic, isn't it? Won't let you go to Joseph, but

they'll send you... ahh, never mind," squeezing the thin shoulder gently. "You goin away tomorrow, you

know that?"

He adds hastily,

"Hey, it'll be good, I hear they're good places, and everyone'll be sweet to you there... and if things work out the way I want them to, and you want them to, it'll be a holiday. You think of it as a holiday,"

damn, I've unleashed tears too early, he won't listen now,

"hey child, it won't be forever, I promise, I promise it, honey," rash bugger Sinclair, now how you gonna

make that stick?

"Look," urgently, "I been talking to a lot of people, your teachers, the old lady Marama Tainui when she was here,"

ahh, goody, consternation.

A finger swivels in the air making a -- was that a question mark? Gulps and sighs when I don't respond, and

he takes up the pad -- hell, he don't like writing things.

"I'm dumb, Simon, I'm thick, you be patient with me. You tell me your own, thanks," as the pad's shoved

across nearly into him.

MARAMA SICK HERE?

"Hoowee, I let that out, and I shouldn't have done,"

liar man, you hoped he might get interested in something other than his own trouble. The Tainuis said he was

compassionate; rather, that Piri said he was a sucker for anyone else's woes.

Glancing down quickly,

but I'd better not keep you quiverin there too long.

"She was here, she's better now, but she was very sick. Sick as you were," brushing his hand lightly over the boy's ragged gold hair. "You know what a stroke is?"

Very puzzled look. Holy ghost, it's easy to talk with him... where'd Lachlan get this shit about him being a

difficult kid to talk to all the time?

"Let's say it means a part of her broke inside. It happens sometimes to old people... she's really all right now, you needn't worry for her. She was here for two months though, and when I found you were related, I went

and talked some. She loves you, right?"

He gets the real McCoy this time, a full-fledged Simon smile. He grins back. Maan, just as well they're still

your milk teeth-- . "You know what, chicken? You got a lovely smile, you want to indulge yourself more

often," but it fades quickly.

Well, I suppose he ain't got much to be happy about right now.

Well, this Marama," becoming businesslike, "she had a lot to ?ay about you and Joe. She knew you got

hidings, but she said, "I thought he just got a smack. Like all kids get a smack eh? Otherwise he would have

showed it, nei?' You don't give too much away, you know that?"

The look he gets back is deadpan.

She was very upset when she learned how you were hurt, but more upset that they've separated you. She kept

saying, 'But Joe loves his boy, this was just an accident.' It don't look that way

to other people though. Not to the police or the doctors... but they only get to hear the bad parts. I've been

hearing all about the good parts. There were a lot of good parts, right?"

The fingers fan out and close and spread again and again and again.

Sinclair giggles.

"I get the message... millions. Simon, shift over would you, honey? This old chair's hard as a navvy's arse and it's cutting right through me. Thanks. That's another thing, can I borrow one of your cigars while I smoke it?"

giving him the clown face he knows turns kids on, rolling eyes and loose lip smile and eyebrows wagging

Hey? hey?

The boy laughs and pats him on the shoulder. He kneels up and passes him a cigar from the discard pile.

"Ahh, that's good... settle down by me now," peeling the cigar and lighting it. He puffs it awhile in silence, then gives it to Simon saying, "Your head teacher told me you've got this bad habit of smoking, but as your

personal physician I say you can smoke this once and it won't stunt your growth or nothing."

He curls his long limbs up on the bed, arm out for the child to pillow his head on.

Right on, Sinclair man, you doin this your way and it's working, but you can guarantee those stiff-face

cheeses won't understand one bit of it if they come in at the wrong time. They'll foul it up and how they can

foul it up. A bit of time -- give me that and I'll have him started the right way.

Between sharing the cigar, he tells the boy who he has talked to, and what they said, and how he built up a

picture of the situation gradually. "I don't do nothing in a hurry, child," chuckling, "nor something either." It's a much different picture to the one the Social Welfare and other medical people hold.

"I think you'll do better all ways back home with your own folk. There'll be enough of them looking out for

you now everything's come bang into the open. I don't think nobody'll let it happen again. And to make that

sure, I aim to find out whether this Kerewin'll take responsibility for you, while Joe gets access."

The two solicitors had been dubious about that. "Possible," they'd said, "but very unlikely unless the bloke has had a complete change of heart and lifestyle."

Sinclair smiles to the boy,

"From what I hear, the access part shouldn't be a problem far as you and Kerewin are concerned, right?"

Agreement.

The child is relaxed and interested. Even when he starts coughing on the smoke, he attempts to keep his eyes

on Sinclair's face.

"Easy now, I'd better finish that off... well, you got all that part? Right, here's where I need your help. It'll have to be surreptitious,

sneaky you know? You won't have to let any of them know Sinclair put you up to this, you keep a still tongue

in your head?" broad smile taking the edge off that.

Course, mouths Simon, and the man blinks.

"What you say?" tipping the boy's face gently round towards him. "You say course?"

"Wow," says Sinclair, "you put a mite more air behind that word, any word, and one of these days you gonna surprise yourself and talk right out loud," though he's swallowing now like he's going to be sick at any

moment. Cigar? "Speaking of air, boy, you think some fresh stuff be a good idea?"

The NO is so emphatic it surprises him.

K SMOKES THIS.

"And you've missed the smell, huh?" Sinclair shakes his head. "I'm looking forward to meeting this lady.

How'd you call her? Unique? Speaking of meeting her," taking a cagy sideways look through the blue screen

of smoke, "you know where she is?"

Obviously no. And he's fighting tears again, while he writes TOWER? MORANGI? and losing by the time

he's finished.

"Ah c'mon Simon honey, don't break your heart... Morangi? Nobody's suggested there. Where is it, north or

south? I'll try and find her, I really will because I been looking allover already, truly now," watching tears

trickle down into the gutter of the child's smile.

"Fuck me, why can't they see you're missing your home so much?"

Calm down man, everything works for the best... made an impression on Greeneyes here though. That smile

is rueful and knowing and about two hundred years old. Who's the child?

He leans over and kisses the boy quickly and tenderly, and then sits up.

"Look Simon P Gillayley, I'll work on things from my end, but you'll have to be doin something too."

You'll get hung, man, this ever comes out... inciting rebellion and riot in minors, shithot!

"It's like this. If you settle down and get happy in this place they're sending you tomorrow, that's fine, it

makes everyone happy, they were right, you see?"

He says Yes like an ancient, still crying noiselessly.

"But if you show you aren't happy -- and I don't know how you goin to do that, everyone will start to see

they've made a mistake, okay?"

Standing, looking down at him stranded on the bed.

"So don't hold everything in, honey. Don't behave like you've been doin here, all quiet and good and do as

you're bid. If you stay biddable, they goin to ignore you, right? They'll think you're happy, right?"

The odd eyes hood. The boy gathers himself up, and curls round his pad as he writes. He holds the note out to

Sinclair, sitting still, one shoulder hunched higher than the other, head angled against it, staring at the man.

His eyes might be washed by tears but they're hard and bright, the pupils retracted to points, emphasising the

glittering sea-colour.

I WAS NOT GOING TO BE GOOD. I WAS GOING AWAY.

Sinclair laughs, his black eyes full of fire.

"Great souls suffer in silence, and us great minds think alike? Simon child, they don't know what they've

taken on!"

Right, thinks Simon, right.

ii

"The one that smells like a two-bit whore? The one with the hippy jewellery? Brother, you've got to be

kidding!"

Brother Keenan leaned back in his chair.

This isn't a good idea at all, he thought tiredly. Who else can we ask though?

He said in a mild voice,

"I don't know about the whore part, but yes, he's the child who wears the earring and the necklace. He does

use scent, but it has some meaning for him we haven't been able to find out. It is not because he is

particularly effeminate."

The other man snorts. He still looks affronted.

What had Brother Antony said? "Pat O'Donaghue," the brother has a rich Irish brogue, and the congenial

syllables fairly melted from his mouth, "he's oh, a shortback&sides man I suppose. But a good man, now, a

good man. A sergeant in the North Africa and Italian campaigns, rugby player once, now a referee. A father

of seven, all good children and most of 'em married, but always room in his heart, God bless him, for a foster

child or two. Pillar of the local church," says Brother Antony, "Holy Name society, parish council, Legion of Mary, and good for a tithe of whatever he earns."

Not the sort of person I would pick myself for this child, thinks Brother Keenan, but who else, who else?

The other man is saying,

"Beats me how you let him get round like that. I mean, you could take it off him."

"What? Scent, or jewellery?"

"All of it! Struth, he looks a proper little queer, untidy hair and scruffy jeans and all that muck on him."

Brother Keenan presses his fingertips together, and looks at them fixedly.

"I mean, there's all the kids in uniform and looking smart and healthy, and there's him... and you expect----"

"We don't expect anything of course, Mr O'Donaghue. Brother Antony thought," emphasis, "thought you

might be able to help."

He lets the chair rock forward.

"You see, it's not a case of letting him go round, or taking his things away from him, or making him wear

what the other boys wear. It's a case of giving him enough love and security for him to realise that he doesn't