The Bone People (34 page)

Then again, says the snark, he's inclined not to.

Afterwards, she doesn't know why she says it. She uses bits of languages a lot, but why this snippet at this

time, except to preserve her hardboiled image, she really doesn't know.

"Sheeit," says Kerewin, "we'll have to go back. You can't have the bloody pauvre petit en souffrant like that,"

and the child's eyes snap open. They're black and blank and his face has twisted in terror. He jolts out of his

father's arms as though he's been banged with a cattle prod and falls against the side of the boat. Next

moment, he's spewing his heart out over the gunwales.

Joe moves almost as fast as his child. The dinghy rocks wildly as the weight shifts dangerously to one side.

She sits back hard into the opposite side of the stern, singing out oaths in a stream, for Joe to get back, for

someone to tell her what on earth or heaven or hell is going on.

And all the time her busy mind, Pidgin French, M C de V, I'll bet it was Saint Clare beach, Citroen cars... I'll

lay a thousand on it there's a French connection somewhere. Worldly peregrinations, was it? Why not France

as well... Watching the boy hawk, then lay his head wearily against the wood, the vomiting spasm over, she

thinks wryly, But I don't think I'll pursue that matter right now--

"Sweet God," Joe is saying in a shaky voice, "are you all right now? I thought you were going to jump overboard."

"Beach and bed in ten minutes flat," says Kerewin firmly, and reaches for the starter cord.

But incredibly the boy lifts his head and mouths No, shaking his head to emphasise it.

So she waits, swapping looks of bewilderment with Joe. A minute later, Simon spits a final time in the sea,

and determinedly slides himself away from the side of the boat. He's still a sick bonewhite colour, and his

teeth are clenched tightly, but he fingers OK to them, tapping his chest, OK.

"Himi, you deserve a medal," says Joe, his eyes shining.

"Or an anti-seasick tablet... they're in the bow, Joe, if he wants one. Mind you lad, that was a fine display of intestinal fortitude... ur, one way or the other," and she draws a muttered, "You bastard," from Joe, and a watery kind of grin from the boy.

"Speaking of bow lockers and that, would you pass me a cheroot Joe? And there's lime juice in one of the

flasks -- you want some, Sim? Nope? Hokay, if the smoke won't bother you, we'll have a quick one and then

be on our way."

It's growing lighter all the time. She chatters, mainly to Simon, pointing out a circling mollymawk, a line of

shags winging away from Maukiekie, a penguin that surfaces not far from the boat. The boy is relaxing, little

by little. He kneels to watch the penguin, and doesn't appear to mind the gentle lift and sway of the dinghy

under him. Joe broods in the bow, staring down into the clear green-blue water.

Like looking into his eyes... only nothing is moving down here at all....

"Right," she says, flicking the butt of her cheroot into the sea, "we all ready?"

"Ae." Joe leans forward. "You all right down there, Himi? You want me to hold you?"

The boy shakes his head, and Kerewin says,

"I'll take it very easy, just putter along. We've got as long as we like. Any wind won't be here till eleven."

She grins at the child, still crouched on the canvas, his back to the bow.

"And with any luck at all, fella, you'll shortly be catching your first fish here."

"First fish," Joe tells her, adding with a laugh that Simon has the luck of a proverbial dunny rat. "God knows what he'll catch."

She keeps the motor chugging along at half-throttle for minutes, covertly watching the boy. The colour is

coming back into his face, and as the dinghy moves steadily on, he ventures to kneel up again, leaning his

elbows on the seat behind him. Goodoh, she thinks, and discreetly winds the throttle to fullspeed.

It doesn't take long to reach her favourite patch. She lines the marks up, lighthouse centred on Puketapu,

Rima lined with the distant pale dots that are the cribs on shore, and feels tears stinging her eyes as she does.

So long, o my heart, so very long--

She cuts the motor and the boat drifts a little way in a suddenly resounding silence.

"Theoretically, we are now over an enormous number of blue cod who never seem to have appreciated over

the years that safety isn't in numbers."

"O?"

"This is the cod patch. Provided everyone else hasn't also discovered it, and fished it out, I guarantee you a

blue cod within seconds of your line touching bottom."

She baits up the hooks on one rod.

"You want this, or I give it to Sim?"

"Well, he'll probably find it easier to haul things up with that than a line."

"Okay. Lines are made up ready in the basket there." She slings him a handful of chopped butterfish: she'd caught three off the reef yesterday evening. "Bait one for me too, eh."

She leans to Simon, "You going to do your fishing from there, or from the seat, o neopiscator?"

"Actually, he's been flyfishing with me before. He catches trees quite well."

"Make that neomarinepiscator then, oh" the boy's sat up on the seat and very swiftly flashed Up you at her.

"Why you dear child," says Kerewin sweetly, passing him the rod wrong end on, "I hope you catch grand-daddy shark."

Joe blinks.

"Here," he says. "Hold it like this, that bit in that hand, and your right hand on the reel. Now push that knob down... you don't have to stick it up in the air like that, keep the tip down. Just let the sinker take the line

down, you don't have to heave... hell's bloody bells, watch where you sling that lead!"

She is sitting well back, feet propped against the gunwales, humming to herself.

Her line is hitched round a rowlock, and the sinker of her rod is nearly on the bottom. The line twitches.

"What say I give you a race? My catch against both of yours?" She's grinning ear to ear as she tucks the butt of the rod under one thigh, and begins hauling up the handline.

"Ha bloody ha," growls Joe. "How did you manage to get this tangled round here?"

The boy says nothing.

"Two!"

Good-sized cod, glistening blue-green. They flop and struggle, but she unhooks them swiftly, stunning them

with a small brass priest. She winds up the rod-line.

"Ahh, make that four... either of you down yet?"

"No," says Joe shortly, tugging at the snarl of nylon.

"Pity. They're biting well."

She stabs each fish through the backbone quickly, then slits the thin connecting flesh bellyside of the spine.

The rose-coral gills spread one last time, convulsively. She puts all four, bloody and the bluegreen splendour

dulling now, in the basket under a wetted sack.

"Ho hum," rebaiting her hooks, "How yer goin?"

Joe bares his teeth.

"Tell you what man, give us that mess over here, and you tend your line eh?"

"You asked for it."

"Oath, what a foul-up."

"Year-ess," much more cheerfully, as he drops his sinker over the bow.

Kerewin works on the snarl, muttering inaudibly. Simon stares at the sea, the sky, at the dead fish,

everywhere but at her. And just as Joe yells "bite" she gets the hooks free of the filament.

"Carefully now," she says to the boy, and he swings it into the sea.

Joe is bringing up his handline, fist over fist, the cord sawing into the wood of the bow.

"Big one. Maybe a couple on each hook eh?"

The boy yelps, and hauls on the rod. It's a light fibreglass boat-rod, and the tip has bent nearly to the water.

"Hey, grand-daddy shark..." The reel of his rod has locked, and he isn't making any effort to wind in. It's taking all his strength just to hold on. "Just a minute, and I'll help you," says Kerewin. "It shouldn't catch you for a little while yet."

Joe looks over the side. His face twists.

"Haimona," he says in a strangled voice, "You've caught my fish."

She bends over for a look. "My goodness, and it's a big doggie too," and laughs all by herself for some time.

By the time Joe has chopped and carved and otherwise parted the ensnared dogfish and the two lines,

Kerewin has caught a dozen more cod, three terakihi, and several sea perch. She throws most of the latter

back.

"The way I figure it," leaning back comfortably against the motor, "anything that garish and spiny and above all, big mouthed, doesn't deserve hooking as well. I'm basically a charitable soul, y'see. Besides they're not

very good eating."

Joe grunts.

Simon's skywatching again.

Five minutes later, the man rebaits his own hooks and sends his line down. With noticeable restraint, he

checks the baits of the boy's line, takes the rod off him, watches the sinker slide through the green water, and

waits till it touches bottom.

He gives the rod back.

"Just sit there and hold it," he says coolly. The boy looks sadly at him. With both hands full he can't say a thing properly, but he mouths to Joe.

"Fish? What do you mean fish? Kerewin's probably caught them all," smiling a bitter smile, "but if she hasn't, I intend catching at least one. If a fish gets on your line, get it up yourself. Without tangling up anything

anywhere."

Kerewin sniggers.

"Sim, don't worry. With that proverbial luck of yours, you'll probably snag an octopus. It'll climb up your line and fall in love with your father, nestle tenderly up to him arm by arm by arm by yek," she spits violently. It's a fairly messy bit of bait the man chucked. "Joe," she says in a hurt voice, "me baiting you is one thing, but I'm supposed to get bites, not get fed," and cackles like a harpy. She stops immediately. "Waste of good

butterfish," she says primly, and starts hauling up yet another cod.

Joe caught two sea perch. He didn't throw them back.

Simon got a bite. He sat holding the jerking rod tightly, hoping the fish would get off.

It did.

Then quite suddenly, the fish stopped biting. Kerewin carved up a seaperch, but even the change of bait didn't

appeal.

"Ah well, we'll have a teabreak. The fish seem to have. Then we can go visit the groper patch. So called, I

might add, because you grope round in it hopefully, not because it's loaded with hapuku."

The boy refuses sandwiches and fruit. "You still feeling queasy?" asks Joe. Simon says No, but looks

involuntarily at the basket of bloody fish.

"That's making you feel crook?" Kerewin picks it up, as the boy

touches his nose. "Yeah, fishblood doesn't smell too rosy... it's probably that shark goo up your end too, Joe."

She balances the basket on the gunwales and sluices it down with the bailer. "Oath that's cold. They'll keep

better for it, though." Joe's removing the blood and guts that landed in the boat during the shark shambles.

"Watch that lot bring the toothy gentlemen round. Cannibalistic creeps."

"I'll have a go at them with the gaff even," says Joe. "How long we been out?"

"Nearly two hours."

"I thought so. That means I've averaged a fish and half a shark an hour."

"Never mind. I've caught enough for a feed, and a small smoke. And who knows what we'll catch in the

groper patch?"

Simon's thumb.

It all goes sweetly until that happens.

Kerewin slung the anchor out as soon as she stopped the motor. It's a smaller patch than the other one, she

says, and if they drift, they'll drift off it.

A breeze is up now, just enough to ruffle the water.

For some time, nobody catches anything, but it's pleasant sitting in the sun. The sea is jade green here, still as

a pool when the breeze has passed. A jellyfish drifts by, glassy discoid pulsing, long purple tentacles

dangling after it in a backwards slant. Something elongated and silver flashes down in the deep, too fast to

see what.

Two mollymawks skid across the water on their pale feet and settle close by the boat.

"They're hopeful," says Joe, but Kerewin says it's a good sign. "They expect us to catch something they can share eh," and shortly afterwards the man hooks a large trevally. "Great!" she rejoices, "haven't seen one of those for damn near decades, and they're beautiful eating." "I'll catch us a couple more then" he jokes, and to their rowdy delight and astonishment, he does so. "Bloody wonderful," says Kerewin. "Forget the terakihi, those are the fellas we'll have for dinner... come on now, Sim. Catch us something spectacular." He grins. His

fear and sickness are forgotten. He settles down on the middle seat, rod at the ready.

The mollymawks honk, and swim hopefully closer, and the boy begs for something to feed them. "Look at

them, fat as pigs already.. But I suppose it's their due."

She cuts a seaperch into filleted chunks, and gives them to the boy.

The birds squawl and splash and gobble the fish. A third molly comes cruising past, and skates in to land in

the middle of the feast.

"It's a bloody circus... hey, that one's different. Not toroa."

"A variety I guess," says Kerewin frowning, "but I haven't seen his sort around before." The newcomer is the same size as the other two, but where their heads are neat grey with dark brows, its head is shining white. Its

bill is orange, flushed pink at the base, and the other mollys have black and yellow beaks, razor-keen. They

all have the same appetite for fresh seaperch, however.

"Chuck that new bloke a bit, Himi. I think the others are ganging up on him."

The boy draws his arm back, aims, and at that moment the tip of his rod saws down. He grabs the butt and

hangs on. The mollymawk, eye on the hunk of fish, nearly comes aboard, grabbing it.

"Out you cheeky bastard," yells Kerewin, and, "Hang on, boy."

Joe swings over from the bow seat and sits behind his son. "Want a hand?"