He spreads his arms wide at the livingroom circle, "Hai, it's good to get back here too."
"Sim at Tainuis' still?"
"Yeah, being spoilt. Everyone thinks he's looking great. And he was showing off his singing about two seconds after we got in the door. Regular party there now."
Why aren't you at it? Why bother me here?
The whisky she's been supping since putting her nightmare book away hasn't made her feel more joyful.
He says, out of the blue,
"What do you want most of all?"
"All my life or now or what?" frowning into the fire.
"Say, for the future."
"Nothing much. What I want couldn't happen."
"Just pretend it could."
"It'll be pretending all right… I'd like to have a family reunion, reconciliation. Talk, drink, laugh, sing… what you fellas were doing, with no recriminations on either side. And most of all, I'd like to paint again as I could before. I don't care if it came hard, if I could make just one painting we could all see a piece of soul in-"
She sounds cool and controlled as though uninvolved with her wishes.
"And that's all? All you want?"
"Yes. Why, what do you want?"
He is silent. He says at last,
"I don't know. It's clear, and unclear… I would mainly like for Himi and me to be happy. It was so good there this evening, with Wherahiko and everyone… that's what I really want. A good big family group, to help me, for Himi to grow up straight in. With you."
It comes out baldly.
"Hey, Joe-" Her first word is drawled, warningly slow.
"You don't have to say it. I know you don't feel that way. I know you're wary of us all. Maybe that's wise, too. You don't get hurt that way."
She doesn't say anything.
"But it's a dream we've got, Himi and I, that you'll decide to throw your lot back in with humanity again. Specifically, us… we can wait a long time. We're masters of patience, both of us, and trained to disappointments." He grins quickly at her, inviting a flippant retort.
She gets to her feet. She says in a strained voice,
"I want you to come and look at something."
"Right." He stands gracefully.
Thin etched arch of storm
and eggshell blue sky before it;
far away, goldened by a retreating sun,
grey streak and wash of rainclouds
over the brawling Tasman sea.
Lone gull, sentinel, king gull, watch gull, night black wings, head white as a snow wave and cold barbarian eye: gull the solidity, all else mist and wraithness sea spume spun to light.
A moon shining a broken road
oversea;
a lone woman naked to her waist
waits at the edge of moonlight;
a shadow person watching for meaning
somewhere.
She doesn't say a word, holding up the boards and canvases from behind her desk one at a time.
A group of lights that look living crystalled in a circle; a tree in the middle waiting.
Sunlight metalling horizon to silver; long stretch of ruffled grey. A matt white line of breakers. Behind the steel, clouds reach darkly up tops shaded by cold still light.
Abstract, but it is as real a winter sea, winter sun, he has ever seen.
She shuffles through them quickly, paintings full of strange lights and torn lands and odd people who scowl or stare or smile distantly at him.
He practically snatches the last one out of her hand.
Kerewin on a board.
Wildly curly hair, darkly brown, but the normal highlights have
turned to streaks of gold and red and grey, wheat-colour by
her temples; bushy hair so alive, he startles himself looking
for eyes or fingers among it.
Broad pale face, fleshy cheeks; the V of flesh of her forehead
heavily shadowed so it becomes a brand.
Narrowed cynical intense eyes, neither blue nor grey. Lively
stone eyes, hating life. Thin twisted upper lip, fat lower lip,
chin wedged out, ever-ready to confront the worst.
A grim face, stupid, but redeemed by the harrowing eyes.
Look up from it, and there's the same person staring back. A piece of soul enshrined in paint.
He drinks the painting in.
"These are the only things in my life that are real to me now. Not people. Joe. Not relationships. Not families. Paintings. That remind me I could."
She is sliding them back behind the desk, screamers and mysteries and the weeping loving pieces of her sea and land. She holds out her hand for the self-portrait.
"But something. Something has died. Isn't there now. I can't paint." There are tears in her voice, but none in her eyes. "I am dead inside."
He still holds the painting.
"May I have it?"
There are tears in his eyes.
"Have? Not buy?" The harsh burst of laughter sneers, hits at him.
"Whatever price you ask, I will pay."
She is suddenly very weary. It hasn't meant anything to him.
"Ah, keep it. I see better work in the mirror daily…."
"It is, it is real."
Admiration she is used to. Giving paintings away she is used to. This awe she is inured against. She doesn't reply.
He says softly.
"Whatever you ask of me, I will do. Whatever you want from me, I will give."
"Even absence?"
He draws his breath in sharply.
"If you wish it…."
She hits the desk with the side of her hand and the crack echoes round the library.
"Forget it. Have the painting with my blessing. You're welcome to the gibbering thing, a poor gift to a good friend. But stay a good friend. Don't come any closer to me, just close enough to be always welcome."
He places it down reverently. He leans over and takes her shoulders.
She stiffens, pulling away.
"You don't want to hongi with me?"
Her taut shoulders relax.
I salute the breath of life in thee, the same life that is breathed by me, warm flesh to warm flesh, oily press of nose to nose, the hardness of foreheads meeting. I salute that which gives us life.
He sighs loudly, then says, strongly, gaily,
"It's a great gift. A time when it's right to hongi, ne?"
She has pulled away again, leaning on the other side of the desk.
"I suppose so."
She shivers. Something is crawling up her spine with claws on all its thousand feet.
"Let's get back to the fire and have another drink, eh? Leave that thing here for the moment. I'll frame it and bring it round for you sometime soon, okay?"
"Okay."
He props the painting against the desk and says, as though he only just thought of it, "Are you afraid of kissing? You know, of men?"
"I don't like kissing."
"I suppose it's a matter of taste." Thoughtfully, as though she'd asked him for his opinion on osculation, instead of giving that flat conclusive answer. "I like kissing… Himi likes kissing… in fact, he thinks he can cajole and explain and talk his way out of all kinds of trouble with his kisses. Like they're part of language, eh. If he's in a good mood, everyone gets a helping."
"I've noticed."
"I wondered, did anyone ever," shrug, "you know, hurt you so you don't like kissing? Love?"
"Nope."
She picks up the lantern and the shadows spin round the booklined walls.
He doesn't move.
"I thought maybe someone had been bad to you in the past, and that was why you don't like people touching or holding you."
"Ah damn it to hell," she bangs the lamp down on the desk and the flame jumps wildly.
"I said no. I haven't been raped or jilted or abused in any fashion. There's nothing in my background to explain the way I am." She steadies her voice, taking the impatience out of it. "I'm the odd one out, the peculiarity in my family, because they're all normal and demonstrative physically. But ever since I can remember, I've disliked close contact… charged contact, emotional contact, as well as any overtly sexual contact. I veer away from it, because it always feels