"O ho. Fair enough. In a few minutes, I'll join you. I'll just have a shower and get changed. Trim my hair so I look less of a hard case and outlaw." His grin vanishes, and he is tired and old-looking again. "There's some news," he says gently. "Bad news."
"Sim?" her heart jars suddenly.
"No, no… Marama's had another stroke. They've taken her to Christchurch but they don't think she's going to last the night." He sighs. "Just as I was shutting the house, Piri came round and raved at me, and said I was to blame for it. Maybe I am… o dear Christ, I'll miss the old lady if she goes-"
"Aue," she says thickly. "So'll I."
One up, one down, and one to go-
He's shaking his head. "I dunno, things happen all of a heap, don't they?"
"Yeash."
"I got your telegram… thanks from my heart for it… I've been talking to Elizabeth — she came back this morning, and she thinks Himi'll make it now. Morrison says the two charges are the only ones they're preferring, and he thinks I'll get a year. I get the feeling he'd like it to be a century."
Kerewin laughs harshly.
"You wanna hear some of the things Morrison said to me, e hoa. He do not like you, my friend Joe, he do not like you at all."
"I can imagine." He stands. "Anyway… can we talk a lot tonight? Because I don't think we'll get the chance for quite a while."
She lets her head fall back so she's staring up at him. Both of him.
"I think that's a good night idea." She shakes her head and both Joes slide into one.
"I mean, a good idea for the night."
"Good," he says drily.
He puts down his briefcase. "There's some stuff in there that's yours… and a bottle or two I got in hope of talk. O, and I've left some of our gear," he hesitates, "my gear," in a low voice, "down in the hallway. If it's okay by you, I'd like to store it here."
Shurrely." She pushes herself up off the hearthrug and stands unsteadily.
"S'matter of fact, I'll put it away for you if there's nothin you don want now?"
"No, I've got all I need in a handcase." He looks across at her quizzically. "You sure you'll be all right?"
She punches out at him, very slowly. A feather punch, but even so, body memory nearly has him lurching to one side to avoid it.
"It's a dire excuse to get still more whisky from me cellar, my sweet covey." She sucks in her breath. "Wow, I drunk a little too much today," eyes closed, head loose, swaying slightly on the balls of her feet. When she opens her eyes however, she looks quite sober. "You want a different drink to help heal the woes of the world?"
"Nope. Whisky's what I brought."
"Goodoh. Have yer last Towershower for the duration, and I'll shuffle down and put away your gear, and shuffle back, and between sober sips, examine whatever it is in there." Momentarily befuddled again, "What is in there? I never left anything at your place-"
"Things Himi stole."
A string of moneycowries she'd used long ago as worrybeads.
A silver religious medal on a too-fine silver chain.
The talisman knife, Seafire.
Seven Cuban cigars, still in their cedar-veneer wrappings.
About 200 paper clips.
A small piece of machinery she had stolen for herself from the first factory she worked in: it had a fascinating and now totally useless action. Press the top button and a thin spiked disk the size of a five cent slid out, spun round, whirred to a halt, and retreated back into the housing. You could do it again and again, the disk never got tired. It never varied either.
An agate from the heap of polished stones she used to keep on her desk.
The miniature travelling chess-set.
A tiny bottle of the patchouli-scented oil she uses to perfume her hairbrushes.
Three felt pens and an oblong block of Chinese ink.
A heavy silver thumbring with a bezel of turquoise.
And a wad of the visiting cards she had used in Japan (engraved with three dolphins going deiseal round the Southern Cross, her name in Japanese and English, and the proud boast, Artist, which she had been then.)
Some of it she had known to be missing.
Except for the knife Seafire she didn't miss any of it.
O my strange little filcher, the magpie child, what in the name of hell did you want with all this? Not that it matters now, but I have a suspicion that, despite Joe's efforts, you never
had any sense of property, just that of need, and you thought everyone else was really the same way too-
She swept all the junk back into the brown paper bag, keeping aside her knife. She put the bag in an envelope, and sealed it, stamped it, and addressed it to the child, care of the public hospital. She didn't send a letter with it. She went down the stairs in a skittering hurry, while Joe was in the makeshift shower, and left the envelope out in the letterbox for the postman to collect next morning.
The gear Joe spoke of is three suitcases and a forlorn carton of books and jugs and old shoes. A small pair of sandals on top. Two guitars, one cased, lean against the suitcases. That's all.
She piles it on top of one of the large packing cases of books, stowed round the border of the cellar.
It's a large cool vaulted room, the cellar: before, she could wander round and admire all the wine and liquor, the basic preserved food she had stored away. Now it is full of cases and trunks and furniture, and there is little room to move.
They travelled lightly, the Gillayleys, not loaded down with trivia. But then, in the end we all travel very lightly indeed. Nothing to carry more substantial than memories… and maybe that's the heaviest baggage of all-
Philosophising while partially embalmed with whisky never does produce much more than a whining little tribe of cliches-
She picks up the lamp and plods sadly up to the livingroom.
Time, time, it's all running out and it could have been a season of rare vintage, this coming summer. Now it has sunk to this vinegary lees,
up a step, another step, up yet again,
my cask hollow light, the rich wine about done. Ah come on, me chortling ghoul… we'll hold a premature lyke-wake, and make merry for the bitterhearted man… God, his mother named him true, Ngakaukawa to the very marrow I'll bet he is… he's looking a bit grey tonight, I'd better check he hasn't split a stitch or a gut… shall we reveal about our gut, ghoulie? Piti (one step) piti (two step) potara (three) a… the top… nah, we go away because we have a simple ulcer, and because we are tired/depressed/rundown as all aforesaid. Because we want to build up strength again… mother of us all, the lies we tell to salve hearts. So be it, I go on my mythical painting safari for recuperation, and yeah Joe, we'll meet again next spring if you're sprung by then-
She lays out the last of her smokes, cheroots and bidis and Kreetax,
pipe tobacco and the last quarter-ounce of Coast gold grass. She ranges the two bottles of whisky and the squat little flask of Drambuie by the selection.
Should do us… and do is the right word-
She washes her face and head in cold water, and sits back down by the fire, feeling cool and high and relaxed.
She lies on her side, head propped on hand: the hardness in her gut is felt less that way. Water from her wet curls drips steadily down her supporting arm: the soles of her kaibab clad feet, turned to the fire, are already hotter than is comfortable. She moves one leg at a time slowly out of range, back again into the fiery shadow, out-
He thinks,
She has this curious heavy grace, like something out of its element making do in a thinner medium. Like she should be living in water. If only I could lie down beside her and tenderly, by firelight-
"Joe, do us a favour please?"
"Whatever you want."
"Pass us the guitar down… I seem to have grown roots here."