He leans in and kisses her on the mouth, but for a moment there's no reaction.
Then Kerewin frowns. She opens her eyes and stares at him.
E Kere, it's me, don't look as though I'm not here,
his mouth is open with distress, and she starts to smile.
"Hello you," she whispers. "Up and about already?"
She rubs her eyes, and yawns, turns away from him and stretches. "Ye Gods, child, it's cold… you dressed warmly?"
He presses himself close to her, and then sits across her legs.
"O thanks. How t'hell 'm I supposed to get up?" But she's still smiling, and still talking in whispers. He wriggles closer, and mouths, Coffee?
"You want one, or do I want one?"
He points, You and me.
"And guess who's supposed to get it?" She closes her eyes.
He snaps his fingers. Wake up, or I can't talk to you… he crawls up the bunk beside her and blows on her face and on her shut eyes and in her hair. Her arm snakes out and pinions him, and shifts him backwards. But she's gentle doing it, and Simon in gratitude kisses her arm.
"Ah hell," says Kerewin, mock groaning, "kid, you're impossible. Go have a mimi or something while I get dressed."
But he's comfortable where he is, thanks, getting warm again. He smiles at her, and steals more eiderdown. Sheesh, she says, and pushes him down into the covers, plonking all the rest of the bedding on top of him. She swings her legs over the side and pulls down her clothes from the top bunk.
He stares at her.
He's never seen Kerewin naked before. And she's pale, cream, except for her arms and feet, and face and neck. They're brown and freckled. She has no scars, not even the pale kind Joe has curving up his left side, no marks at all except for the strange ones across her throat, but hair grows thickly and oddly under her arms and at her crotch. Her breasts are small and pointed, and hang on her chest. He's seen breasts before — Piri's Lynn fed Timote for over a year, but hers were fat and brown. Kerewin's are that cream colour, different at the ends.
He suddenly realises, for the first time in his life, that his skin is the same pale shade, except for the scarred places.
"Berloody oath, another freezing day," she shivers, and the things round her neck, long piece of greenstone and small silver cross and the medal that is covered by a clear blueish stone, clink and jingle together.
She pulls on her silk shirt and jersey, stands up, drawing on her pants and jeans very quickly, slides back onto the bunk muttering, "Where the hell are my socks? Move over chief, I left them down the bottom there somewhere."
He waves a hand airily, I'll get them.
He shuffles up with them, moored by blankets, crawls onto Kerewin's lap and holds onto one wrist so that she can't easily chuck him off.
"Which is being awkward, you."
She slips on her socks onehanded, and looks at him. "You want a cuddle? Or you just being a pest?"
You got the idea, he smiles.
Why can't it always be like this, when they like me? Why can't it be good all mornings?
She cups her hands over the boy's shoulders.
"Better?" she asks in a whisper.
He raises his eyebrows and purses his lips.
"As read… I'll see if I can't think of something that works quickly. Get down, Sim."
She reaches up to the other bunk and gathers his sandals.
"Put 'em on," she's whispering still. "Or, as my Nana used to say, you'll get a cold in the kidneys."
She can clean out the grate, raking the live coals forward out of their dun coating of ash, and set a fire, very quickly, very quietly.
They're eating porridge twenty minutes later, and Joe still hasn't stirred.
He woke suddenly, when the boy dropped the plate he was drying, and he woke in a foul mood.
He sat up so quickly he banged his head against the bunk above, and that didn't improve his temper.
"What'd you do? Come here!"
"S'okay, Joe. He dropped a plate. Accidentally." You hear the last word?
Joe muttered something unintelligible, clasping his head in his hands.
"What's that?"
"I said, Jesus what a morning."
"Oh. In that case I won't ask you the traditional question always asked of newcomers to Moerangi."
"Unhh?"
"That's, Did you have a good sleep? The answer's invariably Yes."
"Unhh."
"You knock yourself hard then, Joe?"
"Yes," he says shortly.
Kerewin looks at Simon and rolls her eyes.
"Well, we're just going along to the other bach. Have a happy getting-up. That's if you're getting up… it's ten after ten now."
He grunts.
A place to sleep by day?
Ta hell.
Only because you couldn't get a decent sleep at night.
It's a sour day.
His mouth tastes sour.
His eyeballs feel gritty.
His joints ache, he's got cramp in one shoulder, and chilled kidneys it feels like.
Half the bedclothes are on the floor.
The air is bitterly cold, and it's blowing a gale outside.
"Inviting. Deelightful. Just the place for a holiday," he snarls to himself. "O this is gonna be a fun fun time."
He crawls awkwardly out of the bunk, bruising his thighs on the concealed board edges, and knocking his head again.
He puts on as many clothes as possible, jersey and cardigan and thick woollen shirt, his woollen jeans. Feet and hands are stiff with cold, and he squats in front of the range, trying to warm them up.
"Jesus, I need a pee."
He huddles under further layers of clothes, jacket and parka and socks and boots, and braves the wind. And rain, it turns out. The toilet's got a leak in it, situated right over the tin, which is okay for the toilet but inconvenient for anyone doing their business. Wind leaks through the door, round his ears, up the can, and by the time he's finished he knows he's never been this achingly cold in his life.
"Nah, three cards beats two pair, Sim."
Followed quickly by, "Why the hell didn't you say they were two pairs of eights? You barsstard."
Clinks as a pile of cents is trundled away, presumably to Simon's side.
"No."
"Okay, yes then."
"Ask yourself, I'm not."
"Uh uh, my fine feathered little friend, that will most emphatically take those."
Crickle crickle slip slip slip.
"Hell hell hell," followed by soft giggling from the boy.
"What're you laughing for?"
Silence.
"O, sheeit."
Then, among the card noises, four "No's" from Kerewin, each one more annoyed than the last.
This is going to be one hell of a holiday, he thinks. I've got a suspicion today is going to live up to its morning.
He avoids looking at either of them when he turns around and sits at the table engrossed in his selection. From the snatches of talk that filter to him he gathers that the poker finished early, that Simon doesn't want to do anything thank you, and that Kerewin'll be damned if she'll have him hanging round in her hair.
He grins to himself, I give this venture two days and then we'll go home, and sinks deeper into reading. He had no idea that the chambered nautilus was such a fascinating creature, or that a mind could be as gently and whimsically dirty as Leunig's.
If there was any kind of rift between the woman and the child, it hasn't lasted long. They sit on one side of the table, eating lunch and swapping small talk, leaving him stranded by himself on the other.
It isn't that they're excluding him deliberately from the conversation. He has cut himself off, and he isn't invited, by look or remark, to rejoin them.
He attempts to, once.
"My mouth tastes like it's full of sawdust."
"Meaning the food is yuk?"
"No, no," he says hastily. "I didn't take the time to wash properly this morning. The water was a bit cold eh, and I've still got this thin North Island blood."