The Bone People (16 page)

No, a lot, frowning.

"Hell Simon, I see the same things I see during the day except they are, they seem so dark as to be deprived

of colour. I don't see anything different."

He tries again.

ON PEOPLE? scratching his head with the pencil, frown still in place, writing again finally, ON PEOPLE.

"I don't see anything on people. Do you?"

He nods wearily. Then he keeps his head bent, apparently unwilling to look at her.

Kerewin's turn to frown.

What the hell would you see on people in the dark. Shadows in the daytime, yeah, but at night?

It's the word shadows that gives her the answer.

"Wait a moment... Sim, do you see lights on people?"

Head up fast, and his bright smile flowering. O Yes.

In the library, the books spread round them,

"Well, that's what they are. Soul-shadows. Coronas. Auras. Very few people can see them without using

screens or Kirlian photography. Only other person I've met before who could see them unaided, could see

them all the time, night and day. That's where you had me puzzled, fella."

He touches by her eyes.

"No, I can't see them. I'll bet Joe can't either."

Right, says the boy, grinning wolfishly. He writes quickly, SCARED SAID NOT TO SAY.

"Yeah, I can understand why. It's a bit scary when someone can see things about you that you can't see for

yourself... if he said not to say, why'd you ask me?"

YOU KNOW. YOU ANSWER.

I know, I answer eh?

She settles herself more comfortably in the bed, crosses her hands behind her neck and stares into the dark.

Well, I do know a lot. Encyclopaedias of peculiar facts and wayward pieces of knowledge. Myths and

legends by the hundred... but not generally the kind of things a child wants to learn.

These odd conversations we hold. Glance and gesture, intuition and guess, brief note and long wordy

enquiries and explanations... and Sim drinks up answers so avidly. All kinds of answers. Why? is the boy's

motto, why does, why is, why not? Food, weather, time, fires, sea and season, clothes and cars and people;

it's all grist to the mill of why.

I know a lot and I answer, but increasingly I have my own why.

Why isn't Joe doing the answering?

When I go to the pub these days, the locals talk to me. I have, for example, been fed incredible tales of

Simon's wildness by one Shilling Price. Just as well Joe keeps him toeing the line, he says, or we'd all be

bowled over eh?

Bill the barkeep says discreetly that old Shillin's apt to exaggerate y'know? Take it all with a grain of salt, he

suggests, and then proceeds to regale me with the time Simon set off all the town's lamppost fire-alarms. He's

a bit of a devil, that boy, finishes Bill.

Hmmm. I get the feeling that the child's exploits are only tolerated because Joe is well-liked.

He's certainly a mystery.

The more he comes round, the more I'm intrigued.

His background is old hat to the town, to Joe -- but it fascinates me. So why not try and find out who he is? I

could kill a bird or two thereby: give Sim an understanding of his dark past, that shield against the dread

unknown in nightmares he needs. And Joe, who worries about what he's taken on -- I suppose you would

worry about fostering a moody little nobody, it might turn out cuckoo in more ways than one -- Joe could

reconcile himself with a known quantity.

I think it's because Joe's afraid of what might be in his child's past that he keeps Simon on so short a lead.

Like tonight, all amicability:

"E Kere! Good to see you again!" mmmm, hongi (it's been all of a day). Picks up Sim, kisses him, "You been good, e tama? Had a good day?"

"Weelll," I'm grinning as I say it, because what happened did look funny. This pintsize hero taking on an

adult. Not to worry, I assure Joe, it was just that the mail bloke got a bit huffy when Simon badfingered him.

"That replacement fella, who's taken over Grogan's run for his holiday, you know him?"

Joe knows, nods coldly, his eyes on his son. Simon's shrinking back against the wall. I don't get to finish the

story because the boy gets hit, twice, hard. "I told you before, don't you ever--"

Apparently, digitus impudicus is out, no matter what the circumstances (the new postie was inept: leaning out

of the cab of the van, he missed my mailbox altogether and the letters dropped in the mud. I'm swearing O

shit and Sim goes round, picks it all up, salutes the bloke rudely, bloke glowers, goes to cuff him, child

ducks, bloke smacks hand against my box, swears. Sim ups him again, bloke practically froths at the mouth.

He stamps on the accelerator, and stalls van. I get sore cheek muscles from laughing so much.)

I had already learned that any kind of thieving is totally forbidden. So is anything resembling lying it seems,

and woe betide the brat if he doesn't do whatever he's told to, more or less on the instant. The matter is settled

right then, thump, that's it. It always looks so ridiculous, Joe hefty and twice his child's size -- but that's the

way we do it in good old Godzone. Besides, the man is tolerant to a fault in other ways, and he's always

lavish with praise, with cuddling and kisses... anyway, the hell with it, what business of mine is it how he

chooses to bring up his son?

So. We take up an old cold trail -- what clues do we have, Sherlock? (Hey, that's good! why haven't I thought

of it before?)

A rosary and a ring. A dead boat in deep water, and two dead people. An inarticulate child, a tongue-locked

mind.

So, again. Jewellers, libraries, police, hospital records, natter to Dansy, check out boat registration lists--

She thinks about the possibilities for a long time before dropping off to sleep.

The boy turns up every other day now, regular as clockwork with the morning mailvan (Grogan's back).

"Hello," he says, as Simon scrambles out with her letters. "Nearly hit a cow this morning down near Tainuis'

bridge. You know it?"

"Bridge or cow?"

The driver guffaws. "Bloody good," he says. "Other than that, no news. O, except they've got a new barman at the Duke. Just hired today. Not a local." To Simon, "You have a nice day, and

thanks for the help."

Boy earns his ride, says Grogan. "Helps me no end, putting the stuff into all those bloody boxes miles off the

bloody verge. Inconsiderate bastards." He winks at Simon. "Won't charge you this week, Sim."

One morning, Grogan leans conspiratorially out of the cab and asks in a loud whisper.

"Do you like having him around?"

"Um, yeah." (Simon relaxes.)

"The old lady and me think it's a bloody good job too. About time somebody did something bloody useful

instead of just bloody talk." Slaps Kerewin on the shoulder. "Good on yer, girl."

Hot shit and apricots thinks Kerewin, bristling.

"Hooray," says the postie cheerfully.

"Hooray to you too."

Simon gives him the fingers as the van skids in a half-circle away.

"Watch it you." She shrugs. "Ah, hell, a year of being the eccentric avoidable, and all of a sudden I'm in with the locals."

Me image hath gone down the drain.

Writing,

Hello.

It is six and a half years since I last wrote. Well, six years and five months, and an uncertain number of days,

21 or 22, because I lost track of time then, for a weekend or so--

A lot has happened. I have a home, befitting the eccentricity of a Holmes. I am still myself, iron lady cool

and virgin. Maybe not lady. But what to call that sport, the neuter human?

There has been little in the way of true joy.

I don't paint much any longer.

I can't, I can't, I can't.

I have taken to wandering a lot, gyrovague, te kaihau. There is a long desert beach here, my bush, and

whispering stands of alien trees. An estuary. The sea all around, waves at night, and my retreat. Unsullied sky

(except when I care to build a fire...) I am beginning to wonder why I started this parade of excised feelings

again.

O yes.

Dear paper ghost, I know a little more about Simon P. P for pestiferous, prestidigitous, (and as his father has

it) pake.

Simon P?

Simon the shadowed. Oddbod, spiderchild. A very unlikely but strangely likable brat. Me new toy is to

discover whence Simon the Gillayley came from. Why there is a suggestion of the numinous in his shadow.

Who else do I know who listens to the silence of God on lonely beaches? (Ah hah! That would be telling....)

Anyhow, I know more.

And I don't know what's worse: knowing as much nothing as I did before, or being cognisant with this futile

misleading much I have now.

The saga:

Armed with the ring and the rosary, I went to the library. In Debretts, after hunting through a thousand dusty

pages, found a saltaire with phoenix on flame-nest superimposed. Arms of a doddering Irish earl in his

eighties. He had two sons. One died in World War II, and the other popped off in 1956. Remarried, with no

issue, was the Irish earl. Fat lot of help.

I looked round the pile of peerages and lesser landed gentry, junk from the old dead world. Five hours of

scurrying through those pages, and this is all we've got?

The librarian smiled.

Librarians' smiles look like bookends.

And there wasn't a Latin tag, Mater Compassionem de Virgo, or any such mixture.

Next, the jewellers.

My tame silversmith said the trinket was nice work, maybe fifty years old. Haven't seen any of that coral

around for a while. Cabochon turquoises, v. similar to your ring. Very nice amber. Bloodstones -- hmm, not

really possible to say where these particular bloodstones originated. Can tell you one thing though. The

turquoise isn't American, and the gold is very pure. Nowd'youwannasell?

Fat lot of help.

The fuzz really tried to be helpful.

I have a sneaking suspicion they have a sneaking fondness for the bandit child. They let me read all the

reports on the dead boatcrew, and the follow-up after. All more or less as Joe told it.

"How's young Gillayley getting on these days?" asked a young constable, brown dewy eyes and a fresh fluff

of moustache. "No more escapades?"

"Not recently," said another, "been very quiet out there these days."

They all grinned at one another like it was a conspiracy.

Fat lot of help.

So then, after the jeweller, the police, the library, the hospital records, even the local, it was a dead end.

Think sideways. I had a child who was so old. Many tales of infamy. One tale (I incline to the suspicion) of

emotionally biased fact.

A ring that led nowhere (you ever meet a ring that went somewhere?).

A rosary that served as an endowment and nothing much else.

An unreachable boat, no registration number known.

Corpses in a graveyard, decently interred after neat indecent dissections.

A strange wayward shut-and-bolted mind.

So what the hell, I wrote to the Irish earl.

Winter grew on -- half a month more and it'll be the midyear school holidays, and the urchin won't need lies

any more to cover the track of his days. He's grown a quarter of an inch, sideways. He looks that much less

like a famine victim. The cheekbones don't sear through the skin so sharply. And he's not nearly as restless.

Behold, Holmes! Anchor and salvation of an erstwhile happy family. I hope. Joe is beamish -- when he's not

glowering. Joe? Don't let's digress any more, g. reader. But I better record this deathless bit:

Last month SP was an imp incarnate. We were shown a hectic quicksilver series of mood-reversals. For

instance, one moment kneeling (it never sits) enjoying dinner, and the next, for some unknown reason, it

slams the plate on the floor (the plate broke). No reason given: just a silent snarl as it tromped round my

living circle, kicking at the window base Stop that Sim. Kick. You'll break the berloody window and I'm sour

enough about the plate. Another boot. Stop it you little bastard, or I'll stop you. And what does Simon the

self-possessed do? Breaks down snivelling. Not cries of desolation. An abject self-pitying whimpering.

Which continued, despite threats and blasphemy until Joe arrived to take him home (about 40 minutes'

worth). What are you crying for? asks the Kati Kahukunu (he's probably my 23rd cousin but we haven't

swapped whakapapa yet). Nothing, whines our Simon shaking his hair, nothing. Right, says Joe, belting him

smartly across the arse, there's something to cry for. Now stop it.

I can see I do not possess the family touch.

Anyway, back to the reason I dragged you out of the cobweb pile, self-odyssey.

Today I got a letter.

It's an airmail letter.

A sheet of onionskin paper, with a heavily embossed coat of arms. Ah so, phoenix on flamebed and NON

OMNIS MORIAR in gothic type underneath. I shall not all die?

Mr (sic) K. Holmes,

The Tower, Taiaroa PB,

Whangaroa, Wetland (Sic),

New Zealand.

Sir,

I am directed by His Lordship, the Earl of Conderry, to acknowledge the receipt by him of your letter dated

April 30th. I am to inform you that, if the ring is genuine, and not a copy, then it belonged to

His Lordship's younger grandson. This person, about whom His Lordship has no wish to know anything more

whatsoever (underline, I underline) was disinherited for disgraceful propensities four years ago. He is known

to have resided in your country during his worldly {peregrinations. His Lordship wishes you to understand

clearly that he has nothing further to say on this subject, and asks that you refrain from entering into further