He talks of his two years of religious dedication. "I even started training as a seminarian. It lasted till I met Hana at an interchurch hui. She was Ratana, and I was Catholic, but we were very diplomatic about religion. We agreed to each go our own way, and let the kids decide for themselves… kids, aue."
He is silent for quite a time then, sipping his whisky as though it burns his tongue.
He says, finally, that he dropped out of teachers' college before he got his diploma — "Hana wanted me to get through, but I wanted to get her a house, and I couldn't as a student," — and he dropped religious observance when his wife died. "I tasted both vocations enough to know they weren't for me." He laughs bitterly. "I'm a
typical hori after all, made to work on the chain, or be a factory hand, not try for high places."
"High places in whose world? And high is as you decide it… I've known roadies who knew theirs was a high place in the scheme of things, and I've met a cabinet minister who realised he was bottom of the dung heap."
She doesn't explain where she knew any of them. She tells very little about herself, while seeming to say a lot. After several more whiskies, she steers the conversation adroitly back to Joe's family, specifically the Tainuis.
"I know you're close to them, e hoa, but I've never quite worked; out who they are.";
"Wherahiko is my mother's brother." His voice is becoming slurred. "I like him and Marama helluva lot. Not so keen on their sons though, specially that poisonous bastard Luce. Dunno how Marama could've spawned him eh. He might be adopted or something, I never heard. I never asked. But he doesn't take after either of the old people, and he's not like his brothers either. No," he rubs his forehead, "no, he's not adopted, he's just a shit. He was born bad. I keep on thinking things, you know."
I'll bet you do. Like how is Sim going to turn out. Anything like Luce?"
"Ahh man, don't worry… he's a different kettle of fish altogether-Joe is saying,
"Ben's eldest, he's okay. But he's got problems. The farm needs all his time and more money than any of them have got, and he's worried by the old man's heart flutter. Marama's had a stroke too, but she got over it… Piri works for Ben now, used to be his own man though. He thinks he runs my life as well as his own, but he's a neat fella to have round most of the time… except when he's been drinking. He drinks a bit much these days, and I'm saying it eh? But he doesn't want the separation, and he realises he shouldn't have taken Timote… it was mainly to pip Lynn anyhow… Marama looks after the kid most of the time. Simon too, a lot more before than now."
She says cautiously, "Simon doesn't seem to like Piri."
Joe laughs and hiccoughs in the middle of it. "Sheesh… ah, I don't really know why that is. I know one reason, and that's funny, it truly is. Piri had a fight with me one night because I gave Himi a whacking round there, and Himi got wild as hell when Piri hit me with a bottle. He didn't forgive him that for a long time. Poor Piri couldn't understand it… as for now," he shrugs, "maybe Piri knows something about him he doesn't want Piri to know or something… they all know about him, they been in on the act for the last two years…" he stands up wearily. "O, I'm getting old and tired… or is it the whisky?"
"Whisky, and Sim waking you last night eh? You off to bed?"
"Yeah "
"I'll stay up a while and watch the fire die."
She stays up rearranging the picture she had built in her mind of what Joe is, until it is daylight. When the whisky's finished, and the coal-scuttle is empty of everything including dust, she creeps away to bed.
Very disturbing.
You just get someone neatly arranged in a slot that appears to fit them, and they wriggle on their pins and spoil it all.
Like Simon the sane and smiling of spirit becoming the screamer.
And Joe, holy mother of us all, you thought him to be a self-pitying childbashing ogre, with yeah, a few good points-
What would it feel like, to want — to be priest, to want to be teacher, to want to be husband and father of a family, and be thwarted in them all? How would it feel to have that macabre kind of childhood, blighted by insanity, beset with illness? And those veiled hints he dropped of violence done to him… no wonder he's sparse on knowledge of how to deal with children.
She can imagine what it must be like to come home to a cold house, still filled with memories of dead wife and dead child, after a day of hard hated monotonous work.
She can imagine what it must feel like to be faced again and again with the knowledge that he's failing in bringing up a chance-given child, an odd, difficult and distressing child, like he feels he's failed with everything else in his bitter past.
And he still tries, and he still cares.
Mind you, says the snark, you have only his word for his history.
To hell, she thinks, you'd have to be a dramatic genius to put on that pain and Joe is a bad actor at the best of times… she'd prefer he hadn't started talking, but it's too late now. Thank God for whisky and the sea… the sea sweeps in and out of the tide of coming sleep.
What is your breakfast?
Whisky, says Kerewin sleepily.
And your dinner?
Whisky.
And for tea?
Drambuie she says, licking her lips.
And your constant companion? (Whisky, doubtless.)
The shush of my heart in my left ear.
The sea hath all my right —
Tide Out
"You going out in your bare feet?"
The boy nods.
"Well don't expect any sympathy when you come back with a cold," says Joe grimly.
She looks up from the morning paper.
"Don't worry. Kids don't have the same sort of nerves as we do. I think they grow more feeling as they grow older."
Simon blows a raspberry at her.
"Nerves are one thing and cold germs quite another."
Kerewin shrugs. She looks at Sim and shrugs again. He shrugs happily back at her and vanishes out the door.
"And do you know something else?" growls Joe.
"King lists for the Egyptian dynasties, how to construct an octopus lure, when-"
"No, damn it. People with your kind of kidneys and constitutions shouldn't be allowed."
He wraps another blanket round himself, honks, sips more lemon drink, and goes on angrily incubating his cold.
She giggles gracelessly.
"How could I know you'd develop a cold last night? Anyway, I'll buy you another bottle of whisky to dilute that lemon ick as soon as I finish the paper. Promise."
She goes on reading, whistling to herself, not quite under her breath.
He sighs. No sign of a hangover after drinking the better part of a quart of whisky.
Healthy, thriving, glowing indeed, in this damnable cold. And Haimona, rushing barefoot out into what's practically snow. When the good Lord made me a Maori and sent me to the cold island, why didn't he ensure I was fat? A neat happy stereotype? Or at least, germ-resistant?
He shivers and coughs hoarsely.
Speaking of the good Lord, keep an eye on my giddy child please, I can't. I'm going back to bed.
Aloud. "I'm going t'bed."
"Okay."
She turns a page, keeps on whistling.
What do I have to do to get sympathy from her. Die?
He goes disconsolately back to the old bach.
Simon walks along the high tide line. The sand is soft, sand rather than gravel. He hasn't been along this beach before. For that matter, he hasn't been beachwalking by himself before. The other days, Joe, or Kerewin, or both of them, have come too. There's nothing to worry about, walking by the sea, says Kerewin. "One of these times I'll tell you about ponaturi and krakens and other toothy and interesting greebles, but in the meantime, wander in happy ignorance. You may find a seal or two, sunbathing. That's all."