The Bone People (24 page)

I'm the sunchild, because of my hair... he shuffles his free hand through the length of it.

Struth mate, that mop needs cutting. Six inches more and you'll be treading on it, hah!

... and there'll be another fight.

He shudders.

I can't help it, it's too much... there can't be a fight. I won't. This time, I won't. I'll ask her to say she cut it.

He went to turn round and bumped into the cupboard door. Sat down involuntarily on the floor. It doesn't hit

him as bad as he thought it would.

Claro?

Echo.

I think you're getting drunk... the voice that says it recedes through his head back out into... he tries following

the voice with his eyes, looking backwards and up into his head until it hurts. Caint be that drunk, stuhupid

Clare... he croons, an audible outside singsong to the inside talk.

When you're really full, you don't hurt anymore, and you don't care anymore, says Joe. That's why, tama.

Even though you gotta come back for tomorrow, for the night you're safe and sound.

Sound?

Listening carefully, There's no sound.

C'mon, she comes home, you'll get a thick ear or something.

So what's new?

He splashes more of the gorse drink into the cup. Most of it's pouring on the floor, but he keeps going,

wobbly as hell, until enough gets into the cup to fill it.

That all tastes rather good. Especially good. Bloody good. He smiles happily and blearily for quite a while,

and then frowns.

Why am I happy?

Joe don't get no happy.

Joe gets bloody mean.

Shitty's the word, he thinks sourly. He gets sooo berloody shitty... stop crying, you. I can hear it.

It's me. I always do the wrong thing. I don't, I don't try to, it don't matter what I do, it's always wrong.

He sniffs through a maudlin stage to a realisation that the bottle he's cuddling is empty.

He goes to stand, and slips in the puddle of gorse juice.

That's strange... I'm floating--

It seems to go on for minutes, and then Thunk. Hard on his hip on the floor.

Godbloodyshitandhell.

It hurt. It hurt him a lot.

He picks up the fallen bottle and snarls, I'll show you, throwing it away with all his strength.

A fierce crack! somewhere, and then an odd muted splintering sound, like ice ringing on stone.

Jesus oath, says Simon to his heart, what was that?

Frightened to look, but looking anyway, twisting his head off the floor until his neck creaks.

But there's one hell of a blur hereabouts . . . caint see no thing Claro.

Shrug, shrug, kneeling up, and shuffling on his knees to the cupboard, hip aching like it's fresh hit. That's

beer. I don't want any damn beer. Sniffs in the next bottle he pulls a top off.

Again. Delicious.

He nurses this bottle carefully to the cup's rim, and pours a bit

in.

Chocolate. Thick and syrupy and sweet.

So clink! knocking the bottle, cheerful again, here's to you Kere and to you Joe he says kindly, silently,

sprawled against the cupboard held by his arm, clink, and that's for me eh Clare, and he drinks to them all.

Kerewin stares.

You wouldn't believe it. You couldn't.

You come in, feeling clean and straightened out and high on holiness, and what awaits?

One drunken kid, lying hunched and untidy all over the floor. Snoring like a bluebottle.

Two bottles overturned, and alcohol rife through the air.

O hell, look at the window!

She shakes her head in disbelief.

Two hours and he does this much damage?

Man alive, a six year old debauchee--

Her heart mourns the window (but I can buy another one).

She walks across to the cupboard, avoiding the puddles (O tatami, you weren't got for this... to be good and

golden for bare feet not to be... I hope that's drink... still, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always turn it over...) and digs him in the ribs with the toe of her foot.

No response. Not so much as a blink or an off key snore. He dreams on oblivious, sound in his stupor.

It would be kind to let him sleep it off. I'm not kind.

So she picks him up, her heart kicking with a kind of misgiving at his lightness, and climbs the spiral to the

shower, and turns the water on at needlespray and coldest. For a minute he lies under the blast, limp as a skin

in her hold.

Then he jerks, and screams.

Highly startled, she drops him. She has never heard him scream before.

"He screamed, my God could he scream. He's a fluent screamer--"

It's a fierce high agonising to the ears sound. The child goes on screaming. He starts to fight the cubicle walls,

the floor, the water, in a blind panic to get anywhere out. She watches, pulled back clear of his flailing arms.

He's not seeing where he is. He's terrified.

Then, understanding part of his terror, she reaches in and turns the spray off.

The boy crouches in the inch of water, shuddering and retching and sobbing. He is sickly white, and he hasn't

opened his eyes yet.

"Simon."

It stills him a little. More shivering and gasping, but the screaming panic is done. So she repeats his name

again and again, kneeling down by the shower stall.

Conversationally she says,

"Did you think that was the sea or something? The same water where you almost drowned? I'm sorry, it was

a foolish thing for me to do... I didn't think deeply, you see. I just said to myself, the urchin's riddled out of

his mind. So many sheets in the wind there's none left to steer the ship with. So get him sober fast. And how

to do that? O easy... like in the song, you know it?"

Singing softly,

"What shall we do with a drunken sailor,

ear-lie in the morning?

Put him the scuppers with a hosepipe on him--"

"Only, there's just a shower here. No scuppers, no hosepipe... but it wasn't the wisest thing in the world to do, I admit that now."

He is nearly quiet, only the occasional whimper, though his breathing rushes yet.

She sighs,

"Actually it was a bloody stupid thing to do, eh?"

Godgodgodgodgod, thinks Simon.

It is a beat in his head in time with the drips. With the steady

splat of water running on to the cold steel floor under his hands.

In time with the aching pulses in his thighs and back and

chest and legs.

But listen: snap. Cigarillo case. It is Kerewin.

Scrape of match, and a flare of flame.

The water is nearly all out of his ears.

There's a rattle as she puts the matchbox away.

"So hokay? You know where you are now? Third floor the Tower, all over the shower... or are you still a bit

under the weather?"

He puts out his hand, groping blindly, and Kerewin takes it, holds it gently.

"Sorry about that, Haimona. I sure as hell didn't mean to frighten you... wake you up in a rough fashion, yes. I was nasty, I meant to do that. But not to scare you, really."

He shakes her hand, goes to shift upright, and his other hand slips under him and he skids forward on the

shining steel floor nearly chinning himself before Kerewin's grip pulls him up short.

"Sweet hell, boy, easy."

She leans in and lifts him to his feet, steadying him out the door.

Rat-tail hair and soaked clothes, a sodden sorry sight.

"Struth fella, talk about a joygerm... but I don't suppose you feel like smiling."

She has conned that the tears are still running off his face mixed with water. He can feel it, the way she's

looking.

"I think you'd better have a proper shower," says Kerewin gentle voice "Then you'd better go to bed for a while... I forgot about that bloody flu you're smote with. Help us undone with your clothes, e Sim."

It is because I am tired, he weeps helplessly. I can't stop. I can't say. I can't.

We've had it, he thinks. It's finished and it's all my fault.

He is shaking again.

He can't remember when he last felt this sick.

He makes no protest, gives no resistance. He even helps undo buttons and slide off clothes.

And Kerewin didn't say a word.

Except when he was naked, she took one of his hands, and turned him round carefully, supporting him so as

not to make his head spin more, and then she tipped his face up towards her, and stared into his drowned

eyes, as though she were seeking a meaning to it there.

"Why didn't you say anything?" There was pain in her voice, "Why did you keep quiet?" but he shook his head.

And that was all she said.

Day into Nightmare.

What the hell do I do now?

O I know what I'm supposed to do. Ring up Child Welfare and report the bloody mess he's in.

"Excuse me, I know a small child who's getting bashed... it looks like he's been thrashed with a whip (but I

hope to God not)."

I can just hear it.

"You've known him how many weeks and you never suspected

he was getting so badly treated?"

"Uh, well, he's very good at hiding his pain."

I can just hear it.

She is furious with herself, not only because she must have hurt

him.

Joe, you good kind patient sweetnatured gentlefingered everloving BASTARD.

But I knew all along, herr Gott. Something always felt wrong.

No, I didn't. I had suspicions when he was here with his face battered.

But he never said it was Joe, and Joe didn't admit it was him. I've seen him slapped.

Hell, everyone slaps kids.

I really didn't know. I really didn't. Just the nagging feeling that something was wrong between them, right

from the first. Christ, no wonder he always sleeps in that twisted fashion.

Joe.

(No more chess.)

(No more gay and grogging nights.)

(No more joking ritual of meals.)

(No more sweet and drifting conversation.)

(No more heart-sharing.)

(The end of the dream of friend.)

Joe Bitterheart Gillayley, what on earth possessed you to beat up Simon?

I mean, Simon.

That's Haimona, cherished and cuddled and kissed.

That's Haimona, quickwitted laughing eyed and bright all ways.

That's Haimona, all three feet nothing and too few pounds of him.

So okay, he can be a fair little shit at times, but you know why he is.

God in hell, even I know why he is. It's the sick twisted secrecy of it.

I'll bet he threatened the child with murder if he revealed his wounding. And the urchin flinched the first

morning I knew him.

(And where did you learn that luverly block? Conditioned reflex, ma'am.)

And by the look of the scars on him, it's all been going on for a long long time. Man, I wouldn't bash a dog in

the fashion you've hurt your son.

I'd shoot it, if the beast was incorrigible or a killer, but never lacerate it like that.

Aue, Joe.

From the nape of his neck to his thighs, and all over the calves of his legs, he is cut and wealed. There are

places on his shoulder blades where the... whatever you used, you shit... has bitten through to the underlying

bone. There are sort of blood blisters that reach round his ribs on to his chest.

And an area nearly the size of my hand, that's a large part of the child's back damn it, that's infected. It's raw

and swollen and leaking infected lymph.

That was the first sign I had that something was wrong. Despite his soaked clothes, his T-shirt stuck to his

skin.

He didn't make a sound. All his crying was over.

And he wouldn't meet my eyes.

Somehow Joe, e hoa, dear friend, you've managed to make him ashamed of what you We done.

Neat job.

She wiped up the puddles from the matting -- the tatami is tightly woven and more or less waterproof -- and

scrubbed away the stain the creme de cacao had made.

She gathered the shards of bottle, and tapped her nail against the cracked window.

She went and rang a Christchurch number and ordered a new pane of glass. They yelped with surprised joy,

Yes Miz Holmes, consider your pane on the way--

... Pane? A massive bowl-like curve, specially made, specially transported, and specially installed. Costly,

rather. But the crack was unsightly, a blow to the eyes, although the pane would still keep out wind and rain.

She sat down with a cup of coffee at the ready, and made a fire for company.

Simon is upstairs, sleeping I hope.

(Washed and dried with extreme care: ointment, anointment, much good may they do him. Covered with

padding and gauze, all the places where the cuts are open or bone deep A dessertspoonful of milk of

magnesia to stop his retching.

"Happens when you drink that much," she lied to him cheerfully, while praying in a cold way that he hadn't been hit too hard in the stomach. The child had managed a sickly grin.

And a cup of warm milk to help remove the taste of the spoonfuls of painkiller and sleeping potion he had

obediently swallowed.)

Dammit, I could have fed him ground glass and he'd have passively opened his mouth and sucked it in... may

the painkiller work. I can't stand the way he kept on shaking, then wincing.

She sipped the coffee thoughtfully.

Joe will be at the Duke. God knows when he'll get away from there, but he'll probably turn up here soon after.

Heaven keep me from kicking the bugger to death when he finally arrives. So, gentle soul, you still have a

few hours to decide what to do next. And what can I do?

I can do nothing.

Make Simon keep quiet about this discovery. How?

Say nothing to Joe -- at the moment, I'd have to bite my tongue

through.

Tell nobody -- let it continue, let the child endure it by himself.

No way.

I could tell Joe, but not tell anyone else.