The police said,
"There's already a complaint laid with Welfare that he's not receiving proper care and attention. That he's not under proper control."
"Who's laid that? Kerewin Holmes?"
Constable Morrison coughed. "They can't say who lays complaints and nor can we. But it wasn't your lady, Joe."
The police said,
"You'll probably get sued by the shop owners, or their insurance people. He's smashed in nearly all the fronts along Whitau Street. About thirty all told. Plate glass."
Constable Morrison said,
"You better take him to, Lachlan isn't it? Yeah, well get him along there tonight. Constable Murray taped his hands up at the station as best she could, but they're badly cut."
The constable reached down and touched him on the face, a tap, gentle. "Why'd you do it?"
Joe shook him. "Answer."
Constable Morrison took away his hand. "Well, we'll find out one way or the other, you know. Joe, go easy on him. There's more to this than meets the eye."
The talk went on.
In the end, the constables went back to the car.
The top of his arm ached intensely when Joe released him.
Joe said,
"Get inside."
He stamps back and forth, three steps one way, three steps the other.
"I thought you had gone to Kerewin's. I hoped you had, even though you were told not to. Where did you go?"
Forward.
"Being sullen won't get you anywhere. Answer me." Back.
"Answer me." Forward.
"All right, I'll have to ring Kerewin. A promise is a promise." Back.
"You know what that means." Forward.
"What did you do it for?" Back.
"Answer me." Forward.
"Answer me." Back.
"ANSWER ME!" Forward, away to the door, raging.
"Get your shirt off," as he goes.
The door slammed.
He took off his shirt. And his T-shirt underneath. And he took the glass splinter from his back jeans pocket. It came from the first window smashed: it is triangular, three inches long, and searingly sharp. Good as a knife. He has cut himself on it once already. He tucks it into the loose folds of bandage over his left palm, and keeps the hand stiff.
It is cold in the kitchen, even though the heater is hissing away.
There's a fly buzzing over by Bill's cage.
His hands feel as if they're burning. There is a welt already on the top of his arm, from the grip of Joe's fingers.
The door opens.
Joe beckons him out while he says into the phone, "You tell him that, e hoa, not me."
The phone was awkward to hold. He couldn't keep a proper grip on it. It kept sliding down so the listening end moved away from his ear. It is startlingly black against the white bandages.
Kerewin says,
"Are you listening, bloody Gillayley? Do you know what I think of you?"
Her voice is strange. It rasps; it grates; it abrades. She can't touch him physically so she is beating him with her voice. What she says drums through his head, resounding in waves as though his head were hollow, and the words bound back from one side to smash against the other.
She has finished having anything to do with him. she hates him. She loathes every particle of his being.
he know what that guitar meant to her?
he know what her knife meant to her?
he know what he had wrecked?
hopes his father knocks him sillier than he is now.
She has every sympathy for his father.
She didn't realise what a vicious little reptile he had to endure.
He choked.
Joe took the phone out of his hands almost gently.
He smiled a tight lean lipped smile.
"I think he got the message, e hoa."
The sickness in the pit of his stomach increases. He hasn't stopped feeling sick since he opened Binny's gate. The cold increases, except round his hands. They're glowing.
"No," Joe says, "I won't overdo it. And thanks very much for the offer. I've got a bit put away, but it won't cover this lot. Thank you very much for the offer but… get in there, you."
Joe kicked the door shut behind him.
The echo took a long time to die away.
His head is starting to buzz, to hum, as though somehow the flies have finally found a way in.
When Joe comes back into the kitchen, he is carrying his belt by the leather end. The buckle glints as it swings just above the floor.
His stomach convulses, knotting with fear.
He swallows violently to keep the vomit down.
Joe is surrounded by pulses and flares of dull red light.
He says in a low anguished voice,
"You have ruined me."
He says,
"You have just ruined everything, you shit."
He doesn't say anything more, except when he has turned the chair against the table.
Joe says, "Get over."
He does. He lays his arms in front of him, left hand stiff, and his head on his arms.
He sets his teeth, and waits.
The world is full of dazzlement, jewel beams, fires of crystal splendour. I am on fire.
He is aching, he is breaking apart with pain. The agony is everywhere, hands, body, legs, head. He is shaking so badly he cannot stand. The hard wood keeps griding past him. He keeps trying to stand. Joe's voice is thin and distant.
"When did you get this?"
"When did Bill Drew give you this?" "How long have you kept this?"
He is pulled up and held into the door frame. The wood gnaws his body.
He pushes forward with all his strength against the hand that pins him down. He is thudded back into all the teeth of the wood.
"When did you do this?" "When did this happen?"
Sliding the sliver out of the wrapping, his hand trembling uselessly. He fists forward. It seems a foolish feeble blow.
But I need to stop the wood coming through.
Joe screams.
The first punch hit his head.
His head slammed back into the door frame.
The punches keep coming.
Again.
Again.
And again.
The lights and fires are going out.
He weeps for them.
The blood pours from everywhere.
He can feel it spilling from his mouth, his ears, his eyes, and his nose.
The drone of flies gets louder.
The world goes away.
The night has come.
9. Candles In The Wind
IF ONLY was the tapu phrase. If only I had If only I hadn't
The trench my worried thoughts have worn towers on either side. I can see a bar of sky… there is no more room for anything but pacing, wearing down, round and round in my worry trench.
For now it's life on the straight and narrow, the harrowed way. No more casual nights, drunken by candlelight or flare of crowd. No more communion with mirrored self or the uncaring stars.
Communing means uncovering: drinking means thinking.
If I think it becomes if only, and if only is the tapu phrase.
What else can I do?
She hid all her opal rings. The seaglint disturbs her. Like they're eyes on her fingers.
Strangely, the worst thing of all — worse than the shambles she had come in on, worse than the disfigurement and non-recognition — was that they had shaved off his hair.
She remembers the shock in his eyes when he saw her cut hair.
If only I had
Shut up.
Taipa.
The second week, she started packing.
The third week, on a Wednesday morning, she turned from contemplating the bare library walls, and stopped, shocked.
The man is standing in the doorway, watching her.
His face is more dead grey than living brown.
He says softly,
"Piri told me about this. If you want me to, I can maybe help. If you don't want me to, shake your head and I will go away."