The Bone People (55 page)

There is a long silence.

Sweet Lord, prays Joe beneath his breath, if that is food I should not have eaten, I ate it in ignorance. I don't

want to stay dead.

The voice says,

I was Tiaki Mira. But it is a long time since anyone called me that. I think of myself as the keeper."

Joe lifts his hand, passes it over his body. He is solid, he feels lihe himself, and his forearm still aches. His

fingers rest on it briefly: « has been rebound, and the fierce pain has dulled.

He exhales and it sounds like a sob.

"Where is this place?"

"On maps, it is the Three Mile beach."

"There are many Three Mile beaches," says Joe doubtfully, his eyes still shut.

But the weird feeling is going. The discomfort of the stones he is lying on is too normal, the hurt in his arm

too continuous.

"Tiaki Mira, thank you for the bread. Have you anything I can

drink?" "Ae," says the high voice. There was a scraping sound. "This

is tea, with sugar in it."

It is strong and acrid, and some of it dribbles out of his mouth and down his neck, but the rest flows into him

like fresh blood.

He hears Tiaki Mira shift, hears him clear his throat. He draws in his breath, presses down hard with his good

arm and levers himself up. He sits, eyes still shut until the throbbing in his head recedes.

"That is good," says the other man. There is a hesitancy to his phrasing, a pause between words as though he must think about what he is saying before saying it.

Joe looks at him.

The old man smiles, and pushes the kete across to him. "Eat," he says, and lights his pipe.

As Joe eats, hesitantly at first, and then with a relish approaching greed, he glances again and again at the

man. The same stern time-sharpened face,

only here the features are sharpened by pain as well: the old man's cheekbones press eagerly out, making the

brown skin there a yellowish waxy colour;

the eyes are similar, deepset and always seeming to look down on you from above. Only these eyes smile.

The hawklike stare of Kahutea is missing.

But the really astonishing thing, he thinks, is the two parallel blue lines across this kaumatua's face. A truly

archaic moko, te mokoaTamatea.

He had thought the people who had worn that tattoo dead for

centuries.

The eyes do not flinch under his scrutiny, nor does the expression of benevolence alter. The old man waits.

"Ahh, good," sighs Joe at last. "That was good. Thank you for the food, and for, for," he touches his arm.

Despite the pains -- for he can now feel an ache in his thigh and bruises coming out on his shoulders, as well

as the nagging throb from the broken arm -- and despite the shuddering that shakes him occasionally, he feels

well. As though, he dare not think it clearly!

as though an expiation has been made. As though the benumbing burden he has been carrying for years is

about to be removed.

The kaumatua smiles again. He knocks the dottle from his pipe, and repacks the kete.

Then he picks it up, and unfolds his tall thin body to its height.

"My home is an hour's walk from here," he says carefully, "I can help you if you need the help to walk."

Joe grimaces. He gestures to his pack.

"If you can help me on with that, I'll be OK," stopping as the old man shows puzzlement, "I think I'll be well enough to walk an hour or two."

Just the food, he thinks in wonder, the food and the drink and the time I slept for. He stands up: he does not

feel faint or sick any more. He slides his right arm through the pack strap with extreme care, settles the pack

on his shoulders uncomfortably. Too bad, he tells himself, but you can endure a few bruises. You've given

enough. Before they leave, he kills the fire, pushing sand over the embers, separating the burning logs. When

he is satisfied it is dead, that smoke now rising is the smoke of extinction, he turns away from the kaumatua,

and glances up at the bluff.

"Ka maharatia tenei I ahau e ora ana," he says, very quick and soft. "E pai ana."

"Ka pai," says the old man behind him, "he tika tonu ano tena."

Joe stares at him. He couldn't have heard--

The seasound quickens in his ears.

The kaumatua smiles sadly back, and begins walking north.

It is smoky inside, and very quiet.

"What is that?"

"An antiseptic." The old man grunts. "A bush antiseptic--"

He had steeped and kneaded broad green leaves in a basin of water. The juice that he bathes Joe's arm with is

mildly astringent.

"You were limping," he says, some time later.

Joe stretches his right leg cautiously: his jeans are stuck to the outer side of his thigh.

"I've cut the skin there, that's all," he says, pointing. "Nothing's broken."

The kaumatua tore another piece off his shirt.

"Can you bathe yourself there?"

Joe reaches awkwardly, careful not to move his forearm.

"Yes."

The kaumatua purses his lips, and rips off three more strips. He rolls them neatly, and then stands.

"I will be back in a short while."

He draws his greatcoat tightly round him, and walks noiselessly outside.

"E, what a weird old bird,"

tut he says it quietly lest the elder hear. He thinks, That's the first time I've ever met anyone who literally

gave you the shirt off their back.

He balls the worn scrap in his hand. I can always buy him another... you're getting as bad as Kerewin,

Ngakau--

He washes the crust of blood away; the stones have bitten into his flesh as well as scraping long grazes on his

hip and thigh. More scars, he thinks morosely. All self-inflicted more or less. I don't think I've ever had an

honest accident or an honourable wound--

The washing reopens the cuts. He rearranges the piece of shirt into a wad, and holds it against his thigh,

staunching the flow with difficulty.

Kerewin said at Moerangi, "Suffering is undignified." Suffering ennobles, I said, but I smiled to show her that I thought that was really bullshit. What was noble about enduring a hook in your thumb? And she said,

"Sometimes, the dross is burnt off your character," and moodily added, "but the scars that result from burning can be a worse exchange."

"Come on," says Joe to Joe, "you're here. God knows where, but here. They're, they're anywhere."

He blinks furiously, and scans the room for something to look at.

Opposite him is the range. The cover over the firebox is cracked, and smoke leaks out in pungent clouds.

There is a piece of twine strung above the range: a pair of grey socks hang from it. On the mantelpiece above

is an ornate black clock. The clock is stopped.

"Figures," says Joe.

There are books on the mantelpiece, but he can't read the titles from here. That used to be a thing Kerewin

did, read the book titles in any room she came into. "You want to know about anybody? See what books they

read, and how they've been read--" By the door, thinks Joe firmly, by the door, on the same side of the room

as the range, is a sink and bench. There are rust stains in the sink where the tap drips. One tap -- for hot

water, boil it. Hence the two battered iron kettles steaming gently on the stove.

At the far end of the whare there's a wooden bed. Beside it, a tin trunk. Then there's a single window, with

spiderwebs growing out from the corners. And lastly, the table he sits beside. One chair, and one stool.

"Ascetical. Or bloody poor."

There are two incongruities.

Above the table, leaning out from the wall as though to remind you they're there, are three black-framed

photographs. One is a faded sepia picture of a mother and child: both are Maori, the woman with long hair,

the child practically hairless with narrow eyes and sulky downturned mouth. The middle photograph is

Michael Joseph Savage, amicable smile, bookish air, mildly looking the world over through wire-rimmed

spectacles. The official portrait putout.

The last is a colour photograph, much more recent. A young blond-haired man, long blond hair, ahh Jesus

Ngakau, don't look at that one, but he does. The.young man is gaunt and ill-looking, with deep hollows under

his oblique eyes. His smile is somehow wildly merry, as though he has fallen into a terrifying joke. Pointed

chin and high cheekbones... man, you're getting sick again, seeing him in everyone. He looks hurriedly away,

to the other strange thing in the room.

It's a worn hexagonal pincushion made of black velvet. It hangs on the wall above the head of the bed, and is

studded with needles and long antique hat pins.

"Odd religion this man must have," and he grins to himself.

The kaumatua, standing hitherto silent in the doorway, says,

"My grandmother always wore a hat when she went to town. Bare feet, but wellclad head. She spent most of

her money on hats. A small vanity, and a permissible one."

He adds after a minute of silence,

"This room has been left unchanged since her death, with two exceptions. That I hung on the wall," stabbing a finger at the cadaverous young man, "and this," poking at his barechested body, "sleeps on her bed instead of the floor. She died outside," he says.

He lays the materials he has gathered on the table. The rough bandages have been soaked in a secretion that is

powerfully redolent of turpentine. There are lengths of flax fibres, freshly scraped and rubbed into raw string,

and two flat footlong shafts of wood. And clear gum in a mussel shell.

From one of the cupboards under the bench, the kaumatua brings a saucepan. He adds a little hot water to the

gum in the musselshell, until it slides easily into the pot: he heats the mix on the range. When the gum has

melted and blended with the water, he cools it.

"You could call this bush-lotion. Or Maori ointment. It heals well, whatever the name given to it."

Joe has been watching him with growing resentment. After the sudden shock the old man's silent appearance

and words had caused, he found his feelings of awe and thanksgiving had somehow been displaced by a

strong antagonism with undertones of contempt. He says abruptly,

"I know its healing properties. It's miro gum. The antiseptic was probably tutu. I asked you what it was

because I couldn't see what leaves you had in the bowl. The bandages smell like you've expressed oil from

miro fruit onto them. The only thing I don't bloody know is where you'd find a miro tree round here."

"Ka pai," says the old man. "In my garden as a matter of fact.

I planted it there forty years ago. It's quite a big tree now. Good for people who fall over bluffs, as well as the

pigeons."

He sounds mildly amused.

He brings the melted mirogum over.

"I suppose you know it stings too, o man of wisdom?" He smiles slowly, his lips thinning and edging away

from his teeth. It isn't really a smile.

"Yes," says Joe shortly.

The kaumatua is very skilful, both in applying the lotion to the deep wound in his arm, and in rebinding the

arm later, so his wrist is immobilised. But the gum burns like fire, and for all the elder's skill, the shattered

bone is moved more than once.

"Stand up," says the kaumatua, when he has done bandaging.

"My jeans'll fall down," says Joe, and realises with horror that he has whined like a petulant child.

The kaumatua doubles up with laughter. "Her!" he gasps huskily, between spasms of laughter, "maybe this is a new kind of man after all! E her!" He collapses onto the stool, cackling to himself, brushing tears away

from his eyes.

"Her?" asks Joe warily, unsmiling.

The other wipes his eyes again.

"O not 'her'," he says at last. "Just a noise." He grins wickedly. "I'll look the other way, man, until your modesty is recovered, in case I see a sight not meant for mortal eyes."

Joe bends his head. "I'm sorry," he says in a low shaky voice. "My thigh won't stop bleeding. That's why I'm holding it. That's why I didn't want to stand. That's why," he stops, feeling his eyes overflow. God I'm either going to faint or bawl out loud like a baby.

The kaumatua stands quickly, his humour gone as fast as it came. He moves Joe's hand aside, washing over

the cuts with his lotion. It stings hard but the bleeding diminishes.

"Now stand carefully, please. I shall do up your jeans for you. Good. Place your arm across your chest. That

is right, good. Lift your other arm. He, now you can lower it. Good man. That is firm? Ah, see if you can

move the broken arm? No? Very good. Now lean against me. Walk a little more, a little more, just two steps

more... e very good."

The soft high voice is receding into darkness. The bands holding his right arm to his chest feel uncomfortably

tight, but the arm is secure. He can feel the old man taking his boots off him, can hear him saying, "E, that is good, now lean back. That is the pillow there. Gently now."

The bed is hard but the blankets are soft and warm. A little while of darkness later, he hears the kaumatua

say,

"Open your mouth. This is medicine." A soft distant chuckle. "Not a concoction of manuka bark or anything so interesting, e kare, but a modern medicine that brings sleep."

The taste is sweetly familiar.

"Kerewin," he murmurs, "e Kere, I smell like your painting and now I taste like him," and he smiles as he sleeps.

He is swimming down a foul mud-coloured river.

Not really swimming: the water gets so shallow that he can pull himself along, hands walking on the river

bottom.

He knows he must not get his hair wet by the foulness. But already the long strands at the back of his neck