The Bone People (9 page)

accept a nuisance, and not make a fuss about it, Kerewin. So, for a beginning I thought, if he'd made a pest of

himself, I'd fix that up before we went any further."

Fix it up how? And where are we going? And me not make a fuss? Sheeeit,

but she smiles nastily, while saying,

"I had every intention of shunting him outa here within minutes of his discovery. But then there was his foot.

And it started raining. So we had lunch. And then there was the question of who to send him to. All in all, he

stayed. If he had made a nuisance of himself or pinched something, or something," now she can feel herself

starting to blush, "I would just have dropped him quietly from the top of my Tower."

Joe laughs.

So does Simon, but stops his laughing short.

"Save a lot of future trouble too, eh," says the man. "Look, would it offend you if I offered payment, say for his board?"

"Yes."

"Back in the bog," he says and laughs again, humourlessly. "Well..." dark head downbent, long brown fingers still fiddling with the chesspiece, "that's some of the background. It happens often enough, eh, but generally

me or one of my Tainui relations pick him up and bring him home before he really gets anywhere. Or the

police," he says, staring at the boy again.

Simon is tracing the intricacies of the tatami mat with his forefinger, absorbed in doing so.

"O."

"You know, this is the first time he's ever ended up really staying with someone." Joe is still frowning at his son. "I was very curious to find out what was the attraction," glancing at her. Again that charming unlining smile.

"Surprise, surprise, nothing sentient. It was the Tower itself, I expect. I've had other people come and gawk at it, but never anyone inside before. Now, that's a thing," she looks at the child. "Is he good at climbing?"

Joe shrugs. "Not particularly. Why's that?"

"Because he managed to get up into a window that has only a chest below it, and the distance between the

chest and the sill is rather more than he is, and it's all smooth stone wall. If you follow?" "O?" says Joe, but enquiringly to his son, who sits up and gestures something too fast for her to follow.

You need eyes like an archerfish, able to see what happens on two planes at once. One set for watching the

hands, and the other for watching whatever it is he mouths.

Joe interprets, after looking at her puzzled face,

"He stood on the upraised lid of the chest and hoisted himself up. But the lid fell down and he wasn't game to

jump to the floor."

"Of course... simple and obvious when you know how." She grins, more to herself than either of them. "The only way I could see him doing it was like some kind of caterpillar with suckerfeet, humping up the wall."

The man guffaws unrestrainedly, "Hear that, e tama?" and the boy smiles, politely, a mere facial twitch that lasts physically for two seconds but somehow lingers.

"Anyone like more coffee?" asks Kerewin hastily. She gets up before they answer, and brings the pot across.

The trip is mainly to hide her face. There is something rather hardboiled about that brat, who can smile as

he's bid and wind up looking like he's wondering how you'd taste.

As she tops up the cups, the boy stands and limps over to the shelf with the chessboard. From the corner of

her eye, she watches the limp. Much reduced, indicative of a mild twinge in the heel. Bloody little fraud, she

thinks, but nods to him when he turns round, questioning with his eyes for permission to take the set down.

"You were being taught to play... here, show us what you can do, eh." Joe slides forward to lie at the boy's side, picking up chessmen and placing them in the formal double drawn ranks.

It's the evident familiarity, she tells herself, fingered communion with knight and king and queen. She has a

sudden longing to talk with someone and play live chess, rather than the mummified games set and dried in

books.

Simon, after watching what Joe is doing, sets up his end of the board. He kneels up, shifting a shoulder

hesitantly, and points to her.

"Ah sheesh," says Kerewin. "I caught three flounders a day or so back, and I've been keeping them fresh in a water-safe. I'm going to stuff 'em with celery and crushed pineapple. I'll serve them with a salad and baked

potatoes." She stands, and the little errant vertebrae in her neck and back snick into place. She is looking at the floor now. Or rather, at her boots.

Kaibabs of cut gold suede, creased and scuffed to bare feet fineness by long wearing. How well shoon you

are--"Actually, this is an invitation to tea if you haven't already had it, and I can thereby bribe you to have some games of chess with me. It won't take long... unless of course you have something else to do, in which

case I apologise for being importunate."

The red tide pours into her face and she shrieks at herself, inside herself, You never meant to say that! You

meant to get them out of the way--

The child is begging Can we stay? with his hands.

Careful. I might end up by liking you, brat, if I'm not careful.

Joe stands, and places his hands over the child's hands.

"It doesn't need you to plead it, boy... what can I say, Kerewin? I'd stay here all night and play chess with you if that's what you want, and it doesn't need an offer of tea, either. Because you looked after Himi, and I'd like

to do that."

Heap coals of fire upon my head.

"We didn't have tea," he says. "We came straight here after I got home from work. I didn't even have a shower, or get this one dressed up... which reminds me," shaking Simon gently, "I thought I told you to have a bath, and get Piri or Marama to see to your foot?"

Simon raises his eyebrows, Did you?

"Arggh," and shakes him harder. To Kerewin, "That's settled then. Can I give you a hand with the spuds or anything?"

For seconds she has stood in a state of self-blankness, observant of what's happening but out of contact with

her body: then the hands shift off the child's shoulders, and in a flood of sensation she is aware of the rustle of

the man's felted wool coat, the breadth of his shoulders contrasted with the child's bone-thinness; the

blackness of his long straight hair; the half-wonderment, half-weariness of his face.

And the fact that he is exactly as tall as herself. Deep brown eyes on the same level as her stone greyblue

gaze.

"O yes," she says. "Not so much give me a hand, but if you want to go and have that shower, or wash Simon, you might as well do that now eh? There's plenty of hot water."

"That would be all right? It'd be no trouble?"

"Tchaa! What trouble? Your son can show you where the shower is. The first door inside the bathroom is a

linen cupboard. Help yourself to towels and whatnot. There's first aid gear down here. Somewhere," she says,

gesturing vaguely around.

Urchin Gillayley, catching her eye, points to knife-drawer and grog cupboard.

"Okay, so your memory's good," she mockbows to him.

His father laughs. "Only when it suits him... my thanks. I'll have that shower, and wash him too, then come

down and give

you a hand with tea. Then we'll play a chess marathon, and you can have the pleasure of wiping me out

piecemeal and tidy every game."

He grins. "I'm not a very good player."

Kerewin grins back. "I am," she says.

We came on the bike, he'd said. Him in front, because then I can be sure he's not going to fall off. He's good

at falling off things--

The bike was parked on the other side of her bridge. He had a

what he called 'Morning after emergency kit' there--"You know

how it can get, you wake up feeling like yech, so I carry the basics with me. Washing gear and a spare shirt,

and gear for Himi in case it's needed."

He went into the night to get it, carrying his son.

She was taking the skeletons out of the flounders, wielding knife and scissors with practised skill, when the

man arrived back in the kitchen level, child leaning against one shoulder, a dufflebag over the other.

"Nice walk," he says gaily. "It's still drizzling though."

"Yeah, I can see it on the window there eh."

They look on with interest.

"You a cook or something?"

"Or something."

She is filling the flounders with neat little mounds of pale green celery and yellowish pineapple. "Really I'm

just a brilliant amateur. In everything," she adds sourly.

"It looks very nice. Though I never seen that done to a flounder before," watching her sprinkle parsley on top of the fish.

"O, it's past caring what happens to it now."

She slides the flounders into an oven dish and the butter sizzles round them.

"Twenty minutes or so, and they'll be done."

"A hint, tama. Come and show us where this shower is. I never had a Tower shower before," giggling as they go out.

Overpowered, he cowered, glowering amidst the flowers,

and she sits by the fire spinning-over compositions for the sheer hell of it. That's an odd child. And an odd

man.

The coal sinks down in its red bed, and the little violet flames run flickering over it.

She wanders across the room and lifts her golden guitar down from the wall. It is easy, leaning over the

ambered belly, to put thought through a filter of slow-picked arpeggios.

An odd child, with its silence, and canny receptiveness.

Orange-red sparks climbing in skewed lines to die out in the glimmer dark pile of the soot.

An odd man, looking so bitter until he smiles. A harmonic bells out under her fingers.

Why the wariness and drawn-eyed look of the child?

Why the bitterness corrupting the man's face?

And why, above all, the peculiar frisson of wrongness I keep

getting from some of the conversation?

O it's riddles, and no thing of mine,

and she quickens her chording to a heavy downbeat strumming.

In the bathroom, Joe can hear the guitar, the rhythm of it rather than the chords: the walls are too thick for

more.

"She can play... dry yourself," to the boy, as he begins putting on his own clothes.

His body is squat and heavily muscled, except for his legs, thin-calved and spindly.

A long pale scar runs over the brown skin, from his right shoulder blade down in a curve across his ribs.

"You've been lucky as hell this time," watching the boy dress, grimacing at the child's thin body. "Behave yourself, Haimona. Don't let's spoil it, eh."

He says meditatively, "It would be nice to have a friend again, somebody we could talk with who wasn't a

relation."

The boy raises his eyebrows.

"Out, and be careful of your heel."

When the boy has gone, he looks round the bathroom. He gathers the used towels -- she's dead keen on this

dark green colour, everything's it -- and as he picks them up, something falls ringing to the floor.

A broad gold circle with an inset stud of greenstone.

"O shit, o sweet Christ."

Simon had stood there, dressed himself there, and that had fallen from Simon's pocket.

"O you bloody little sod."

He thinks a minute, rubbing the back of his neck, We done already? Because bloody Himi can't keep his

hands off anyone else's gear? and then he leaves the ring on the sill, next to the basin.

The boy slid in through the doorway, and went over to the fire. Kerewin, armed with knife and spatula, was

maneuvering whole flounders on to plates. Joe came in, holding out the towels. "Chuck 'em on the floor

there, I'll see to them later," and she

gets the last fish out without breaking off so much as a sidefin bone.

"That smells like good food. We timed it nicely, eh?"

"Perfectly."

"Would you mind if I put something on his foot first? I've got something to say to him too, but it'll only take a minute."

"Fine, go ahead," and handed him the first aid box.

He went to the boy and spoke in a low voice, so low it was almost covered by the rattle of the crockery and

cutlery she was laying out.

But it was still loud enough to hear:

"E noho ki raro. Hupeke tou waewae," and the boy sat quickly, looking at his father wide-eyed. "E whakama ana au ki a koe."

Kerewin was wide-eyed too by now, shuffling the plates discreetly louder.

Really? You're ashamed of him? And more pertinent, why? And I don't think I'll disclose meantime that I can

speak Maori.

"Kei whea te rini?"

She stole a surreptitious glance.

The boy flushed violently, reached for his back pocket, and then the colour drained out of his face.

Joe bandaged his foot, and didn't say anything more until he finished and the child stood. Then he hit him

hard across the calf of his leg. The sound cracked around the room and Kerewin looked up sharply.

"Kaua e tahae ano," as the boy staggers straight, and then Joe turned to her saying,

"That was just...."

She says evenly,

"The ring was borrowed more likely. I have so many I wouldn't miss one or two. Still, thanks for caring. This

dinner's getting cold while the beer gets warm."

He stands openmouthed.

Well, you've certainly got all your teeth.

"E korero Maori ana koe?"

"He iti iti noa iho taku mohio," she answers blandly.

"I don't know whether to be delighted or horrified," his heavy shoulders fall. "I don't know whether he was going to bring it back or not, but it fell out of his pocket when he was getting dressed, I think. I'm very sorry,

but I left it upstairs and I hoped you would...."

"Don't be. Hell, you want to see what I used to pinch as a child. It's not stealing properly. It's just something takes your passing fancy, so you take it to amuse yourself with for a while."