Read The Bone People for Free Online

conversational,
    "I'm just gonna stick on some socks and shoes before my toes drop off. Then I think I'll light some lamps.
    You think it's getting too dark?"
    O god if there is one, running up the spiral to the bedroom, careless of the cold -and the hard knock of the
    stone steps against her feet, get rid of that child. I need my peace. I need to get drunk.
    She longs for the Gillayley father to arrive and carry off his offspring, right now. A loud and boisterous
    Viking type she'd bet, from the child's colouring. Yer rowdy Aryan barbarian, face like a broken crag, tall as
    a door, and thick all the way through.
    She slips on thin leather kaibabs over woollen socks, and when the numbness of her feet has warmed to prick
    and needle sensations, walks silently back down the stairs.
    The child is now sitting in front of the portrait of Minamoto-no-Yoritomo, and he's looking at it fixedly. He
    doesn't shift as she softfoots it into the room.
    »
    Ah to hell, I'll start drinking anyway.
    "Crystal goblets, earthen cups," meandering over to the grog cupboard as she chants, "juice of grape, or squshed hop?"
    She settles on stout, opening a couple of bottles with her knife, flicking the tops into the sink. Bugger the
    dishes, they'll be there tomorrow. She pours a schooner full, and settles back on the sheepskins.
    (Momentarily, she sees the chain at the freezing works where fresh-killed sheep carmine-throated, are
    grotesquely hooded by their own skins. The skins slip along the floor as the white carcasses jerk and sway
    above them on the moving hooks... what deaths to occasion your comforts?)
    and takes a deep swallow of stout.
    It goes down, bitter as bile.
    "Have to stoke the fire soon." It has settled into a red bed of embers.
    "Light the lamps soon too."
    There's a scratching noise, lighter than a mouse-scrabble but still heard over the rain. The boy is writing
    again.
    She turns round a bit, nonchalantly, so she can see the child if she wants to.
    "Becomes a ritual, eh? Build wood and coal into a fire. Care for the wick in the lamp and grow a light from
    kerosene."
    The urchin has sidled crabwise closer. He's waiting to see whether she is going to notice him.
    Kerewin turns round a bit more.
    "You brought me a message?"
    'I'll TONIGHT PERHAPS. 'I'll JOE COMES PERHAPS. CAN I HAVE A DRINK PERHAPS. SP
    Wonder what the latest word we've learned is?
    She grins inwardly but says, "Of stout?" astonished and puritan and also dodging the issue.
    The boy nods, looking surprised at her tone of voice.
    "Well, okay then I suppose."
    She finishes her glassful with a hurried swallow and pours him a drink.
    A twelve ounce schooner should stop you, my lad, and again the inward grin, this time mean with
    anticipation.
    Over he comes, hitching along the floor, crawling actually like he's half his age, with a smile in place that
    lacks even a vestige
    of embarrassment. The bandage shows startlingly white under the frayed jeans cuff. Good as your remaining
    teeth boyo. Thin-fingered hands round the glass -- so you still need two for drinking a full one, eh? Split chin
    upwards, and the dark grog practically seen outside your skinny throat... what's the mark? Pink and satin-
    shiney, like a scar.
    She fingers the two scar-like lines that run in parallel across her own throat, while staring in awe as the child
    keeps on swallowing and swallowing, downing the drink without needing a breath it seems.
    He lowers the glass at last and grins hugely.
    "Something tells me," says Kerewin, fascinated, "that that is not your first drink. I think I better get another glass for me, and you can keep that for your own." She fetches a mug and another two bottles from the
    cupboard.
    "Well," raising the mug in a loose salute, "kia ora koe, and we might as well have a session."
    Glass to glass, chink.
    The boy chokes a little.
    Kerewin staring at air rising in the black depth of her drink:
    "Why do you want to stay tonight? Aside from the fact it's