Neville the Less

by Robert Nicholls

  * * *

  One boy, I cry for a little bit. He is Neville, who is Afsoon’s special friend and, I think, mine. I cry because he reminds me of a boy in another time - a boy I cannot speak of. But Neville reminds me. Perhaps because he is small and gentle and full of imaginings.

  Neville the Less, he says. “I am Neville the Less.” I say, “Why are you ‘less’, Neville?” And he says, “Because I am not as much as The Quiet Man.”

  This Quiet Man is Neville’s father, the soldier, who fought in our country and became a hero; but a hero like my Mohammed - one whose mind has become locked against the world. The child tries not to see how the father is diminished. What the father tries not to see . . . is a thing that cannot be named. Because to name it would be to give it life in the world.

  So I say it is good that people in this young country have chosen to help the people in my ancient one. Just as it is good for a child to want to help its father. But all things old are marked by dark friendships that lie in wait for the young. And where war has been . . . there the friendships are cruel and deceiving. From war nothing, no one, emerges cleaner or better.

  I pray that in this country there will be no such terrible learnings for the children - for Afsoon. Or for Neville, who lives behind no fence, but only a patch of banana palms. Or for any of the other children either - Cookie and Robert from next door, and the one called Beau, from further away. They all meet and play their innocent children’s games. Neville and Afsoon, I can see, are special friends - maybe because both go home at end of play to fathers who are broken. But still, so far, there is innocence.

  Afsoon tells me yesterday of a journey on a great sea, in a derelict boat and, at first, I am terrified! I think, how can she remember that time? She was hardly more than a baby! And if she remembers that . . . what else?

  “What did you see when you sailed?” I ask.

  “A man in a dungeon,” she says: “alone with scorpions.”

  “And so?” I say. “Nothing more?”

  “No mama,” she says. “Nothing more.”

  And then she speaks of Neville the Less and the small dog also in the boat, and of magic, and she shows a piece of iron that she says was once another thing. And so I breathe a little easier. Imagination, I think. Pretend! With large coincidence!

  “So where is your friend?” I ask then. “For two days, we don’t see him! Has he become so much ‘less’ that he has become invisible?”

  “He was wounded,” she says. “On our journey.”

  “Ahh!” I say, and a piece of puzzle drops into place.

  Yesterday she has used her bit of iron to scratch a hole in the yard. A large hole, and she works hard and goes deep and when she is satisfied, she lies down in the hole.

  “Is it a cave?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “It is a grave. I want to see what death will be like.”

  So I take her hands and pull her out and say, “No, my lamb. Death will not be like that - like in a hole, looking up at clouds. It will be like being on clouds. And it will not be until you are a wrinkled crone, old as a mountain, with children and grandchildren and waterfalls of love in your heart.”

  And together we fill in the hole. And today, Neville is back. And Cookie and Robert too and all four, they whisper plans. Perhaps another adventure on their imaginary sea. Or, more likely, a search for the little dog, Ava, which has wandered away.

  “Did you think of putting up some signs?” I ask as I pass them by.

  “No, mama,” says Afsoon. “But it’s a fine idea.”

  Neville

  Most of the flock swirled in a slowly revolving column high over the showground, the better part of a kilometre away. But a pair had broken free and drifted northward, coming in low over the neighbourhood. Lunch time and they were looking for dead things, of which (with the help of Beau the Bum) even the residential yards provided a small but useful supply. As they passed, Cookie called out to them, whistling and chirping and gliding earnestly across the grass on outstretched arms. One, with a rare curiosity about the living, paused in its hunt, coming back to look down on him.

  “Nuh,” Cookie soon said to his three companions. “He hasn’t seen Ava. Could be dead under a bush though, he said. He’ll come back if he spots her, he said. Can’t hide anythin’ dead from a hungry kite.”

  Cookie was the only one comforted by that communication.

  “She’s not dead under a bush!” ‘Soon snapped, provoking a firm shake of the head in Neville, a shrug of the shoulders in Cookie and a finger up the nose in Robert. “Someone’s kidnapped her, that’s what I say!”

  “But why?” Neville asked. “She hasn’t hurt anybody!”

  “No. But if someone has learned that she could? Then maybe . . . to protect themselves! Or maybe as a way of warning us.”

  “Warning us about what?”

  “About going on journeys and asking questions! About trying to put things right!”

  That was a hard concept for Neville - that someone would so hate the idea of putting things right that they'd risk being maimed by a Terrier-of-Death.

  “Who would it be?” he asked fearful even of imagining such a being.

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Think, Neville! Which fat man saw her fangs only two days ago? And which other angry man is his friend?” Dipping the upper end of the magic iron bar, the bottom end of which was lodged in the newly replaced dirt of her grave, she gestured toward the Folly.

  “We should go ask,” said Robert immediately. All three turned to look at him as though one of the birds had just dropped him into their midst from the sky, and Cookie snapped a knuckle against Robert's disheveled little noggin.

  “Go home, Robert! Ye bread loaf!”

  Cookie may have hoped to provoke tears, but the days when he could easily do that were gone. What he generally got these days was defiance.

  “Okay,” Robert said firmly. “But I’b tellid’ bub you were talkid to the kites!” The words, as always, finding no resonance in his blocked sinuses.

  “You do an’ you’ll be sorry!” hissed Cookie, grabbing a fistful of Robert’s shirt and, “You ca’t stop be!” Robert hissed straight back at him.

  “I’ll pound you!”

  “You do a’d I’ll tell dad! A’d he’ll powd you back!”

  “You little fink! I hate you!”

  “You ca’t say that! We’re brothers! Dow I really ab tellig!”

  A brief twisting and shoving match ensued, only to be suddenly ended by a new voice, a sneering, sinister one that seemed, at first hearing, to be coming from one of the brown pigs.

  “Tattle-tale, tattle-tale,” it hissed, “hangin’ from a bully’s tail.”

  All four children spun and gawped and who they found was Beau the Bum, with his pellet gun, leaning nonchalantly against the corner of the animal shed. “When the bully takes a pee,” he smirked, seeing he had their full attention, “you c’n have a cuppa tea.” How long he’d been there they couldn’t immediately say, but long enough, clearly, to have heard Cookie and Robert's argument.

  “You go on, Robert! You go tell yer oldies. An' ye better show ‘em yer weener while yer there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Tattle-tailers get ‘em shot off, is all.” He nudged the stock of the rifle with his toe. “Didn’t ye know that? Oh yeah! Might’s well get it out right now an' let everyone say goodbye to it!”

  Robert’s, Cookie’s and Neville’s hands all floated into pockets from which weeners could be protectively couched. It wasn’t quite enough, though, to still Robert’s tongue.

  “All I said was we should ask the Duke if he’s got Ava. You ca't shoot a weeder off for that!”

  “No?” Beau snorted. “Well you still be better off, me shooting yer weener, Nose-pick-boy, than you goin' talkin' to the Duke. Duke's a crazy man!”

  “You're a crazy bad.” whispered Robert suicidally and Cookie knuckled his noggin a second time, fearing pr
otective duties were about to be thrust upon him. Beau, however, took Robert's assessment as a compliment.

  “At's right!” he snarled fearfully. “You better b'lieve it! But I'm crazy smart, see! 'Cause let me tell ye: you go knockin’ on the Duke’s door, yer just warnin' him. You say, ‘You got our turd-tank?’ ‘N’ aside from anythin' else he's gonna do to ya, he's naturally gonna say, “Nuh.” 'Cause he’s prob'ly plannin’ on cookin’ up some dog chops on the barbie, see? ‘N’ where are ye then? Nowhere, that’s where! Except, he's onto ya.”

  The three boys gazed at him in wonder. The wisdom of a nine year old boy was truly an awesome thing. Although the common sense of a seven year old girl could sometimes be almost as impressive.

  “So what would you do, Mister crazy-smart Beau the Bum? Make telephone threats against his weener, I suppose! So he would then call the police and have you put in jail!”

  He looked at her through narrowed eyes.

  “Whatchu call me?”

  He had no idea how far beyond fear a person could be until Afsoon Rahimi stepped forward and narrowed her own eyes. “Have you ever had a witch creep into your brain at night,” she hummed menacingly, “to leave hungry nightmares?” Beau’s head bobbed back as though someone had aimed a gob of spit at it.

  “That’s right!” she continued, tilting her head at the three boys. “You can threaten them all you like. But if you threaten me, I warn you! I’ll steal all your secrets while you sleep and leave only spiders in your head.”

  He gulped. He looked to the boys to see if any were smiling. None were. He’d been threatened plenty of times before by girls, most notably by Hayley. But the worst Hayley could do was put him in a headlock, drag him down and grind her knuckles into his skull. Stealing secrets and leaving spiders was an entirely new and uncomfortable kind of possibility.

  “I don’t threaten girls,” he mumbled. “Wouldn’t be fair.”

  “No,” she said unflinchingly. “That's exactly what I'm telling you. And it wouldn't help us figure out what we can do to get Ava back either. So what would you do?”

  Beau waved his arm heavily, as though tossing a hand grenade into the air.

  “Easy!” he said. “Dress up as a policeman and say you have to search his house. Or . . . sneak over at night and light his shed on fire! And hide, and when he runs out to put it out, go in his house and look.”

  “And what if Ava is in the burning shed?”

  “Okay, a fire in the yard then. But yez’d have to use petrol or somethin’ to make it get real big real quick; to get both the Duke an’ Duchess outta the house. Or better even - I could borrow me sister’s Ute and drive around in the middle of the night and tie a rope onto the Folly an’ pull it down and leave note says, ‘Give the mutt back or your house’ll be next’. What about that?”

  “Police ‘ud cub,” muttered Robert.

  “Huh?”

  “Police. He’d call the police. Ad they’d arrest Deville ‘cause they’d theek he did it to save Ava. ‘Cause she’s his dog.”

  “No they wouldn’t, dummy! ‘Cause they’d be too busy arrestin’ the Duke for dog stealin’! He's prob'ly got a whole flock o’ dogs locked up over there. D'ja think bout that? Maybe sic’n ‘em on each other to fight? Tearin’ into each other? Rippin’ out throats an’ all? D'ja ever hear about that, Smart Arse Rupert? An’ anyhow, if we stole some big boots - maybe from Shoomba’s place, cause all that kinda junk’s jus’ lying around there - if we did that an’ left some big footprints, then who’d they arrest, eh? D’ye know that? An’ why’re we even worryin’ anyways, ‘cause the police’d take one look at Nobble an’ say, ‘Nuh! He wouldn’ have the guts to do that!’ Look at ‘im! Nobble the Nuthin’! He’s too chicken even to shoot a gun case his mummy finds out!”

  “Am not!” said Neville.

  Beau immediately broke the barrel, loading the requisite huff of air, and jammed a lead pellet into the bore.

  “Here then!” he demanded, holding it out. “Show us.”

  Neville’s hands stayed in his pockets. Clutching for comfort as well as for protection, his weeny and, fixing his eyes on Beau’s tattered sandshoes, he shook his head.

  “Don’t wanna,” he said and Beau, with a bark of knowing laughter, turned to offer it, first to Cookie and then to Robert, both of whom also shook their heads.

  “See what I mean?” Beau laughed. “What a useless crop! Wouldn’ know a fart from yer finger. ‘At’s why yer standin’ around here chuckin’ off at each other steada doin’ somethin’ real! What I reckon is, if ‘at dog’s waitin’ on youse for help, it’s totally dead meat.”

  “Give it to me.”

  It was Afsoon, standing as tall as she could, holding out a tiny hand. A look of cunning stole across Beau the Bum’s fox-like face.

  “Tell ye what,” he said; “You c'n have a shot. I’ll swap yah – one shot o' me gun for that magic iron bolt.”

  Her hand fell and, though her eyes remained locked on his, she shook her head.

  “Hah!” he laughed again and, looking up, he spied Cookie’s friendly kite drifting in over the animal shed, not twenty metres above the ground. The pellet rifle came up. Phut! Four children gasped and the fifth smiled gleefully as a feather plumped out of the kite’s breast and, for a moment, the bird's wings folded. Then they opened again and, with three hard beats, carried it away, low and out of sight.

  “When yez finally figure out that ye want some real help,” Beau the Bum declared triumphantly, “ye know where to find me.” And he turned and walked away, back toward Boogerville.

  Neville, trembling between awe and shame, wondered at the terrible forms ‘real help’ might take in Beau the Bum’s mind. He looked to the others to gauge their reactions. ‘Soon, having lifted the iron bar from the loose earth of her grave, placed its weight gently into his grasp and cast a small grimace of he what took to be understanding after Beau. Robert, still not convinced that one couldn't simply ask, wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked for guidance to Cookie who, with a sudden gasp, clutched his chest and folded up like a dropped rag.