And if he can't go home, he might as well not be. They might as well not be, because they only make sense together. He knew that in the beginning with an elation beyond anything he had ever felt. He has worked at keeping them together whatever the cost. He doesn't know the words for what they are. Not family, not whanau… maybe there aren't words for us yet? (E nga iwi o nga iwi, whispers Joe; o my serendipitous elf, serendipitous self, whispers Kerewin, we are the waves of future chance) he shakes the voices out of his head. But we have to be together. If we are not, we are nothing. We are broken. We are nothing.
It is almost worse than the night.
Because now he can see nothing ahead, nothing at all.
He stopped communicating.
The pad would gather dust if it wasn't a hospital.
The male nurse said,
"He does exactly what you tell him to do as though he hadn't heard you, unless you tell him to answer. Then he doesn't hear you."
It was a wall he had built in one night, with consummate care, and there was only one entry point.
They didn't know it.
They tried cajolery. He could come and go as he pleased. He stayed in the single room he'd been put back into, stayed rocking on the bed.
They gave him something that'd been kept aside for months, Kerewin's parcel of the things he'd looted. They watched when they Save it, hoping for a chink to show in the wall.
' He sorted through the stuff mechanically, not hesitating over any of it.
Moneycowries in his pocket, paperclips on the table. The gadget in "is pocket, the cigars on the table. The agate and the scented?» in his pocket, the felt-tips on the table. The chess-set jammed in his pocket, the ink-block on the table. The visiting cards slipped in beside, except for one, on the table.
He strung the turquoise ring on the small medallion's chain and it round his neck.
"Hey, do you like jewellery? (Remember his earring?) I know, we'll get your earring, okay? (Get his earring.)"
He looks at his hands. He doesn't watch people's faces anymore. He knows what his eyes can give away.
"Hold on a minute… there we are? My, you look grand! We'll get a mirror and then you can see how good it looks, eh?"
He avoids looking in the mirror. His earring could be a thousand miles away, instead of in the lobe of his ear again. So could everyone round him.
("Well, we tried," said the head nurse. "What next?")
They tried a form of simply bullying — anything to crack the facade. Like the physiotherapist saying, "Walk. Stop. Walk. Stop," about twenty times in a row. The child obeyed like a zombie soldier, and the only result was his footwork deteriorated to lurching.
The wall is seemingly a complete barrier. The male nurse was reduced, one afternoon, to shaking the wooden child. He stopped himself hurriedly.
There was nothing in Simon's downcast eyes, not even fear.
But there is a way in, and Fayden found it.
He's the pediatrician, recently graduated, an ebullient young foreigner not especially liked by the rest of the staff. He's inclined to wear peacock shirts under his uniform whites, and he whistles and sings and talks too much to the patients. For all his inexperience, he's apt to disagree with his colleagues in all departments over the way they handle the people they serve. "Man, they're peeople," he drawls, a dozen times a day, and "Peeeple Fayden' he's become.
At the last staff meeting on Simon, he says.
"Man, he loves that Gillayley, it's obvious what we do."
"Aw… come on. He's been scared into pathetic submission by him and — "
"Not from what I've heard. Those Tainui people said — "
"They're biased. Haven't you read the welfare reports? And our social worker's comments? We've agreed as a group that placement in a Hohepa home will provide the most advantageous start for — "
"I dissent."
"Your opinion is noted."
Nothing else for it now, he thinks. The afternoon before the boy leaves, he moves in.
"Hullo, you."
The room is too quiet. The child hasn't seen him. He's doing what he mainly does these days: legs drawn up and crossed at the ankles,
arms wrapped round his knees, chin sunk on them, he rocks back and forth. His eyes are closed.
"Stop it eh, Simon."
The rocking into oblivion goes on.
He looks at the bedside table, and yeah, the kid's taken out his aids again. The ultimate go away. Each time before, they've waited until he puts them back, taking it as an encouraging sign he wants the world to include him sometimes.
But this time we gonna intrude. It's worth a try, man.
He sneaks over and lays a hand on the unsuspecting child's shoulders.
The boy jerks once, then holds himself rigidly still.
Fayden sits down on the chair, and holds out the three things he has in his hand.
The aids and Kerewin's card.
For a minute, nothing happens.
Then, slowly, the child takes the aids, and adjusts them in his ears.
He thinks I'm gonna bite him? Cautious and shaky and slower than a crippled snail-
"You know I'm Doctor Fayden, right? Well, my real name is Sinclair, Sinclair Fayden,"
Sinclare? Clare? My name?
"so forget the doctor bit for a while, and think of me as a helpful fellow called Sinclair. Okay? I think I can be helpful… with your help. And this," tapping the little ivory card with a casual forefinger.
It's the magic word all right, the golden key, the open sesame.
The boy's unwinding from his unholy huddle. Propped by his elbows, head back, he stares up at the man as though it's the first time he's seen one.
It's strange how discomforting the askew green stare can be, but Sinclair grins it away.
"It's going to take some time to explain all this. It's about you, and your dad, and this lady, Kerewin Holmes, uh huh?"
Pause: wait for it: we get a Yes.
Sinclair mentally rubs his hands.
This ain't gonna be a disaster area after all.
There's other people in it too, and there's places… what's up?" he's only turning over to pick up his pad.
By the ineffable name, I think he's finally gonna risk it, break that record and actually SMILE for the first time… not quite a smile, more like a twitch… nuts, nobody here to corroborate
(he's smiling frantically back).
QUESTIONS? scarred thumb jammed back to himself like it's a cocked trigger.
"You wanna ask me questions, boy? You ask all the questions you like, and I will answer them truthfully as I can. Cross my heart and hope to die," giving him the cross on the heart and chop across the throat, that the kids seem to take more seriously than the words themselves.
"You askin now?"
The boy shakes his finger, wriggling up to sit closer, still watching him intently.
Fuck, it's like someone threw a switch. He's a different child altogether.
None of the brittle defiance, and none of this horrid apathetic docility we've been getting lately either. Alive again, naturalleee,
all the while he says aloud,
"Okay, anything you want to know more about, stop me and we'll talk. Now, I think I'm right when I say you want to go home, and home means your dad?"
He retreats before the avid hunger in the child's eyes.
"It means this lady Kerewin Holmes, too?"
It does, it does. He's shaking with Yes's, fingers and head.
Sinclair says blandly.
"I see. Well, y'know they're all convinced here that you've been scared and hurt too often to want to go back to your dad… what do you call him?"
JOE
"Makes sense. How do you… hey, d'you know what I was just gonna ask you? How do you say Joe's second name?" high giggling, and the boy, we didn't know about this, joins in with a strange throaty chuckle.