He knocked on the door.
Shuffle, shuffle.
Pause.
"Hoose there."
"Joseph Gillayley."
Sucking sound and whistle of breath.
"Geezus Mr Gillayley… gee-zus." The voice trails down to a frightened whisper. "Geesuss, what yer want?"
"Has my son been round here?"
He's been round here all right.
Luce wasn't just making it up.
"He just, he just, was over the fence one day an I said Looklwonhurtyerboy, don't jump like that. He was scared."
"Open the door."
"No." Almost a whimper. More sucking sounds.
Joe studies the flaking paint on the door. Pale dirty green, blistered and sunstained.
One minute more, and I'll kick it down.
"Lissen Mister Gillayley, he didn' do nuthin. Nuthin wrong. I didn' do nuthin wrong.
"He was scared about some money stole in school. So I give him a dollar. He's a nice little boy. That's all."
He'd know the little bastard steals… Christ, when's that going to surface?
But it sounds plausible… except not money for nothing. Not charity from this stinking old faggot.
"You expect me to believe that shit?"
"No."
The chain clinks again, and suddenly the door scrapes open.
"No," says Binny again, "I got me reputation. But that's the honest bloody truth, so Jesus help me."
He is trembling at the knees, his chin is wobbling. There are stains all over his cardigan and shiny trousers. He stinks of urine and stale sicked-up sherry. There is a shine of dribble down one side of his bristling chin.
He holds his chin high though, so the scrawny neck stretches.
"No, I got me reputation," he says again, and lowers his head in defeat.
Waiting for Joe to knee him one, or belt him.
"Did he ask for the money?"
"He sez he was scared about it. I think that's what he sez anyway." The old eyes are rheumy and opaque. "I wouldn't touch your pore little boy, not the way you think. He was scared, he wanted some money. I had some, so I give him a dollar. Christ, there's nuthin wrong wiv that?"
Joe looks at him long and hard, and the old man's eyes flinch, and come back to him, and flinch again, and still return.
"No, there's nothing wrong with that for you," says Joe at last.
I
He went home, and prowled through the rooms until he found the boy in his bedroom.
"Where have you been since school finished?"
The boy gets off the bed, looks at his father sideways, moves sideways, gesturing as he goes, moving faster, faster, panicking now, Out, Out, Out. Joe puts his leg across the doorway, blocking it off just before the child reaches it.
"Where's out?"
A blank stare. Not blank. Scared as hell.
Joe reaches out and slaps him across the face.
"You go to Tainuis' when you're told. Or to Kerewin's. Don't have me chasing all round the countryside after you. You get into trouble too easily. And stop the tears. Marama's not here."
YOU PROM, the boy is writing, finger against his hand.
"Shut up." He puts his hands on his hips. "Luce said you were over at that creep Binn's place. Did he handle you?"
The child shudders, shaking his head No No No, so the teartracks skid off at right angles. He writes again, finger on hand, BINN OK.
"What'd you go there for?"
Simon swallows.
"Come on, save some skin."
MONEY fingers Simon.
"Wise. I heard about that too." He unbuckles his belt. "Shirt off, boy."
The boy looks once to the door, once at his father's face.
As he takes his shirt off, Joe thinks, What the hell, he'll do as
he's told for two days and then go his own way again. I might as well not bother. But he's my child, my responsibility. I've got to do it, wrapping the end of the belt round his fist.
Through the beer fog, he was saying, You promised. Not to hit me on the face again.
That's the only thing he'd mean by You prom.
It irks him.
Why should I feel guilty? Why does he always find some sneaky
way to make me feel bad? He's the bad one.
And you don't learn, Himi, that's why you get the hits. You
won't learn. You shiver already, but as soon as it's over, you'll
be out doing some other stupid thing and earn yourself another
lot.
He shrugs his heavy shoulders.
What else can I do, Hana? What else is there to do?
He hits the boy until he grovels on the floor, gone beyond begging for it to stop.
"Don't go to Daniels' place again, hear? He's not a good man. Bloody old pederast," he mumbles as he buckles on his belt. His own hands are shaking now.
He pulls the boy up from the floor, and then because he is suddenly sorry for him as he stands there swaying, white and sick with pain, he says,
"Look tama, that was for your own good. I'm not much drunk am I? I aren't just mad, am I? It's because you mustn't go there, Himi. I'm sorry to have to hit you so hard, but you've got to learn to do as I say."
Like a voice in his head, You didn't tell him not to go there.
Joe shakes his head.
"Otherwise, otherwise," he looks blearily into the child's darkened tear clouded eyes, "you could get really badly hurt. And I don't want you hurt, tama."
Sweet Christ, don't look at me like that.
"Pedderass?" she scans the note again, wrinkling her nose. "Would you mean pederast?" Simon lifts his open hands to her, I don't know.
Where the hell does he get these words from?
And abruptly, with painful clarity, heard the languid Luce Tainui say, "Why, Binny Daniels." Two days ago in the Duke, and still the hooks in that conversation stick in her throat like a half-swallowed bidibid. She says, swallowing, "A pederast is a person who makes love, has sex that is, with
children. Particularly young boys. Why?"
Anger is starting to drive her heart harder.
Simon gives her another note. The purple shadows ringing his eyes make them curiously luminous and birdlike.
IS BINN?
Sheeit. Binny Daniels is the proverbial dirty old man. A solitary gaffer in a long khaki coat, caught several times and finally put away for a year for feeling up schoolboys. Now he drinks in solitary at the Duke, where the regulars rubbish him savagely and aren't above sly punches, and the barman doesn't serve him very often. He buys half a gallon of sherry and trundles off home to bed with it, early each night.
"Yes, Binn Daniels is. Did he bother you?"
The boy shakes his head, already busy on the next note. He is writing more than gesturing at the moment.
HE GIVE ME A KISS AND SAY I CAN HAVE MONEY ANYTIME. HE STINKS
"Ulp," heart beating hard as haka-stamping, and as war-ready. "That was all?"
It had better be, but the child shifts uncomfortably. He has been moving and walking as though he was a wooden doll ever since he arrived this morning. She half expects to hear his joints click; Simon the graceful burdened with twitches. An experimental act, she'd thought, a phase, a put-on, but now buggery comes to mind. I'll gut and deball the old bastard if he's touched you.
The bruised-eyed child shakes his head, but he means nothing, nothing happened.
NOTHING, he writes, BINN OK.
Nothing, he emphasizes, shaking her hand once, ready to touch as ever but flinching before the cold anger in her eyes.
So I'd better believe you rather than make a fuss. But where'd you get that bruise Sim? And why're you looking so strained? I think I'd better do some asking round. About all sorts of things…
"Good." She says it lightly, and grins down at him. "That stink isn't the only thing sour about that old man. He could do you considerable damage… sunchild, do me a favour?"
Simon, weak at the knees with relief that the flickery swords of flame have been sheathed, and that Kerewin is still Kerewin and not wild at all with him, would do anything in the world for her. His smile is full of promises.