As he lifts the instrument down, she hears him grunt with pain.
He brings the guitar back and lays it by her: his face is rigid.
"Fretting you?" she brushes the air by her belly in a gesture the child could have made.
"Sometimes it twinges."
He pours himself a strong whisky and swallows it like medicine; pours another, and groaning, settles his length by the other side of the fire.
"Kia ora," lifting the glass briefly to her.
"Kia ora." She rearranges herself, back supported by the side of the fireplace, guitar cradled in one arm, bottle conveniently close. She sips whisky slowly. No more throwing down drams, she thinks. It's time for quiet considered drinking.
He says,
"If I could start from the beginning — not my beginning, but from the time we became just me and him, when Hana and Timote died — you know what I'd do? I'd stop work. Stay home most of the time. I was thinking yesterday, what a waste it all was… I'd worked hard, pakeha fashion, for nearly six solid years, making money to make a home. And the one thing I never made was a home… now it's sold, finished, and all I'm left with is a few thousand dollars. Maybe nothing else at all. Do you think they'll let me keep him?"
The question comes jolting out, bare as a bone, sharp as a razor.
"No," She says it very softly. Then more firmly, "No, they won't.
dear heart, if there's one thing certain, it's that they'll remove from your custody tomorrow. I hate to say this, but if he was natural son, they'd be reluctant to make him a ward of the or whatever, even now. If he was properly adopted, it'd be the same as if you'd sired him. But you said things were never finalised-'
He's nodding, the silver tears sliding down his cheeks.
"So in view of the evidence of all the past, um, past abuse on his body, they'll be making very sure you don't get another chance to dole out more of the same."
She takes another sip of whisky.
"Look at it through their eyes: you no longer have a wife, and you've hurt him badly, in the past as well as this time. As far as they're concerned, he's not looked after properly, he plays truant, and he's a vandal… they'll think people who don't know him will make a better job of bringing him up. They think."
Her voice is as level and uninflected as though she's discussing shell nomenclature or how to make mead.
"The pity of it all is that they're wrong… I've been fascinated by you two these past few months. You've got, you had genuine love between you. You've given him a solid base of love to grow from, for all the hardship you've put him through. You've been mother and father and home to him. And probably tomorrow they'll read you a smug little homily, castigating you for ill-treatment and neglect. And they'll congratulate themselves quite publicly for rescuing the poor urchin from this callous ogre, this nightmare of a parent… you got your lawyer clued up on on all the background? The real background, the one that counts? Being both parents to him, helping him over his bad dreams, picking him up from all round the countryside, going along to school to find out what the matter is this time… it all shows you cared deeply. In a negative way, so does the fact that you beat him. At least, you worried enough about what you considered was his wrongdoing to try and correct it."
Joe says dully, "I told him a bit."
"Tell him all of it, if there's still time… and if he's good, it may just swing things far enough for the court to appreciate the pressures on you both."
She's been using her voice deliberately, pitching timbre and tone to comfort him. Not giving false hope, or weeping with him. Not praising him or denigrating him or the boy. Trying to inject a little objectivity, a little distance, to make the matter a little less hurtful.
"Jesus, I feel so bad about it all." The tears are rolling down unheeded. "I feel so bad."
"I feel as bad. As guilty. As criminal."
"But you didn't do anything-"
The tapu on 'if only' is hereby lifted, soul-
"No? Two things, Joe. Sim came here and kicked in my guitar as you know, but I provoked that. I kept interrogating him, no other word for it, as to where he'd put my damn bloody knife. When I think back — and I've been avoiding doing that — but now it comes to mind that he was very upset over something and I never bothered to find out what it was. Just harped on about the knife."
"School," says Joe, staring into his shot glass. "He was in deep trouble there. He had a note on him from Bill Drew saying they were thinking about expelling him."
"It was something, certainly… anyway, when he finally broke under my barrage of questions, he went to hit me. He did, actually, and it was so unexpected it hurt for a moment. Did I remember what you said, that he'll eventually fight when he wants you to understand? Did I, hell. I punched him so hard he was down on the floor a minute catching his breath again. It was only after that, he kicked my guitar. You finished it, but I started it… if I had shown more understanding, he wouldn't have tried to start a fight with me. He wouldn't have gone away and vented his anger on the windows. He wouldn't have been picked up by the cops. He would have been home with you… point two, I started the next stage too. I flayed him with words, and I've got a vicious tongue… you know what particularly sticks in my craw?"
He shakes his head numbly.
"I said, I hope your father knocks you sillier than you are now, you stupid little bastard. I said many such pleasantries, all intended to hurt… damn it Joe, I'm just as culpable as you are. More so, in that I could have stopped it happening and I jumped in to inflame the whole thing. If I'd said, No, don't hit him, or No, wait till I get round there and we'll talk it out. If I'd said… to hell, I didn't, and there's nothing I can do about it now."
She gulps down the remainder of her drink, and refills the glass.
"I did plenty, e hoa, and I'm not likely to forget any of it. Not least, that when I hung the mike up after talking to you, I knew Simon was in for one hell of a hiding, and I was glad."
She holds the bottle out to him. "The bad part for me is that you're paying and I'm not. You'll have a definite penance, and I'll have only the miasma of memory to endure. Which is plenty in one way, and nothing in another. Drink up."
Her voice is still cool and detached.
She is making it easy on me, trying to share the blame… but it makes sense. She did have the chance to stop me thrashing him.
And he recalls the wordless choking of pain the child had made, holding the phone in his ineffectual grip while Kerewin hit him with words.
Aue, that must have hurt him to hear things like that-
He doesn't feel as leprous with guilt, as isolated and criminal any more. He wipes away his tears with the heel of his palm, and takes the whisky bottle. Clink clink, and another golden measure poured. He selects himself a smoke, one of the clove-impregnated Indonesian ones, and lights it on an ember. It crackles and sparks as he inhales.
"Ah, e hoa, you didn't do much bad… I did so much more."
"The intent is sin as much as the action, and believe you me, if I could have hurt Sim without killing him that afternoon, I would have hurt him… hell, I was wild." Her fingers are plucking the guitar strings lute fashion. "So stupidly wild… I could buy a thousand guitars like that… it was just that it was special. The second guitar I ever owned — I literally played the first to death — and given to me by my mother. I used it as comforter and cocelebrant and resonance chamber for my thoughts for over twenty years-"
She settles the black guitar-body close to her, and begins to play.
It's a slow haunting tune; melancholy, yet it embraces the listener, drawing one onward rather than down.
He remembers it in the months to come, playing it so often in his mind that when he next picks up a guitar, his fingers settle into the melody without him meaning them to.