The Bone People (13 page)

"O, I got the bike." He takes the helmet from the boy and hands it to her for the second time.

"Not berloody likely!" jumping back like it was a head offered her on a plate. "I mean, where does Simon go?"

"You don't like travelling on bikes?" asks Joe anxiously. "I'm careful, I'll go slow."

Kerewin pulls at her hair. "I keep thinking, the only times I've been on bikes, about what happens to this

precious brainpan of mine should we come off."

"That's the helmet's worry... look, truly, I'll go slow. There's not likely to be any traffic till we get to town.

And we stick Sim in front as usual. I get caught," shrug, "I get caught."

Okay," she says dubiously, and slides the helmet gingerly over her head. She puts on her denim jacket as they

go through the

entrance hall. Sounds are distant and muted through the fibreglass. Joe is talking to Simon, and she can see

Simon answer, but she can't follow what's being said. She gets smiles from both of them, whenever she looks

their way.

Even behind the man's broad shoulders the wind struck into her face. Swept across her eyes, stinging them to

tears, and whipped round those curls stranded outside the helmet. And it was cold. The blow of air against

her face bit through her lips and chilled her teeth. The lack of balance she felt, no control over speed or

direction, made her feel unaccustomedly small and powerless.

She shut her eyes until the bike stopped, because seeing only the dark was better than the blur that rushed

past previously. Not fast, the man had said: then what was speeding like?

"Sheeit," says Kerewin, standing unsteadily. "Remind me to buy a car." She takes the helmet off: her mass of hair is crushed and subdued.

"You know what?" she asks the grinning Gillayleys. "My teeth are numb. What the hell does pork taste like when eaten with numb teeth?"

Unanswerable--

So here we go, walking creepfooted into the Gillayleys' den, following the hand-in-hand two of them.

A neat lawn bordered by concrete paths. No flowers. No shrubs. The places where a garden had been were

filled with pink gravel.

The hallway was dim, an unshaded bulb dangling from the ceiling, no carpet. There was not a suspicion of

dust anywhere, nor any sign of flowers.

Joe sprouted from a doorway.

"Kitchen," he says. "Come in."

The kitchen is gas-heated, square and bare, almost institutional in its unadorned plainness. Table and four

straightbacked wooden chairs. Battered fridge with chipped enamel; stainless steel sink and bench; a scarred

clean cooker. There's a decrepit Coronation tea caddy on a shelf over the bench, with a saucer holding soap

and sink plug beside it, and at the end of the bench, there is a canvas-covered birdcage on a stand. She is

surprised by that, although she can't say for why.

Joe invites,

"Sit down, make yourself at home," and goes on busying himself with the pots on the cooker.

Simon slides round the door. He has a way of edging into a room very close to the doorpost furthest from

anyone. He goes to the birdcage, slips off the cover, and snaps his fingers. Joe looks round automatically, and

the boy gestures to the cover. "I forgot, and it's your job anyway. Feed him while you're at it."

The bird is a budgie of inquisitive green: it has no sense of occasion or time, cracking its beak and twittering

as though the day has just begun.

She looks at it politely while Simon deftly slips in seeds and shows where it runs up and down a ladder, and

looks at itself in a mirror. She dislikes birds in cages.

"Get a bottle out of the fridge Haimona, and give it to Kerewin to open, eh."

A semidry white wine: the top snaps off and a very small cloud of whitish vapour oozes out.

Simon makes a noise like Frrrsh, flinging a hand way in the air.

"You'll go frrsh in a minute if you don't give us a hand," says Joe, coming over with a pile of plates and cutlery.

"Sorry. Forgetting my manners," says Kerewin. "Can I give you a hand with the spuds or something?" and Joe smiles, remembering his own offer.

"Nope. Just nourish up your appetite."

"Rightio."

"Haimona!"

So the boy brings the salt cellar and the pepper grinder. A butterdish. Mustard already mixed in a pipkin. A

dark sort of sauce, smelling of plums. Pulped apple spread on a wooden plate. A bowl of salad greens that

sends fingers of scent stealing all round the room. Garlic, a mild vinegar, lettuce, and is that chicory?

"This appetite is in danger of becoming uncontrollable."

"Zoom," says Joe, and whips across the room with a haunch of basted brown pork on a platter. He waves it

back and forth directly under her nose. "Kapai?"

"Ahhh," mock swooning off her chair to be an untidy heap sprawling on the floor, and he nearly drops the lot, giggling.

She must enjoy this. And if bloody Haimona doesn't wreck things, maybe she'll want to come back again.

He scurries back to the stove, an incongruous movement for his wide-shouldered figure, and begins ladling

out the corncobs.

Simon is already kneeling on his chair, sharpening his knife and fork together.

"Quit "at," growls Joe when the boy does it in earnest, making a sharp metallic squealing that sets all their teeth on edge. Simon stares back insolently, but stops the racket.

We'll fix you, tama, you keep behaving like this.

But he fills the three glasses smiling, and goes to his seat, and still standing, gives the toast. "Kia ora koe," to Kerewin. "Kia ora korua," she says in reply. While the wine goes down, she thinks

What's strange? No pictures, no flowers, no knicknacks I can see? Maybe, but not all homes have that sort of

thing. Is it the barren cleanliness, the look of almost poverty? Contrast that with the brandnew 750 c.c. bike

he's got and this wine liebfraumilch doesn't come cheap.

The pork is meltingly well-cooked, full of the sweet slightly gamey flavour of a beast fed in the backbush all

its short life. The salad is excellent, and the corn good enough for frozen stuff.

"You're no amateur when it comes to cooking, eh?"

He is strangely bashful. He mumbles under his breath, and Simon mouths SPEAK UP SPEAK UP so

obviously that Kerewin sputters and chokes on her wine.

"Shuddup," he pushes his child's hair all over his face. "No more wine for you, smartass."

The boy's been drinking with them glass for glass, although his glass is considerably smaller. Still, his face is

flushed and his eyes too brilliant.

"I like cooking," says Joe, "so what do we have for tea? Mainly fishnchips... I'm generally feeling too tired and it's a helluva lot quicker and easier. No dishes either. But every so often, I like to do something special,

like this. I learnt how, off Hana. Man, could she cook--" his voice trails away, and he stares over Kerewin's

head, his eyes glazing. Shakes his head sharply after a minute and says roughly,

"You touch any more wine and I'll belt you, guest or no guest."

Simon had sneaked himself another glassful, grinning conspiratorially at Kerewin.

Now he subsides to the back of his chair and scowls sulkily at his father.

O dear. It'd spoil the meal if they fight--

She belches quietly, and says, peacemaking,

"That is the best meal I've had since lunchtime, bar none. Seriously, Joe, it was splendid."

Joe brightens, stops scowling back at his child.

"You liked it truly?"

"Man alive, it was, he, kapai"

He squares his shoulders, and the sour expression vanishes.

"I'm glad. It is a small thing to offer you, but I hoped you'd like it."

"So much I'll even offer to do the dishes, and that, friend, is unheard of from a Holmes. At my place, I leave

'em for a month or so until I run out of plates."

"Uh uh. That's my job, and his," jabbing a finger at Simon.

He stands, slightly unsteady, they've drunk three bottles of good German wine between them.

Well, you've got a relief for tonight." She heads for the sink. "E!" he calls out. "We'll leave them for the morning. Let's go sittinroom. I've built a fire. The room'll warm in no time."

to the sittingroom.

He shows her over the house first, the child beside her, holding her hand again, and making surreptitious

comments with his fingers. All of them are lost on Kerewin who is using most of her attention to stay straight

and look sober.

The house has six rooms, the pattern typical older State house, found in thousands all over the country.

A bedroom with a double bed in it, antiseptically clean, with heavy curtained windows.

"My room," says Joe, flicking the light on and switching it off

again.

"His room," gesturing into a small lighted sunporch. "Sweet Jesus, tama, must you chuck all your clothes on the floor? Pick 'em up."

She gets a good look while the child gathers the clothes and dumps them on his bed. The room is on the

righthand side of the hall, going in, right at the back of the house. Sparsely furnished like every room she's

seen so far; a wooden dresser against the wall, a three-quarter bed. On the bed though, is a bright coverlet

made of squares of crocheted wool; all colours, orange and violet, scarlet and shocking pink and vermilion,

cornflower blue and sunflower yellow and limeleaf green. It is the only burst of colour she's seen in the

house, excepting the budgie.

That's one thing -- everything is so drear. Small wonder the brat escapes twice weekly ----

"Nice counterpane," she says, and Joe answers, "O, Marama made him that. She's Piri's mum, and considers herself your nana, right?"

The boy, having rearranged the disorder in his room, nods. He looks resentful at having had to do it.

"Out," says Joe, and waits till the child has gone into the hall before switching the light off.

Next place on the guided tour?

"O, that's the bathroom."

Spruce, clean tiled floor -- hellishingcold on these winter mornings because there's not a bathmat in sight.

Simon disappears into the toilet.

"Go get undressed when you've finished," Joe says to him. "You can stay up a while yet."

He whispers to her, "With any luck he'll flake."

For the first time she wonders whether the man has anything else in mind other than conversation. In which

case, he has struck out.

"That's the spare room Only junk in there."

But she realises she misjudged the words. In the sittingroom he says,

"I don't want to give him his dope on top of the drink he had. I didn't realise he was getting himself quite so much, or I would have pulled him up short before. But anyway with luck it'll send him to sleep naturally."

The fire brightens this room, but there is nothing in it otherwise that is cheering. A faded sofa beneath the

window that looks out into the street. Three chairs with pale spots and rings from slopped glasses on the

arms. And a glass-doored china cabinet with nothing in it.

He has been following her guarded survey, and when he sees her glance linger on the empty cabinet, he

chuckles.

"Ask Himi where the stuff inside went," he says cryptically.

"O?" but the man just grins.

He sits on the hearthrug, poking at the fire, whistling softly to himself. He makes no attempt to start small

talk, and she appreciates the silence.

Simon comes in, his feet bare. The bandage she had put on, is gone.

Joe says, "All right?" and at the child's nod, "Come here, then." He scrutinises the child's heel and comments.

"So far the splinter has grown to be about as big as he is. Wonder where it'll stop?"

"It was about an inch actually. Big enough if you stepped nn it suddenly, I suppose." Joe's eyebrows rise.

"I thought about half an inch, and then I was being generous. Tough luck, tama. Where did you go to step on

it anyway? Probably deserved it, eh."

Simon kneels beside him, but disdains to answer. Instead, he reaches up to Kerewin, inside the denim folds of

jacket, to where the rosary is lying.

"O," says Joe, surprise and something akin to awe in his voice. "You're giving them away?"

The boy looks at him, still wine-flushed, but now his eyes are dark.

Kerewin says slowly,

"They were his gift to me this morning, and I appreciate them very much. But maybe an heirloom isn't to be

alienated?"

Joe shakes his head. "They're his, to do what he wants with them. More later, eh." Back to his son, "Miracles never cease. Do you remember, hey no. Let's forget that a moment. Kere wants to ask you a question."

"I do?"

He weaves a hand at the china cabinet.

"O yeah. What about the cabinet, Sim? Why's it empty?"

Simon's stare at his father is both reproachful and vindictive.

Toe laughs, at him.

It was a sore subject. Once upon a time it was full of trinkets and junky glass stuff, the sort people give you

but you never really

need."

"Really? Well, anyway, the cabinet was stuffed with them. One time Simon got wild at me, I even forget

what for now, and cleared the whole lot out. By the very simple expedient of throwing them at the walls.

There was one hell of a heap of glass splinters. With weird little bits sprinkled through it -- some of those uh

mathoms are held together with very strange things. Little springs and sprigs of plastic and odd rubber

bands."

"Goodbye the debris of years," she says, not knowing what else

"Yeah, that's what I thought too, after I calmed down. Most of the junk had been souvenirs or birthday

presents or wedding gifts. A lot of sentimental memories attached to it, but not much other value." He looks

down blandly at his child. "There is a moral to that, Kerewin. Haimona is rough on possessions, his own or