"I've worked as rousie, never shearer, but I've seen them carry on."
"Well, he's a handful like that, only worse. So thank you very much from both of us for making this time easy and good. Maybe he'll be okay from now on?"
"Maybe. Let's hope so."
She left soon after.
The night is still young, but she can't be bothered relighting the fire.
Shall I drink this depression off? Nah, I'll try sleeping it out, first.
She doesn't bother with a lamp, plodding up the spiral in the gloomy dark.
She does light the great candle that stands by her bed.
Three foot high, inches wide, intended to provide the easterlight in a church. It is rooted in a massive pottery base she made three years ago: the base is decorated with spirals that wind and flow together, like eddies of smoke, eddies of water.
Spirals make more sense than crosses, joys more than sorrows-
She sits down on the bed edge, watching the flickering candle flame.
A writhing fire, dancing on this candle… twisting to an inward wind, then spiring up orange and smoking…
There are moths in the room. Willowisp silver of their wings, out in the shadow bounds, a shimmering irregular beat, sought seen caught out of the corner of the eye-
I wonder if Sim sees auras like that? A twist of wayward light, or thick clouding smoke. Lights, he said, but… I wonder if he's dreaming now? Joe says he does, hence the trichloral and put him to bed soon after we finished trimming his hair… though it wouldn't have needed dope to make him sleep. He was exhausted… and what is there about cutting hair that should bring home his nightmares to him? And damn it, soul… Joe and his care and love of the brat — and then the casual admission that the only way he can control Sim is to whack him into submission. What about korero, Joe? What about our tribe's famous talk-it-out with all concerned? It worked tonight. Give the urchin reasons, and time to think things out, and he responds, even more than you'd expect. You can bring him round with a little talk, a bit of humour and sympathy, round to wherever you want. E man, you can't be so short on understanding, even given your past, that the only way you can handle Simon P is to knock him about. And if he's such a burden, you've said yourself that the Tainuis would take him tomorrow. So, given that you love him, why not take that extra time and trouble with him? Instead of yelling like tonight… and I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't come along just then? To hell, Holmes, what's the point of thinking about this? You know damn well you'll never say it to Gillayley.
The candle flame has "steadied now, and the moths are darting closer.
If I'm going to sit here, I might as well drink and forget about bloody Gillayleys….
Down to the cellar, using a torch to explore the labels of the bottles.
Frontignac, pinotage, port and muscatel;
hock, riesling, sauterne, and liebfraumilch;
mead, burgundy, chianti, and dandelion wine;
Cider? Perry? Arrack? Beer? Stout? Ale?
Holy mother, I didn't realise I had so much grog stored away-
More labels in the steady beam; rum, tequila, Scotch, bourbon, cognac, and liqueurs of all degrees… claret and sherry, madeira and sack, and ah hah! what better? Gloom-defeating champagne-
There's half a case of it left. And I thought that bottle I took from upstairs to Moerangi was the last of it… dear spirits, remind me to visit more often… take two, and hope they'll do.
Upstairs rapidly to the livingroom, where the smell of dead ashes hangs heavily everywhere.
"Ah choices, choices…" standing in front of her minor grog hoard.
"Lessee, what's a fitting cup from which to drink the health of God in bloodless wine?" She runs her fingers over the wine goblet collection.
A thin shell of pottery, lopsided, coloured brown and yellow, speckled like a thrush breast; wooden goblets with carved stems; the three pure bubbles of crystal, brittle upon the thinnest possible stalks; matt pewter; engraved silver; a clear hemisphere of aquamarine, flawed and scintillating with light on that one side; the thick, chunky cut glass that Charles, long ago prince of doomed distant Stuarts, was supposed to have owned; translucent bowls of porcelain brought back from Japan; two handsized lacquer bowls; a jade cup that held as much wine as an eggshell on a tall pedestal of fretted ivory… no two quite the same. All rare, all strange… especially the odd little pottery bowl that Simon used on his drinking spree-
She holds it in her hand a moment, reverently.
Two and a half thousand years old, dug from a gravesite Greece, my precious… what brews were drunk in thee?
But she chooses one of the crystal bubbles, and picks up a opener, a mirror, and wanders back to her bedroom.
And here I go, knocking round the bottle, holding my heart open and hoping my mind keeps closed-
Tuneless bellowing, Holmes-
She watches the candle light spurt up, from the wind of the opening door.
Do not dance, do not get excited, flame; it is only me come in-
She opens a bottle of champagne, and sets the mirror by the candle. She can see her face in it, a candlelit ovoid, with gouges for eyes, shadowmouthed.
"Hi me. I shall converse with thee. There is nobody near so fluent, so full of shining wit. You know the right things to say, to titillate me, to appall. I shall assure thee, give me praise, comfort… no end of good it'll do, talking to a mirrored me."
Her voice raps into silence.
She shudders.
I think I'm going off my head.
They say if you can think it, you can't be it.
The candle rears up and smoke clouds the mirror.
For no reason, she hears Joe talking in the bach at Moerangi: "It was a good idea. I could see out the window that way, and who came in the door."
O yes. Mirror of course. From his flat-on-the-back phase of childhood. And he also said — how did those two bits go?
"I used to get afraid that I'd look up into the mirror and see nothing there."
And,
"I had this nightmare eh. One day, I'd look into the mirror and somebody else would be looking back out of my face "
Nasty.
She leans carefully over, and swivels the mirror round so she can't see in it.
It was a nice idea, to practise the old discipline of mirror and candle again, to use image and living light as pointers to the self beyond self.
But not in this state, gentle soul. It's a bad stage when you get talking to mirrors, and right at the moment, I think you're unstable enough to see other people looking outa your eyes.
She rests back against the headboard of the bed, and begins drinking steadily.
The cold white eye of the moon looks in. A bottle down, and a bottle to go-
Over the lip of wax
a river spills,
flame reddens flickers
flares, stills,
and the river congeals-
The black wick slopes over, leaning out of the flame.
The world is night, quiet night.
She wets the rim of the bubbleglass, and strokes round and round slowly. The crystal begins to sing.
"Getta guitar?"
She squints at the wine.
In the uneasy light, she can just see her reflection.
"Was it thee or me who spake?"
Silence.
"Musta been me."
She sets the goblet down by the backwards mirror with great care, and fumbles her way downstairs.
"Stuhupid barstard, shoulda brought the light."
The toadstools by the seventh step glow palely green. She reaches into the niche and pinches one off, and splutters into a chuckle.
"Brought it!" triumphantly. But the phosphorescence fades even as she speaks. "Ah sheeit," throwing it down on the stone, "hope I squash you."