She sat down with a cup of coffee at the ready, and made a fire for company.
Simon is upstairs, sleeping I hope.
(Washed and dried with extreme care: ointment, anointment, much good may they do him. Covered with padding and gauze, all the places where the cuts are open or bone deep A dessertspoonful of milk of magnesia to stop his retching.
"Happens when you drink that much," she lied to him cheerfully, while praying in a cold way that he hadn't been hit too hard in the stomach. The child had managed a sickly grin.
And a cup of warm milk to help remove the taste of the spoonfuls of painkiller and sleeping potion he had obediently swallowed.)
Dammit, I could have fed him ground glass and he'd have passively opened his mouth and sucked it in… may the painkiller work. I can't stand the way he kept on shaking, then wincing.
She sipped the coffee thoughtfully.
Joe will be at the Duke. God knows when he'll get away from there, but he'll probably turn up here soon after. Heaven keep me from kicking the bugger to death when he finally arrives. So, gentle soul, you still have a few hours to decide what to do next. And what can I do?
I can do nothing.
Make Simon keep quiet about this discovery. How?
Say nothing to Joe — at the moment, I'd have to bite my tongue
through.
Tell nobody — let it continue, let the child endure it by himself.
No way.
I could tell Joe, but not tell anyone else.
Who else to tell anyway? The fuzz? The welfare? That means the experts get to wade in, but how does the section in the Crimes Act go? Something about assault on a child, carries a sentence maximum five years, child removed from environment detrimental to physical or mental health and wellbeing… sheeit and apricocks, that's no answer.
But just telling Joe wouldn't do any good… I'd have to look out for the child, and that means getting heavy. Getting involved.
She shivered.
It always happened.
You find a home and you lose it. Find a friend, grow a friendship, and something intervenes to twist it, kill it.
So what the hell can I do?
She takes down a long narrow black-silk wrapped bundle from the niche by the guitars. Lights incense, arranges the table, and manipulates the yarrowsticks. Forty-nine stalks worn to the smoothness and oily shine of muchfingered bone, and somehow they assist a contact with an ancient, compassionate wisdom.
The hexagram given is Kuai, Advancing Again. 'One who is determined to proceed must first demonstrate the offender's guilt in the high court,' it says. 'At the same time, one must be aware of the peril such action will place a person in. As well, one's followers must be made to understand how reluctantly one takes up arms. If this is so proceed, and good fortune comes-'
Peril and guilt and reluctance-
And the mysterious lines of the Duke of Chou, hideously apt, but dismaying:
One walks slowly and with hardship because of flaying. If only one could act as though one were a sheep, and let the decisions be made by a companion, one could still accomplish something of the plan. But advice is not listened to, and alone one can do nothing-
The pine scent of the incense is cool, acrid, remote.
Alone, one can do nothing-
She rocks to and fro.
The amplifying hexagram, made from the moving lines, is Hsu, Biding Time.
Simon stamping along the beach and grizzling audibly. He's
tired and it's cold, and his arms ache from carrying two pieces
of driftwood. (She is carrying what feels like half a ton
deadweight of rata, and Joe is bowed under a mighty pile.)
"We'll soon be home, tama."
"Not long to go now, Haimona."
"Just a little way now, eh."
The snivelling goes on.
Suddenly Joe swings round and down. He crouches in front
of the boy, reaches out and touches him briefly on the lips.
Hush up… in Simon's language. The boy gives him a brilliant
smile. Attention, attention, he loves it.
"Okay, come on up, sweetheart," Joe lifts the child, one-armed,
sets him on his hip, and staggers on down the beach.
She gets down the golden guitar for the second time this nightmare day, but this time picks out the ragged beginnings of a tune. Then it swoops, it flies, it glides… it sounds thin, only the guitar's voice singing the overture to La Gaza Ladra. It needs an orchestra, a synthesiser to do it justice. Or even that music box.
She opens the lid to the gaudy little box, and the melody jangles
out.
"Well well, me favourite piece among others… overture to The
Thieving Magpie and where'd you get it?"
Joe grins. "It's not mine. Himi picked it for himself." He touches
the fluorescent pink lid. "Okay taste in music but eecch colour
sense eh… I was buying smokes last month and he was with
me. Started playing with Emmersen's display of these boxes while
I was talking tips. And Emmersen said suddenly, Hey look at
your kid, he's dancing, and there's Himi showing — "
"Sim dancing? That I've got to see."
"He does it a lot… play the tune, and you'll see soon enough. Anyway, he fell in love with this thing, and I like to see him happy. I said leave it alone, but gave Emmy the wink and he picked it up without Himi seeing and stuck it in with the rest of the gear."
He beams at her. "You should've seen tama's face when I unloaded it. He still plays it about twenty times a day. When he's home."
She thinks, I'll wait. I'll do nothing except watch out for the brat. Say nothing to Joe but wait for a good time to tell him my mind on the whole bloody thing. Preferably with my fists.
And I feel eyes on me.
She turns to the door.
"Hullo."
What else to say? Somehow, knowing about the Crosshatch of open weals and scars that disfigure the child has made him back into a stranger.
He's wan and unsteady and there's a look on his face as though he's just chewed bile. Very sour, very surly brat. He stands there scowling, wrapped in one of her silk shirts.
"Quick sleep?"
He hasn't reacted to her words, standing there, shaking steadily, but his eyebrows still superiorly high.
It is a surprisingly arrogant look, nose in the air, highchinned, proud-headed. The aloofness of his bearing, wobble and quiver and all — the fact that he still manages to look aloof despite the shakes
is offensive.
And what the hell have I done to deserve this coldshoulder
carryon?
You do this too often, and I can understand why Joe would
have a go at you… ah come on, Holmes! Bash him like he has been because he's indulging in some kind of kiddy snubbing? And how often does he do it? Never before to you.
But she is staring as coldly, as arrogantly back.
And then the child slumps, slithers down to a heap on the floor, a very surprised look coming over his face as though he didn't intend doing this at all.
And all Kerewin can think of, in her guilty astonishment, is to say,
"Are you okay?"
"That flu you mentioned?" says Kerewin.
"Uh huh."
"I think it's caught up with him."
"Uh huh. He okay?"
"He's better in bed than out of it, I think. I gave him a drink and some dope, and a hottie and one of my shirts for pyjamas, and sent him off to bed."
"Great."
The man's practically asleep, sprawled lithe and careless as his son can be on the sheepskin mat in front of the fire.
He greeted Kerewin fondly and drunkenly an hour ago, gave her the parcel of chicken pieces he'd won in a pub raffle, raved on about a game he'd seen played in the afternoon, sipped a coffee, and then curled up by the fire.