Highly startled, she drops him. She has never heard him scream before.
"He screamed, my God could he scream. He's a fluent screamer-"
It's a fierce high agonising to the ears sound. The child goes on screaming. He starts to fight the cubicle walls, the floor, the water, in a blind panic to get anywhere out. She watches, pulled back clear of his flailing arms.
He's not seeing where he is. He's terrified.
Then, understanding part of his terror, she reaches in and turns the spray off.
The boy crouches in the inch of water, shuddering and retching and sobbing. He is sickly white, and he hasn't opened his eyes yet.
"Simon."
It stills him a little. More shivering and gasping, but the screaming panic is done. So she repeats his name again and again, kneeling down by the shower stall.
Conversationally she says,
"Did you think that was the sea or something? The same water where you almost drowned? I'm sorry, it was a foolish thing for me to do… I didn't think deeply, you see. I just said to myself, the urchin's riddled out of his mind. So many sheets in the wind there's none left to steer the ship with. So get him sober fast. And how to do that? O easy… like in the song, you know it?"
Singing softly,
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
ear-lie in the morning?
Put him the scuppers with a hosepipe on him-"
"Only, there's just a shower here. No scuppers, no hosepipe… but it wasn't the wisest thing in the world to do, I admit that now."
He is nearly quiet, only the occasional whimper, though his breathing rushes yet.
She sighs,
"Actually it was a bloody stupid thing to do, eh?"
Godgodgodgodgod, thinks Simon.
It is a beat in his head in time with the drips. With the steady
splat of water running on to the cold steel floor under his hands.
In time with the aching pulses in his thighs and back and
chest and legs.
But listen: snap. Cigarillo case. It is Kerewin.
Scrape of match, and a flare of flame.
The water is nearly all out of his ears.
There's a rattle as she puts the matchbox away.
"So hokay? You know where you are now? Third floor the Tower, all over the shower… or are you still a bit under the weather?"
He puts out his hand, groping blindly, and Kerewin takes it, holds it gently.
"Sorry about that, Haimona. I sure as hell didn't mean to frighten you… wake you up in a rough fashion, yes. I was nasty, I meant to do that. But not to scare you, really."
He shakes her hand, goes to shift upright, and his other hand slips under him and he skids forward on the shining steel floor nearly chinning himself before Kerewin's grip pulls him up short.
"Sweet hell, boy, easy."
She leans in and lifts him to his feet, steadying him out the door.
Rat-tail hair and soaked clothes, a sodden sorry sight.
"Struth fella, talk about a joygerm… but I don't suppose you feel like smiling."
She has conned that the tears are still running off his face mixed with water. He can feel it, the way she's looking.
"I think you'd better have a proper shower," says Kerewin gentle voice "Then you'd better go to bed for a while… I forgot about that bloody flu you're smote with. Help us undone with your clothes, e Sim."
It is because I am tired, he weeps helplessly. I can't stop. I can't say. I can't.
We've had it, he thinks. It's finished and it's all my fault.
He is shaking again.
He can't remember when he last felt this sick.
He makes no protest, gives no resistance. He even helps undo buttons and slide off clothes.
And Kerewin didn't say a word.
Except when he was naked, she took one of his hands, and turned him round carefully, supporting him so as not to make his head spin more, and then she tipped his face up towards her, and stared into his drowned eyes, as though she were seeking a meaning to it there.
"Why didn't you say anything?" There was pain in her voice, "Why did you keep quiet?" but he shook his head.
And that was all she said.
Day into Nightmare.
What the hell do I do now?
O I know what I'm supposed to do. Ring up Child Welfare and report the bloody mess he's in.
"Excuse me, I know a small child who's getting bashed… it looks like he's been thrashed with a whip (but I hope to God not)."
I can just hear it.
"You've known him how many weeks and you never suspected
he was getting so badly treated?"
"Uh, well, he's very good at hiding his pain."
I can just hear it.
She is furious with herself, not only because she must have hurt
him.
Joe, you good kind patient sweetnatured gentlefingered everloving BASTARD.
But I knew all along, herr Gott. Something always felt wrong.
No, I didn't. I had suspicions when he was here with his face battered.
But he never said it was Joe, and Joe didn't admit it was him. I've seen him slapped.
Hell, everyone slaps kids.
I really didn't know. I really didn't. Just the nagging feeling that something was wrong between them, right from the first. Christ, no wonder he always sleeps in that twisted fashion.
Joe.
(No more chess.)
(No more gay and grogging nights.)
(No more joking ritual of meals.)
(No more sweet and drifting conversation.)
(No more heart-sharing.)
(The end of the dream of friend.)
Joe Bitterheart Gillayley, what on earth possessed you to beat up Simon?
I mean, Simon.
That's Haimona, cherished and cuddled and kissed.
That's Haimona, quickwitted laughing eyed and bright all ways.
That's Haimona, all three feet nothing and too few pounds of him.
So okay, he can be a fair little shit at times, but you know why he is.
God in hell, even I know why he is. It's the sick twisted secrecy of it.
I'll bet he threatened the child with murder if he revealed his wounding. And the urchin flinched the first morning I knew him.
(And where did you learn that luverly block? Conditioned reflex, ma'am.)
And by the look of the scars on him, it's all been going on for a long long time. Man, I wouldn't bash a dog in the fashion you've hurt your son.
I'd shoot it, if the beast was incorrigible or a killer, but never lacerate it like that.
Aue, Joe.
From the nape of his neck to his thighs, and all over the calves of his legs, he is cut and wealed. There are places on his shoulder blades where the… whatever you used, you shit… has bitten through to the underlying bone. There are sort of blood blisters that reach round his ribs on to his chest.
And an area nearly the size of my hand, that's a large part of the child's back damn it, that's infected. It's raw and swollen and leaking infected lymph.
That was the first sign I had that something was wrong. Despite his soaked clothes, his T-shirt stuck to his skin.
He didn't make a sound. All his crying was over.
And he wouldn't meet my eyes.
Somehow Joe, e hoa, dear friend, you've managed to make him ashamed of what you We done.
Neat job.
She wiped up the puddles from the matting — the tatami is tightly woven and more or less waterproof — and scrubbed away the stain the creme de cacao had made.
She gathered the shards of bottle, and tapped her nail against the cracked window.
She went and rang a Christchurch number and ordered a new pane of glass. They yelped with surprised joy, Yes Miz Holmes, consider your pane on the way-
… Pane? A massive bowl-like curve, specially made, specially transported, and specially installed. Costly, rather. But the crack was unsightly, a blow to the eyes, although the pane would still keep out wind and rain.