As well as another scar, says the snark.
Ah shut up, Kerewin tells it. I don't want to think about that.
She struggles back along the beach, weighed down by the groper, telling herself all the way to forget it, getting more upset and angry with every step. Coward, coward, you can't stand anything else's pain, hide it away, darken it, sweep it outa sight and mind.
Why did the stupid brat have to grab the nylon anyway? I was managing it okay… just when everything is starting to flow nicely, that berloody kid turns it into a disaster area again.
She sticks the groper in the freezer in the new bach boatshed. He wants the damn thing, he can go get it for himself.
She pushes open the door belligerently, daring the boy to make any fuss, the man to make any fuss, anyone to remind her of what happened.
Joe looks up and smiles.
He lays his guitar down and stands.
"Have my seat and I'll make a tea," he offers kindly. "You've been doing all the work."
"Thanks."
She glances at the sofa. The boy's a hump at one end, covered by a blanket.
"He asleep?"
"More like deep in an alcoholic stupor, eh," he says it easily, grinning all the while.
More like pain and shock have finally got him,
seeing Simon slip into unconsciousness again, in the middle of his smile,
and bewilderment as to why you wouldn't help.
"Brandy and port?"
"It made it sweet for him. He gagged on just brandy. Don't worry, I'll get another bottle of each." His smile is becoming fixed.
Kerewin frowns and picks up the guitar. "To hell with that… if he wanted my tokay, he could have had it and welcome." She runs her fingers over the strings, still frowning to herself. "I can't understand why you didn't put your foot down and just take him to the doctor. I mean, they're used to kids being scared of them. They can cope with that sort of thing."
He drops the smile.
"He would either have fought all the way, or got hysterical. If he fought, he would have got hurt. If he started a screaming fit, well it doesn't just last for a few minutes. It takes hours for him to get over it. This way might have hurt him a bit more initially, but it was quick and he didn't mind. Believe you me Kerewin, he's not just slightly scared of medics. He is terrified of them."
"Why?"
"I don't know," and hopes she'll drop the subject. "What's he terrified of then? The surroundings? The doctors themselves?" He shrugs and doesn't answer.
Drop it, lady.
"You said a while ago that he'd been in hospital before you picked him off the beach, and the way he reacted indicated he'd had a tough time then. Did he react the same way when you first took him to a doctor?"
In her way, she is trying to help. Don't blow, Ngakau.
He breathes out deeply. "As soon as he realised Elizabeth Lachlan was a doctor, yes. He had met her before at home though — she was a good friend of Hana's — and he liked her. He still likes her, but he manages to be very scared of her at the same time. You ever watched somebody throw up because they're afraid?"
"Aside from this morning, no."
"He does that every time it's necessary for us to see Elizabeth. And as far as other medics are concerned, he baulks absolutely. There's a limit to how far you can fairly push him. I can hardly thrash him because he's frightened."
"What other medics?"
"O, Elizabeth's locum. The hospital doctors. A bloke in Hamilton, that was when we were on that holiday bus tour… he got rundown from being travel-sick, and, I suppose, all the fighting. I thought a doctor might be able to give him something better than Dramamine eh, but as soon as Haimona sees the bag, that's it. He screamed himself into hysteria and that isn't exactly fun to watch or try to handle. The poor bloody medic didn't know what he'd struck. He kept looking at me sideways as though, This his kid or has he pinched it? In the end, he shot him full of tranquilliser, and I thought the needle would break, Himi's arm was that rigid."
Kerewin stops playing, zang in the middle of a chord.
"Needles. A lot of people are pathologically scared of them."
"I don't think so." He switches the boiling jug off. "The first time we took him to Elizabeth's didn't involve injections…" he stops, screwing his face up in perturbation, "Wait a minute, it did though. I'd forgotten that… he had a hell of a chest cold, and Hana couldn't clear it up. So we see Liz and she prescribes some goop or other, and he was okay till then. She suggested she give him a tetanus
booster, because he'd had a course of that in the hospital… yeah, that's right." He snaps his fingers. "All of a sudden things happened. Sim went wild but not till then. Not till he clicked to what she was preparing and who was going to get it. Maybe that is why all the ruction." Then he shrugs, and begins making tea.
"Well?"
"Well, what does it matter? He's still going to perform if he has to visit a strange doctor."
"Not if he knows what scares him. If you know why you're scared, your fear diminishes."
"O yeah? And that's the crunch, Kerewin. Why is he scared of needles?"
"He might have a genuine phobia. That can be dealt with. There might be some other reason. We could try and find out and help."
Joe grimaces.
"I take it you haven't tried yet, asking him questions about his past."
"Nope." A quick riff.
"You get nowhere fast. I think he tries to give you answers, but he doesn't want to remember anything. I don't think he can remember much anyway, and it all seems to have been bad. If you keep on questioning him, he'll weep or get sick or, as he did with Hana one time, have a go at you." He shakes his head. "Maybe it was the only way he could think of then to stop her asking questions but it upset her… Himi too. Anyway, if you persist, he'll have nightmares the next time he sleeps, regardless of how much I dope him."
"O," says Kerewin, staring at the sleeping child. "In that case, there goes my next line of investigation." She starts picking a tune, watching her fingers now. "Because of that luverly reaction to my bastard French this morning — you did notice?"
He nods, his eyes cold.
"I was also going to casually sing the odd song, like this," a simple melody, "Sur Le Pont D'Avignon, and see if he reacted at all. I was also going to polish up my school-learnt French and very casually drop the odd sentence into ordinary conversation. Just to see what happens." She stops playing abruptly. "Or did you or Hana speak French to him?"
"We did not. I don't know French. Hana couldn't speak French." His voice is clipped. For the first time, his anger is showing through.
She laughs quietly.
"E Joe, my friend, do you think I hate the poor silly little bastard?"
He doesn't mean to, but it bursts out,
"I don't know, but you weren't much bloody help a while ago, and he needed you then. He kept asking… o to hell with it."
"Kept asking why I didn't come and play surgical assistant? Because I wouldn't have been any help at all, not even holding him, or offering words of comfort from a distance. I would have been too busy being as sick as he was in the boat, only continually so."
All the taunt and humour has gone from her voice. "I have an achilles heel, Joe, strange in a fighter. I can't stand watching anything get hurt, helpfully or no. I even kill fish as soon as they're caught… I couldn't have done anything to help you or Sim, even if I had grogged up large on that revolting port and brandy concoction. I'm sorry it's upset you, and I'll say I'm sorry, and say why, to Simon soon as he wakes. But no way was I going to have any part of your operation."
The guitar begins to sing again in counterpoint to her words.
"Back to what I began to say… I wouldn't put Sim on any kind of verbal rack. If he pukes merrily at one mangled phrase, do you think I'd attempt backhanded questioning like 'Quelle appellez-vous in the dark old days ma petite chou'?" Somehow the first bars of the Marseillais have sneaked into her playing. "I like ould Ireland, and I'll take care not to hurt him with words… it'll all be done with extreme and subtle care. The fish is in the freezer next door," an arpeggio of harmonics, "I took some photos of it more or less entire," a series of brisk minor chords, "though I don't suppose he wants to be reminded of it, eh," zing as she brings one high note skating down a dozen frets, "e hoa?"