The Bone People (43 page)

the table, but they had nothing on them. She picked them up and called, her voice weak and querulous,

"Where is the message? Where is the message?"

And at once brightly coloured pictures appeared. Trump cards, Tarot trumps. But they weren't stable. The

colours ebbed and flowed and the pictures changed as she looked at them.

The pair chained to the column in the card called The Devil shifted and stretched and became The Lovers.

The Fool stepped lightly forever towards the abyss, but the little dog snapping at his heels ran on to bay at the

Moon. The benign placid face of the Empress became hollow-eyed, bone-cheeked, and Death rode scything

through the people at his horse's feet.

The more she looked, the more the archetypes danced and altered, until they ran together in a rainbow fluidity

that turned white. Except one card glowed.

The scene was there for a split second, but in that second she was drawn into the card. The sky split and

thunderbolts rained down, and she started falling, wailing in final despair from the lightning struck tower.

And woke, pressed hard against the sheepskin she sleeps upon, heart beating hurtfully fast.

A falling dream, and the Tower of Babel? Astral travel, and the House of God?

She didn't, then, think at all of her Tower.

She spent most of the day making a frame for the self-portrait, the wood is rewarewa, blond and fine-grained

and sanded to satin "rush. The frame is an inch wide: the painting life-sized, head and shoulders. Her face

glowers back at her, caged with wood.

Same to you, whatever you're thinking. I'm thinking you're just

dartboard-sized, so watch it." She grins to herself, scowls back at the portrait.

She waits until after seven, after their tea she figures, before taking a taxi to Pacific Street.

She tucks the painting under one arm and strolls up the path. Say hello, drop the painting, and beat a hasty

retreat, she decides.

But she can hear Joe yelling before she's close enough to the door to knock.

Oath, what's up now?

She can't hear the words. She kicks the door so he'll hear, and I there's sudden silence after. Rapid heavy

footfalls as the man comes striding down the hallway. He jerks the door open and peers out } belligerently.

"O it's you," his frown vanishes, "come on in. It's cold eh."

"Very... what's the trouble?"

"What?"

"I heard you yelling. I assume it wasn't at the budgie?"

"No it wasn't. Simon threw a plate at me."

"He what?"

"Threw a plate... you come and see if you can't talk some sense into him. He's in a real shitty mood."

She leaves the painting by the door.

"Okay... that's the picture, by the way," and walks into the kitchen.

The boy is behind the table, pressed against the wall.

"Right," hands on her hips, "why're you chucking the crockery round?"

He snarls.

She pulls a face back, and turns to Joe.

"All I did was suggest his hair needs cutting, and he flings the plate. He very nearly hit me too. Up to then,

we'd been having tea, all quiet and amicable. I haven't touched him, just shouted. He zapped round there,"

pointing to the table end, "as soon as the plate left his hand."

"I'd shout too. More likely I'd throw my plate back, and make sure it hit."

"It's good dinner ware. I can't afford to be hurling it about."

Simon goes on glaring at them both, still tight against the wall.

She faces him again.

"You don't like your hair being cut, I take it?"

"He doesn't. He hates it. There's always a fight over it, but I've got to do it... well, you can imagine the scene at the barber's can't

you?

"Yeah. What don't you like though, Sim? It being cut short?"

"But I don't cut it short," says Joe plaintively. "Just trim it, so it doesn't tangle so much. I'm damned if I know why he fights it. I know he gets rubbished by other kids... I've heard them."

The boy remains where he is, sullen and unmoving.

Scared as well as defiant, she thinks. Wonder what it feels like to be small and afraid, knowing either of us

can do what we like with him? And I wonder how many times he has retreated there, before being hauled out

and beaten?

"Mmm," she says to Joe, and walks closer to Simon, standing in front of him, looking him over for a minute and more. He stares up at her. The budgie chitters.

Joe moves to the sink, and opens a cupboard. She hears the susurration of a brush across the floor, then the

clink of china pieces being swept up.

The boy's defiant scowl stays in place most of the time, but he can't bear it towards the end. Kerewin just

stares, her gaze revealing nothing. He lowers his eyes, and starts to snivel.

"He normally get a hiding for breaking plates?"

Pause in the sweeping.

"Yes," says Joe.

She hears him put the brush down.

"But... last time it was breakfast he threw, and I got wild. I was already late for work and him having a

tantrum was the last straw."

"O yes. I came round here that night, I remember. Before going pubbing. There was porridge and plate all

over the floor. That was the time," she says reflectively, "yeah, that was the time he arrived at Taiaroa with his face punched. Or was it slapped?"

"Slapped." A low voice, but the sound has the flat echo of the action.

Simon is still crying.

"And with a few sundry kicks, I recall."

"Yes."

She hears the broom picked up, the sweeping resumed. He says,

"It was a bit of a fight. He said he wasn't going to school, and like I said, I was late. So when he persisted, I slapped him a couple of times, and slapped him more when he swore at me. Then he hefted the plate at me,

and it hit. It hurt too. So I kicked him."

The budgie twitters.

Clatter as the broken bits of plate are dropped in the rubbish tin.

The boy sniffs, tears dripping off his chin.

"Well, to me he got a gross overdose of punishment that time. This time he goes scotfree, eh?"

The boy stares up at her, his mouth opening in surprise. "I wasn't going to hit him," and the boy's stare

switches to him. I said I wouldn't, without you agreeing, and I meant that."

"I've said."

"Yes."

"Goodoh." She kneels on the floor beside the table, close to the

boy. "Now you, what's so terrible about a haircut?" Scotfree? That means get off? Nothing happens?

He starts to grin.

She has seen him smile through tears a few times now, and it always gets to her. It probably shows how

emotionally wobbly he is, but it looks like old hearts and flowers getting on top of his woes, come what hell

may. Joe notes the smile too.

Hell, he's going to be murder to handle from now on. Though I have a suspicion, if he starts behaving badly

with our stony lady here, he'll get the biggest comeuppance he's ever had. "Nothing's terrible about a

haircut?" asks Kerewin, and the smiling stops. He raises one hand, eyes narrowing with concentration, and

then his fingers curl together and his eyes close. He drops the hand,

defeated.

"The sound of scissors cutting through your hair?" she suggests. "Metal by your head? Somebody touching your head? What happens

to your hair afterward?"

Simon shakes his head to them all, eyes still closed.

She sits back on her haunches.

"How about a cuppa?" Joe asks quietly.

"Good idea, man... would you bring us your scissors over?" and Simon's eyes open immediately. "S'okay sunchild. I'm not going to I start cutting against your will."

She leans over and takes a handful of his hair, and he flinches.

"Look at it. Look at the ends."

The hair is thick, dead straight, wheat gold with a silver sheen. "See how that's split? And the tangle it's

gotten into there? Guarantee you'd find it hard to brush through there."

"You mean I'd find it hard to brush," says Joe. "I wash and brush him still... that's the point, e tama. When you look after your hair, you can wear it how you like, and decide when you want it cut. But not now, right?"

The boy pouts.

"Yik," Kerewin's voice is full of distaste. "I like that about as much as your thumb-sucking routine." She stands, groaning until her stretched ankle and thigh tendons recover. "Oath, I'm unfit... e thanks, Joe," as he sets a cup of tea by her. He lays the scissors unobtrusively beside the saucer. "Simon, you going to stay stuck on the wall like a fly, or do you

want a tea too?"

T says the boy, two fingers making one, and he sits beside Kerewin at the table. He spies the scissors a

second later. He looks quickly at her, and reaches for them.

She doesn't try to stop him.

You fling them at me though chief, and I'll knock you off your seat,

but she doesn't let the thought show on her face.

To her surprise, the child takes hold of one of the long strands that are always falling in front of his eyes and

gingerly cuts it through. He winces, as though it hurt him, and stops, eyes closed tightly again, scissors in one

hand, hank of hair in the other.

Well I never: cliche number two, whatever next?

Nothing, it seems.

The boy stays in the same position. Joe comes with two cups of tea, glances at his son, glances at Kerewin,

sits down and begins supping from his cup.

The gas heater hisses. The kitchen is warm, but the air is thick; smells of burnt fat, and underlying stink of

coal gas. Yet, with people in it, the kitchen is a friendly and comfortable room, she decides, and remembers

her first impression of it. Spartan it may be, but at the moment, the very bareness emphasises the

companionship between her and the man, and the boy.

The budgie chirrups again, and cracks its seeds. Her swallow sounds loud in her ears. At last, Simon shifts.

He puts down the cut hair and the scissors, and opens his eyes, sighing.

"Your tea, tama?" and pushes a saucerless cup to him. The boy ignores it, holding his hand out to Joe, palm up.

It's a gesture she hasn't seen before, apparently one of apology, because Joe lays his hand on top of his son's,

and says,

"That's okay. Don't throw things any more, eh?"

Simon nods. He looks very tired all of a sudden.

But when the tea has been drunk, and Joe asks, "Will you mind if I cut your hair now?" he doesn't make any demur. He hunches his shoulders and sits rigidly still, until Kerewin offers to hold him.

Why should he be so palpably afraid?

He relaxes, once on her knees. Joe keeps up a cheerful running commentary as he cuts six inches or so off,

trimming it to shoulder length. He collects the hair as he goes, piling it on the table.

"You haven't got a plait yet for that pendant of yours, Tahoro Ruku?"

"No."

"Would you like one? It could be for any pendant."

"You mean, made of Sim's hair?"

"Why not?" He grins. "Same colour as flax... be all right with you, Himi?"

The boy says Yes with a fingerfall: he is still tense.

"Why not indeed?"

"Okay Kere, I'll make you one... hold still, tama, just this end bit of your fringe now."

Joe is deft, and when he asks, "How's it look?" she can say "Berloody neat," and mean it. "You ever a professional?"

"No. I had a friend who was though, and he showed me a few tricks of the trade." He holds a mirror up for

the child. "Like it,. Haimona?"

The boy scans his reflection, grimacing, but the grimace turns to a reluctant and shamefaced grin.

"Lotta fuss over nothing," says Joe, and he ruffles the neatness into disarray fondly.

The fire in the livingroom circle is out. After the warmth and company of the Gillayleys, the Tower seems as

cold and ascetical as a tombstone. Me silent dank grave. And mere months ago, they were the ones who lived

in a chilly institutional hutch... what's happened? she asks herself, grieving. Even my home is turning against

me--

"Mind you," Joe had said to Kerewin, "that's the first time he's ever sat still long enough for me to do a decent job. Piri tried to hold him once, and got bitten for his trouble. The other times after Hana died," he sighed,

"sheesh, all those other times... there's only been me here eh, which means I've had to give him a belting so

he'll do as he's told... you ever try shearing sheep? Unwilling sheep?"

"I've worked as rousie, never shearer, but I've seen them carry on."

"Well, he's a handful like that, only worse. So thank you very much from both of us for making this time easy

and good. Maybe he'll be okay from now on?"

"Maybe. Let's hope so."

She left soon after.

The night is still young, but she can't be bothered relighting the fire.

Shall I drink this depression off? Nah, I'll try sleeping it out, first.

She doesn't bother with a lamp, plodding up the spiral in the gloomy dark.

She does light the great candle that stands by her bed.

Three foot high, inches wide, intended to provide the easterlight in a church. It is rooted in a massive pottery

base she made three years ago: the base is decorated with spirals that wind and flow together, like eddies of

smoke, eddies of water.

Spirals make more sense than crosses, joys more than sorrows--

She sits down on the bed edge, watching the flickering candle flame.

A writhing fire, dancing on this candle... twisting to an inward wind, then spiring up orange and smoking...

There are moths in the room. Willowisp silver of their wings, out in the shadow bounds, a shimmering

irregular beat, sought seen caught out of the corner of the eye--

I wonder if Sim sees auras like that? A twist of wayward light, or thick clouding smoke. Lights, he said, but...