The Bone People (14 page)

others'. I was surprised to see his beads as a gift to you, but it's entirely in keeping with this iconoclast." He ruffles the child's hair back into place. "Hana, my wife, hung some pictures in his room, quite colourful and

pleasant. I thought he liked them. They went west a year back, didn't they?"

"You just throw whatever's handy when you get wild?"

"Uh huh," Joe answers for the boy. "From your tea to a half gallon of beer a certain Saturday morning. That little effort nearly brained Piri's two year old we had visiting. Lost skin over that, didn't you?"

The boy has the non-expression on his face again. Utter disinterest.

"Okay, I think we'd better change the subject," says Kerewin, "shatteringly interesting and all as it is."

Joe laughs.

An hour later, the conversation has meandered round to fishing: seafishing, which is Kerewin's favourite and

speciality, versus river and lake, at which Joe modestly admits being expert.

"Not really," he says ruefully. "I just know where the fish are to be found. It's getting them out in an orthodox manner that bothers me."

"Ministry of Works minnows," chuckles Kerewin, but he affects shock.

Simon is nearly asleep, but he stirs every time one of them moves to stoke the fire, or pass across smokes.

"Excuse me a minute," says Joe at last, and goes into the kitchen, returning with a round bottle a minute later.

"Come on, tama. Bed time."

Two teaspoonsful of what looks like raspberry syrup.

She looks at the label.

"Trichloral!" the word makes her voice resound in a squawk. "Hell, he's a bit young for that kind of draught, isn't he?"

"I said last night about the sleeping bit," says Joe softly. "At least this way we both get a good night's sleep.

Otherwise, it's nightmares at two in the morning, and three hours spent getting him calmed back to normality.

And that's no joke night after night after night."

"I shouldn't imagine so."

He's holding Simon as though he were a baby. It renews her sense of the boy's slightness.

"E moe koe," says the man tenderly, kissing the child, dark hair overlapping fair.

"See if you can't do something unusual tomorrow," setting him on his feet, "like be good for a change."

Simon grins, nearly out on his feet. He staggers to Kerewin, holding out his arms, and Kerewin ducks.

"E, he just wants to say goodnight," says Joe.

When was the last time I kissed anybody?

as the child kisses goodnight, and winds his arms round her neck. And stays there. "I'll take him if you like,"

Joe stands quickly and opens his arms, aware of her increasing embarrassment even if Simon isn't. "I'm not

used to children," she says, standing too, and holding Simon awkwardly from her. "Ummm--"

How to pass across one nearly comatose brat who is quite

securely entwined round my vertebral column?

His arms are anyway, scores the snark snidely. A child as a

muffler? Come now--There was a young lady, from Munich

I think, who anxiously said, with embarrassment pink, I can see that you're staring, at the scarf I am wearing.

Well, it's kidstuff arranged in a rink.

Ooouuhh.

She stares into the fire as Joe takes the child to bed.

The last time I kissed was with my elder brother, before the big breakup. His kiss tasted of rum. That one's

kiss tasted of raspberries, from the drug to keep away dreams. What sort of dreams does he have that are so

terrible?

Jetsam, she ponders. The old meaning was goods thrown overboard to lighten a ship... dreams of being left,

bereaved, dreams of drowning while your people sink in the hungry waves?

"Joe," as he comes back and closes the door, "do you mind me asking about what you said last night?"

"Not at all. What was it?"

"When you said, apropos of Simon's age, meet some jetsam?"

"O that. Well, it was strictly true for one thing. It'd take a while to explain... are you really interested? I haven't had anyone aside from people in pubs to talk about my odd child for months and months and

months."

"I like listening. I we got time. And I'm curious to know what makes him dream nightmares at his age."

"Don't ask him," he says seriously. "He can't explain it to himself, let alone me, and he hasn't enough words to tell other people about

"

He stretches.

"Ooooweee... e, would you like some more wine while I talk? There's a bottle left still, and I meant it all to

go with dinner." He stands waiting. "O, and just in case you think I have bad designs, I don't think you do, but just in case and with apologies for raising the subject, I'm not intending to take advantage of you in any

way. You know," he has darkened with embarrassment, and fumbles for more words.

"I didn't even think it."

You lie in your teeth.

"You said tea, Joe. It was delicious. My mind ends at my stomach anyway, but I certainly didn't think you

were playing some underhand game with it. Like the old-fashioned Drink is the downfall of many a nice

girl," she throws back her head and laughs. "Besides, I think I could drink you under the table where wine is concerned. I've had lots of practice."

"So have I," says Joe sadly, "but you'd like the wine?"

"A very good idea."

He lay on his back on the floor,' his arms crossed over his face, and talked. Or rather, recited, as though he

had memorised what he wanted to say a long time ago. "Three years back, in early spring, we had a storm of

unusual intensity. That's what the radio called it. We called it a bastard. Quote: The town of Whangaroa in

the South Island was lashed by a storm of unusual intensity today. Several houses lost their roofs, and a

garage near the centre of the town was totally demolished by fierce gusts. Two people are believed to have

drowned when a launch was driven onto the southern tip of Ennetts Reef about two miles north of the

township. The police are seeking information on the survivor of the wreck... That's getting ahead of things, so

I'll unquote." Joe smiled over his arm. But they also mentioned that one of Ben Tainui's prize heifers was; a

casualty. They raise Charolais, y'know." .Yeah really?"

Yeah, really. Anyway, about four that afternoon, one of the s round the Head phoned the police to say a

launch was in

difficulties off the reef. The sea was rough but the coppers asked a friend of mine, Tass Dansy, if he'd take

the boat he used on the Chathams run, and go and have a look. See if he could get a line to her. There were

no other craft here anywhere near as good as Dansy's for heavy seas, eh. They tried, Tass and his mate, and

two coppers, for over two hours. Tried to get close enough to send a line over for a tow, and by that time the

wind had reached sixty knots and was still rising. Eventually, the launch banged into the end of the reef. The

coppers and the mate saw three people go overboard, a man holding a child, and a woman. But Tass swears

to this day that he saw another man slip over the bow, and he thought there might have been someone else as

well. He was in the wheelhouse and had the best view, so he's probably right. But we only found three. They

put out a call for volunteers to search the beaches after the launch went down. I went. Hana was seven

months gone at the time, but she was okay, and I didn't worry about leaving her alone in the storm. This old

place'll stand up to more than that sort of wind."

He sighs.

"Here I am, walking the beaches in a bloody howling gale with seven other mugs, and wondering what on

earth possessed me to do so. We were strung out in a long file along the shore. Trover, he was a constable

here then, shouted out after about half an hour. I never heard him above the wind, but I saw his arms wave us

in and came running. He had found the man, and a very obvious body he made, too. His head had split open

on a rock when he came tumbling through the surf. The cap of his skull was sliced off and his brains washed

out. It was like a cup, his open head, with the face still there on one side."

"Grisly." She begins to see why the child might have nightmares.

"O Himi wasn't with him," Joe somehow catches the tenor of her thought. "Anyway, this bloke. His face was nice, pleasant, open. Relaxed somehow, as though he didn't care about dying. He was tall and beautifully

muscled, a body like an athlete's. He was naked, his clothes probably torn off during his passage in, but none

of them were ever found. I never saw his eyes open. Trover radioed the copshop to say we'd found one, and

the station 'phoned for an ambulance to come from 'Wera, and we kept on looking. You know my cousin, Piri

Tainui?"

"I've met Piri for five minutes, when he picked up Simon on the weekend."

"Yeah. Well, he found the woman. She had drowned apparently. The other constable, some foreign name like

Kosinski or something, but he was a nice bloke, tried artificial respiration. It didn't work. Because the lady

had a broken neck aside from anything else, the pathologist said. She was partly clothed in a loose blouse

thing, with a thonged sandal somehow still on her right foot. Her toenails were

painted black. She was well-shaped, but flabby. I remember thinking, God help me, that she looked a right

tart, lying there spread among the weed. Her hair was hennaed. It might have been blond at some stage. The

bloke had black hair, by the way, but crewcut. The woman had blue eyes and they were wide open, staring as

though she couldn't believe she was dead. She had a watch on her right wrist, which is a bit unusual. The

glass was smashed, and it proved useless for identification purposes. Her clothes weren't any help in that line

either."

He sits up, and lights a cigarette.

"About half after seven, I was sent back along the beaches, while the others went to scour the far east of the

headland. It was dark, very dark, and the wind hadn't dropped any. I had to fight to keep on going, to stop

myself from being blown backwards. I hadn't gone that far when I saw something at the water's edge. I

thought, ahh Ngakau, it's a weed tangle again, get going. The shore was littered with them, and it wasn't the

first time I'd mistaken one for a body, eh. You started seeing bodies everywhere, you know?"

He looks down at the stream of smoke flowing out of his cigarette, shaking his head. "Then I saw his hair...

long then, even longer than it is now. He was thrown mainly clear of the water, but a high wave from the

receding tide would drag at him. He was front down, his face twisted towards me as I ran skidding over the

sand and weed. There was sand half over him, in his mouth, in his ears, in his nose. I thought, I was quite

sure he was dead. But I cleaned out his mouth and nose, and pressed water from his lungs, and breathed for

him."

He is silent for a minute.

"He has got that of me, I suppose. My breath... I was surprised when he started coughing. I hadn't any hope in

my heart at all. He was so small, and limp. We didn't think he was much more than two or three, thin and fair

with arms and legs like sticks. Sweet Lord, was he skinny! You think he's bad now," grinning at her, "you

ought to have seen him then--"

Silence again.

"His eyes were black, all pupil, and he didn't see me at all. I thought he was a girl at first, you know because of the hair, but when I picked him up I saw his penis. He had on the top half of a pair of pyjamas -- still

around here somewhere as a matter of fact. Common kind, you can buy them at any Woolworth's. And a life

jacket. One of those orange things that are two pockets of kapok and a collar for joining them. They go over

your head?"

She nods. "I know them."

"He was almost literally black and blue all over from cold and bruising. I didn't know it till after, but his left hand was smashed, his left arm broken in two places, three ribs on that side were fractured, and both his

collarbones were cracked. Like he had hit

something very hard, arm first. I just picked him up, and wrapped him in my coat, and ran back, was blown

back, snouting like a lunatic with the wind cutting into my kidneys like a knife. And after that, everything is a

bit blurred. The ambulance ride into Taiwhenuawera with two corpses for company. Long waiting, or it

seemed like it, in hospital rooms with huge bright lights. Examinations, and him screaming his head off. He

seemed to come back to life very quickly. Scared as hell, but even when he was half-conscious, he was

clinging like a leech to my hand all the time he could and they'd let him. Shock, exposure, pneumonia, he

should be dead, said the hospital, and enumerated the breaks. I stayed the night with him, because he was

upset whenever I stopped holding his hand, and Hana came up and stayed with me." He adds, "Did you know

Hana was a nurse?"

He leans forward and stubs out his smoke, avoiding her eyes.

"No."

"Two other things," he says, after a while. "He had obviously been in hospital before, and it was clear early on, from the way he reacted, that the other time had been bad. X-rays showed he had had widespread injuries

to his pelvis and hips, and they would have kept him in hospital for quite a while, the medics reckoned. The

other thing is, he never talked. Screamed, my God could he scream! He was, and is, a fluent screamer. But he

never said anything, or acted like he was used to talking. The ENT bloke who examined him said there was

no physical reason to prevent him from speaking. He's got all the gear needed, eh. But if he vocalises, he

throws up, and violently."

"Words?"

"No, just sounds."