* * *
Dinner was finished and Neville was up to his elbows in dishwater when the idea came to him. In the living room, Mum’s voice could still be heard, bird-like and pleading, while the Quiet Man’s was gruff and stilted. Neville had been thinking of the dinner just past, when they’d all three sat at the table to eat; which was not generally, these days, something the Quiet Man chose to do and was therefore described initially, by Mum, as another ‘positive step’. Whether she still saw it that way, Neville thought, was doubtful.
For most of the meal, Mum had filled the silence with forced normality, talking about Ava’s absence and of ‘putting out feelers’ to the dog-pound and all the neighbours. She’d also talked of the comic slippage factor in Shoomba’s wig, of his offer to help with ‘chores’ around the house and (in mock confidence to the Quiet Man) of his sly and leering winks.
That thought had drawn (despite the QM’s continued blank look) a rare and genuine laugh from Mum and the comment that, “Men must have their dreams, I suppose.” Which Neville thought was an odd thing to laugh about, considering that some dreams were actually nightmares.
His own opportunity to join in came when Mum’s monologue began finally to slow and she turned to him for support.
“Why don’t you tell dad what you did today, Nev’? I’m sure he’d like to know! Wouldn’t you, love? ”
The Quiet Man had nodded, briefly and shallowly, without raising his eyes from the little blocks of potato which he was stacking into a wall across the middle of his plate.
“Um, well, I looked all around for Ava. I looked in Under to see if maybe the Things’d got her.”
“There are no ‘Things’, Nev’! I told you! It’s just night-time animals.”
“Oh! Yeah.” (So clearly she was sticking to her story in that regard!) “Anyways, I went over to Boogerville then, to look in the chokos, but she wasn’t there either. And I went to Cookie Camp but Cookie’s mum wanted to pray about stuff and I didn’t so I . . . I went to the banana palm forest.”
He wondered about, and decided against, telling of seeing everyone walking away over the hill and hearing the Ragged Man; even of breaking his promise to Mum and seeking out Afsoon.
“I saw Cookie and Robert and Beau the Bum. Beau shot a kite.”
“He shot a kite?” Mum declared. “How could he shoot a kite? The things never land! He wasn’t shooting in our yard was he?”
“Um, no.” It wasn’t technically a lie, of course, since a bird in the sky isn’t actually in anyone’s yard.
“It was flying over and he shot it in the air. A feather came out but I guess it was okay ‘cause it flew away. But then, after Beau went away, Cookie fell down. We said, ‘What’s the matter?’ and he said shooting a kite was like shooting him because he used to be one before he was born again. And I guess that’s true because there was a bleeding spot right in the middle of his stomach and Robert had to help him go home.”
Mum gasped. “My God! Shooting that gun around other people! What on earth does that boy use for sense? Well that’s it! His parents are going to cop a spray over this! I know they both have to do shifts out at the mines but they have to know - they can’t go away and leave a gun in the hands of that kid! You’re to stay right away from him, Neville! Away from him and out of their yard, understand? He’s a hazard to life and limb, that boy!”
She’d addressed her outrage directly at Neville but when she finished, both she and Neville realised the Quiet Man had abandoned his potato wall and was also staring directly at him, a look of horror on his face.
“Shot a kid?” he whispered.
Neville was amazed. For the second time in a week, the Quiet Man had spoken to him. He might soon, he thought, have to find a different name for him.
“Right in the stomach!” he nodded, glancing uncertainly as the untended potato wall collapsed slowly onto the peas.
“Wait on!” Mum demanded. “You said he shot a kite! Tell me again! Why was Cookie bleeding?”
Neville didn’t understand that connection either but the question, at last, brought them to the topic he’d wanted to broach all along - about the whole ‘born again’ thing. He’d begun wondering if maybe animals and such could just partly die and then be born again but stay a little bit of what they were before. That would explain how Cookie could still talk with the birds and feel the strike when one of them was shot. And, in his own mind, it would also explain how scary things like the Things in Under (which no amount of weak denial by Mum could get rid of!) . . . how they came about. Maybe they were mixed up parts of a lot of partly dead, partly alive animals! Like half a bandicoot, but with teeth like a bear and claws that let it climb like a possum and eyes so it could hunt like a cat. The question he asked kind of incorporated a lot of that. Before anyone could answer, though, something - maybe the sudden collapse of his potato wall - had made the Quiet Man begin to shiver uncontrollably and, actually, to cry!
That was when Mum had sent Neville scurrying off to the kitchen to deal with the dirty plates. And it was there, while up to his elbows in soapy froth and contemplating the apparent unanswerability of so many questions, that Neville the Less had looked out the window, seen the lights blink on in Shoomba Territory and given birth to his idea.
5. Alone at Sea
The Lightning Bug, as he waded out to it, was snoozing quietly on a calm sea. He sensed it waking, though, as he reached over the gunwale to place the magic cyclone bolt on its deck.
He’d not really wanted that stolen bolt but, “It’s your house that it saved in the Great Storm,” ‘Soon had insisted. “You have to have it and guard it.”
So he’d taken it. And when he’d shone his torch out the window, preparing to drop into the darkness without her there to catch him or Ava there to protect him, he’d been more than glad that she’d insisted. Without it, crawling out his window, with the red eyes of the Flying Foxes on him and the Things in Under waiting just out of sight, would’ve been impossible.
The moment his feet touched the ground he waved it about to make its presence obvious and raced through the enchanted words: La-ila-ilala-Muhammad-rasul-i-Allah. Only then did he dare to shine the torchlight into Under. The shadows of the dead forest leapt back and forth but, as he’d hoped, no Things dared to reveal themselves. Clearly, Neville the Less with magic words and a magic cyclone bolt was a figure to be dealt with much more carefully than Neville the Less on his own, who would surely have been chowed down as an instant snack.
Lightning Bug’s anchor came up so easily, it seemed virtually to have swum to the surface on its own and before it had left the water the little ship was swinging off on its self-selected way. So confident was the course, in fact, that Neville (not knowing which way to steer anyhow, there being no night geese to follow) decided to simply assume that together the Bug and the magic of the bolt had his journey safely in hand.
Had anyone been on that sea in the following hours to see the little ship’s passing, they might’ve thought her unmanned. But Neville was there, lying alone and lonely on his back on the deck. He knew that ‘Soon had forgiven him enough to have come with him if he’d asked; but he also knew that the answers he was seeking, if he got them, might not be to her liking. And if they were not? Time enough then to risk her witchy displeasure.
Happily, the solitude, the night air and the canopy of stars seemed to give Neville a sense of peace that had not been available to him for some time in the house in Home Country. The coolness, the lightness of the breeze, the sense of space - above and all around - they made him want to breathe deeply, in and in, without ever having to breathe out. He thought that if soldiers could breathe the air like this, they would stop being soldiers, never again wanting to leave even an enemy without the taste and smell of life flowing into them.
At a point, he sensed a diversion in the course, the breeze wafting from a slightly different direction. He sat up and saw the barren outcropping of Holden Rock receding in Lightning Bug’s w
ake. Good, he said out loud. And again, tapping the ship’s deck appreciatively with the magic bolt; good for you.
For a time then, he sat with his chin on the gunwale, dreaming and wondering where Ava might be, where Anosh might be and where, as he stared into the ceiling and built his potato walls, the Quiet Man’s mind might be. With no answers there, he moved on to wondering at the violence that crawled through the world. The war, wherever and whatever it was; the Things in Under; the shooting of birds, the stealing of children. The building of Follies. And then to say you were sorry and be born again. To start over. To start over. All the while the sea pulsed like a great, slow heart and the little ship aimed itself surely into the darkness and the magic bolt lay still and protective in his arms.
Until finally, unexpectedly, the Lightning Bug drifted to a stop. Neville squinted into the darkness.
“What’s happened?” he said aloud.
“I think you’ve arrived,” said a familiar voice from behind. Not loudly, not in a frightening way. Just a warm rumble, like the sound of far, far off thunder. “Or at least,” it continued, “your ship thinks you’ve arrived.”
Ragged Man
Neville turned from port to starboard and saw that it was indeed true. Not three metres of sea separated the Lightning Bug from Apollo Dungeon. And sitting mildly on the Dungeon’s edge, like a weathered seal in a dull glow of sourceless light, was the very man he’d come to see - the man who’d pointed after the night geese, not three nights before and who had told him somehow, as he lay dreaming in the banana palm forest, that there was a path. A scorpion was on the man’s shoulder, another on his sleeve and dozens more fidgeted around him on the rocks.
“Hello Neville,” said the man.
Neville nodded. “Hello, Ragged Man.”
They sat studying one another for a long moment, until the Ragged Man decided to say, “Nice boat!”
Neville nodded again. “Nice . . . island!” he said, at which the shoulder scorpion raised a pincer and appeared to whisper in the Ragged Man’s ear. The Ragged Man shook his head, picked up the scorpion, popped it into his mouth and, around his crunchy mouthful said, “I see you found your magic bolt.”
It wasn’t a question but Neville held it up to show anyhow.
“Good one,” said Ragged Man. “One o’ my favourite storms, that was!” And after a moment, “So, howja go with that Island of Nobodies thing?”
“I . . . I guess we didn’t find it. But I got a question.”
“Course ye do! Course ye do! Be disappointed if you didn’t.” He pulled a stick-like leg from his mouth and tossed it into the sea.
“Actually, it might be a few questions.”
Ragged Man turned his palms up. “Mate, I got answers I haven’t even made up yet.”
“Um, it’s the Quiet Man, mostly.”
“Uh huh?” Ragged Man nodded his head, then shook it, clucked sadly and fell silent, waiting.
“Um, well, you see. Mum says his mind’s in a jungle. And so he can’t think what to say. And mostly that’s right, but then he said ‘pyjamas’. And then at dinner he said ‘shot a kid’. And at night he hollers out and I think it’s about the Things in Under. And then he didn’t move his hand when I asked if he had a plan to escape from the jungle and come home. And then he did move his hand - his whole arm actually - to say he needed me ‘n’ Ava ‘n’ Soon to help!”
“Yeah? Wow! Strange, eh?”
“Yeah! So I’m thinking that his mind is in a jungle alright, but maybe it’s a little bit at home too. Like two places at once maybe. ‘Cause sometimes he can say stuff and sometimes he can hear me. And he’s got a plan! Even if he can’t tell me what it is! And mostly I want to help. But I don’t know how.”
“Mostly?”
“Well ‘Soon - she can channel people, see, and look in their dreams, but I wouldn’t let her look in the Quiet Man’s, only in Riff’s - she says she thinks the part of him that’s lost has prob’ly got a secret . . . something awful - maybe about the war. And the part of him that’s not lost is too ashamed to want to remember or tell. So he’s okay with it being lost.”
“Oy! She’s a smart one, eh!”
“Yeah, so she says the way to help is to find out what the secret is. Then there’d be no reason for his mind to stay lost and that’d be how we can help him come back together and talk again!”
“Mmm. So you’re sayin’, if there’s a mortifyin’ memory out there, you want him to get hold of it and tell you what it is?”
“Um, I don’t know. I want him to come home and be like he was again. But I don’t want him to have to tell something awful and be ashamed!”
“Ah, I gotcha. So whaddya gonna do?”
“I dunno! Ask you, I guess!”
“Me? Why me?”
“Well, ‘cause in the banana palms, you said there was a path. And also, Mister Shoomba says you’re prob’ly watching out over the whole neighbourhood. And the invisible world!”
“Oh he says that, does he? An’ still he does what he does! Tsk! Interestin’! But alright then, lemme see if I got the facts right. You’re thinkin’ that maybe your Quiet Man could talk if he wanted, but he doesn’t because he’s a little bit frightened; and you would if he would, but the fact that he hasn’t, has got you so you’re not even sure if you should! That it?”
“Um. I guess. Not ‘frightened’ though. He was a Hero in the war, so not frightened.”
“Was he now? A Hero? Well that’s a fine thing, innit! My word! Well, your lucky dip answer then is . . . you’re right. About the two places at once idea. Seems some folks get to some places that get pinned into a mind so hard they can’t be shaken out, dun matter where the rest o’ the body goes. ‘N’ ‘Soon’s prob’ly right too. ‘Bout the bein’ ashamed thing. Nothin’ chokes the conversation out’ve a person - even out’ve a Hero - quite as quick as bein’ ashamed!”
“But if it was something to do with the war, like ‘Soon says, then it wouldn’t be his fault, would it? And he shouldn’t be ashamed!”
“Well that makes sense too, dunnit. What if it was a bad thing?”
“Then them who told him to go there should be ashamed!”
“Yep! Yep! Good point! Int’restin’ point!”
“So . . . if I find out what the secret is, will he come home again, and talk again?”
“Oh yeah well! He gonna come home alright. One way or another.”
“Well . . . if one way is the way I want . . . what’s the other way?”
“Now on that, my friend, I can only speculate! But just for instance . . . he might talk an’ say a lotta stuff some folks ’ud prefer not to hear!”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well, put yourself in his shoes, Nev’. Imagine finding someone wanderin’ around in your head, nosin’ about in your secret cupboards. Think ye’d be comfy wi’ that? Or would ye maybe be tempted to try shockin’ ‘em outta there? Maybe by showin’ ‘em somethin’ way more awful in them cupboards than anyone could’ve expected.”
“Oh,” said Neville, quite downcast because one of the reasons he’d refused ‘Soon’s offer to look in the Quiet Man’s dreams was exactly that - an inkling of something awfully awful that she might see, that he definitely didn’t want anyone to see.
“’S definitely a tricky one,” Ragged Man was continuing. “I mean most people got something in ‘em they wouldn’t want put on show: mostly just petty, mean, nose-pickery sorta stuff. But there’s those got true horrors in there, mate. Horrors they’d rather eat a floorboard than risk havin’ put on show.”
“I’d eat a floorboard . . . before I’d be ashamed of the Quiet Man, or hate him. No matter what!”
“Yeah? Well there’s dark and muddled places you ent seen yet, mate. Maybe a peek at his secret’d change your mind.”
“No it wouldn’t! You don’t have to believe me but it wouldn’t.”
“Nev’, I want to believe you. More than you know. Thing is though, the human head is miraculou
sly confusable. Can be in one place, like we said, an’ think it’s in entirely another! Or totally believe a thing when it feels good an’ totally forget it when it doesn’t. ’F you wanted to put your faith in somethin’ Nev’, humanity’d be about your poorest choice!”
“So . . . but he moved his arm - to say he needed help!”
“So he did! An’ good son that you are, you’re out here, havin’ a go! All I’m sayin’ is, if he gets a handle on what’s irkin’ him an’ gives ye some more clues . . . it’s anybody’s guess if you’ll still be interested. ‘S all I’m sayin’.”
Neville fell silent. What sort of stuff could be irking a Hero like Neville the More, so much so that he couldn’t even give proper clues on what it was? Unless not giving clues was the actual clue? Because the irksome thing was that he has such a hopelessly disappointing promise-not-to-be-a-soldier son as Neville the Less!
“Okay,” huffed Ragged Man. “I can see a miracle o’ self-destruction takin’ hold in a certain head that’s right nearby, an’ I’m not enjoyin’ the view. Let’s move on! I’m a busy hermit, here, an’ I ent got eternity up my sleeve.”
“Um, well. I guess I really need to know about the Things in Under!”
“Ahh!” Ragged Man’s frown flipped over into a broad grin. “Now there’s an int’restin’ topic!” He scooped half a dozen scorpions onto his lap and shuffled forward until his feet dangled in the sea. “So tell me! You seen ‘em?”
Nev’ shook his head. “I saw eyes once. But mostly I just hear them - moving the sand and scratching at the dead forest. Always at night. They make Ava’s hair stand on end. Or at least they used to before she got lost. And there’s a kind of a dip where maybe one sleeps.”
“Oo-hoo-hoo!” Waggling his fingers by his ears, monster style. “Weirdy dudes, eh? You scared of ‘em?”
Neville, already feeling bad about not being up to the Quiet Man’s needs, was about to say, ‘Not really.’ But then he thought of Ragged Man’s view of the invisible world and, “Yes,” he had to say. “Real scared. I might not be if I knew what they are. Or what they want. Or even if they’re real.”
“Awright! And your mum says they’re not?”
“She says they’re just my imagination. Or animals. We went down once with the torch and they weren’t there. I thought maybe they were hiding.”
“’Course they were hiding! Your mum’s a scary lady! Who else? Anybody else looked?”
“Cookie’s mum didn’t look but she’s born again so I reckon she might know stuff about ‘Things’ and she says yes they are real. She says they’re Evil Lurkers, which is kind of what I thought. And the Quiet Man . . . he doesn’t go out, but I hear him shouting in the night sometimes and sometimes it’s like, ‘It’s Under there! Don’t move! Don’t move!’”
“And so, you think . . . ?”
“So I think he knows they’re there. And I think mum’s just trying to pretend so I won’t be scared, but I am. I’d rather know for sure. So . . . what do you think? Are they real?”
“Oh, real as your leg, Nev’! My word! An’ common as toenails which, who d’ye know hasn’t got some o’ those? Even I useta have a couple in my Under! Wa-a-y down deep! Weirdest lookin’ contraptions you ever saw! Yep, first trick is to find out who your particular ones belong to; an’ what they’re waiting on. How long they been there?”
“Um, well, since the Quiet Man came home from the war I guess.”
“Ah! There ye go! War Things! Come draggin’ their sorry ugly selves back in the QM’s luggage! Ye know, if that’s the case, you prob’ly aren’t even s’posed to know they’re there! Yah! Maybe you should just do like yer mum does, an’ ignore ‘em!”
“I tried but . . . they jus’ seem to get worse!”
“Do they? Now that’s strange! You been to the war yourself?”
“No. I’m never going to the war. I promised Mum.”
“Okay! Alright! So . . . they come back with him, but they’re pickin’ on you! Why would that be, I wonder?”
“I dunno. But if I could pretend they weren’t there, they’d go away?”
“Oh sure! Pretty much! Maybe. Or maybe not! Depends, I s’pose.”
Nev’ scratched his head. “On what?”
“Well, like I say, partly on whose they really are; an’ then partly on what started ‘em off! I mean, usually War Things need a War Person to deal with ‘em! One o’ which, as far as we know, you’re not! An’ then o’ course, there’s the little question of how big they are! Like if they’re little whoop-dee-do bug-eyed noise makers, then okay, ignorin’ ‘em might work out for yah! But if they’re big pointy, nasty, churn-up-your-thinkin’-apparatus Things - I guess that’s a who-o-le different story.”
They both glanced into Ragged Man’s lap where the scorpions, which had settled into an attentive, listening circle, launched into fits of unhappy hissing.
“Well we don’ know which they are, do we?” the Ragged Man said to them, rolling his eyes from side to side. “Sheesh! Just givin’ the full picture, for cryin’ out loud!”
He tilted his head and winked conspiratorially. “Talk about your little bug-eyed noise makers!”
A couple of pincers were raised in his direction and, “Yeah, yeah,” he said, putting out a finger to push them gently down. “Yer terrible to behold, for sure.”
And then to Neville, “Anyhow, the big, bad, creepy ones, Nev’. . . ye haven’t got many choices. Ye want ‘em gone, someone’s jus’ gotta get in there amongst ‘em!”
“Why? What to do?”
“What to do? To find out! Whadda they want? Whadda they signify? What made ‘em come there in the first place? What would it take to tame ‘em? I mean, sometimes even the dirtiest, worst, most repulsive Things in creation can turn out to be almost tolerable, ye know! If yer willing to risk looking right into their crossed-up old pink an’ yellow eyes! But if they’re not an’ if nobody deals with ‘em, they just gonna percolate away down there forever, gettin’ worse ‘n’ worse! Yes sir! Why, I seen folks spend years tryin’ to avoid havin’ a good hard look at Things; only to turn around and find the whole entirety o’ their common sense has been nibbled away!”
The scorpions, apparently pleased with that answer, clacked appreciatively, prompting others across the island to join in, and the Ragged Man, bowing at them from the waist, smiled quite radiantly.
“But what does it mean exactly . . . to ‘get in there amongst ‘em’?” asked Neville, fearful that he already knew the answer.
“I’m not tellin’ ye! No way! Uh-uh! It’s big-time risky an’ I surely would not recommend it to anyone who has an otherwise option.”
“But what is it?”
“Okay awright then! Ye got it outta me! What it is, is to actually go down there into whatever Under is in question, see? It’s gotta be alone, without even a torch or a friend or a stick or a Terrier-of-Death - nothin’ but yourself. Ye get down there in the bleaky black dark an’ ye wait! Wait ‘til however many Things there are - there might be a heap of ‘em or there might be jus’ one horrible big lonely snot-dripper - wait’ll they come snifflin’ out to see what they can make of ye. ‘Til all ye can hear and smell is the snarl and spit and stink and gurgle of ‘Thing’! The tooth-gnashin’, ear-wigglin’, eye-gogglin’, bum clenchin’ nastiness of ‘Thing’. An’ ye know what all that is, doncha? All that horribleness? That’s fear! Not theirs! Never theirs! It’s yours! Your fear! So then ye take a big deep breath an’ ye let it sink in! Up your nose an’ down your throat ‘n’ in your ears ‘til - if it takes that long - ‘til even the fluff in your belly button turns blue! If ye can do that - if ye can know that fear all the way, without runnin’ off, ye got it half beat. ‘Cause often as not it turns out to be just about stuff that was beyond your imaginin’. Ye know, like the stuff in them secret cupboards we talked about! Stuff ye wouldn’ ordinarily believe could happen in the world. So anyways, what ye do then is, when yer all but choked to death on that fear and ye feel that Thing’s
just about to pounce on ye an’ ring yer neck, ye shout out, ‘Hey! Don’ I know you?’”
“And that’s dangerous?”
“Dangerous! Nev’, it’s like hairs on your head, the number o’ people who don’t survive it! What it is ye see is, that horribleness - that scariness - that fear - when ye get close to it, it’s got kind of a sweet, sticky, liquorice voice that a lotta folks . . . get hypnotised by! It starts whisperin’ to ‘em, sayin’, “Yeah, you do know me! I’m the best, most powerful friend you ever can have! You wanna get some respect in this world? You wanna know me even better.”
“So lotsa folks can’t resist, see? An’ pretty soon that meanness an’ nastiness an’ muscled-up-ness - instead o’ them pushin’ it away like they should, they pull it in. An’ whammo! They look in the mirror one day an’ see exactly the ‘Thing’ they’re most afraid of!”
“Waaah!”
“Yep! Crazy, eh? ‘Course that’s not everybody, don’t get me wrong! There’s a few - it’s possible they can get a whiff of all that horrible blustery scariness an’ still be able to think, ‘Whoa! That’s just not a good way, brother!’”
“What’s a good way then?”
“Almost anything, mate. That doesn’t involve fear.” He sighed deeply. “Seems like a long time since I seen that lesson get learned. Like I say, I’m all but lost me faith.”
Neville was shaken by this entire revelation, strange and obtuse as it was. And couldn’t help doubting that he’d have the courage to go into Under to confront Things that were made of fear. ‘Soon might have it. Ava would definitely have it. Even Beau the Bum would probably have it. But Neville the Less? Never. And anyhow, the really big question wasn’t ‘Who would go there?’ The big question, it seemed, was, ‘Who would survive?’
“I don’t get it! Why do there have to be Things at all? Ugly horrible Things and even war an’ shooting an’ pirates an’ big walls like the Folly an’ mean people?”
Ragged Man looked around wistfully at the barren outcropping that was his home, and sighed.
“Mate! That part o’ the invisible world cannot be explained. It just is. Ridin’ along the path beside us. The only question worth considerin’ is, what’s the best part o’ the path to walk, to get around it!”
“What is the best part?”
“Now how could an old raggedy man like me know that, Nev’? Might be able to come to a thought about here,” gesturing around him, “but figuring it out for your side o’ the water, that’s your job. Look around, ask around, think it over. One thing I can tell you is, there’s an awful lot ridin’ on you findin’ a strategy.”
At which one of the scorpions from his lap scrambled up his shirt front, hissing and clacking its pincers. Ragged Man picked it off and swung it toward his open mouth. Then he stopped, gave it a sideways look and put it back on his lap. To Neville’s questioning glance, he said, “I only eat the liars. Can’t abide me a liar.”
Something about him, Neville noticed, seemed to be fading, as though the stars might soon be visible right through him. As though, if this was the only story to tell, a Ragged Man might as well simply save himself the effort.
“Right,” he said, and even his voice suddenly seemed tired and hollow. “There’s a lot goes on around here ye know, ‘n’ for all the good it does, I am the only one keepin’ watch. You got what you come for?”
It was Neville’s last chance.
“Um! My mum says there’s no such place as an invisible world!”
“Does she? Well, she’s got her story. An’ you ‘n’ me, we got ours, eh?”“Why would she say it though?”
“Have a guess.”
“Um. Maybe . . . she just doesn’t want me to know?”
“Bingo! And why not?”
“Um. Because there might be stuff there that . . . is too scary?”
“Oh? Any idea of a ‘for instance’?”
And Neville thought of the Things in Under. And he thought of ‘Soon’s desperate search for signs of her lost brother. And he thought of the Quiet Man’s secret. And he thought of his own fear that the Quiet Man might not want, ever again, to be father to Neville the Less.
Ragged Man waited a long moment, until the nature of Neville’s answer was clearly registered on his face.
Then, “It’s all about fear, isn’t it Nev’. Not knowing. Keep that tucked away in some invisible world an’ . . . ye might be able to hang onta yer hope. That’s the most important thing of all.”
“But what if there isn’t any hope?”
There really was a star visible now, right through the middle of Ragged Man’s head.
“What if there is? Imagine that there is. Just waiting to be found.”
These were not useful answers. Certainly not ones he’d envisioned when, while staring out the window above the sink-full of dishes, he’d seen Shoomba’s lights come on and been reminded of the mystical sea that lay between there and Home.
“I heard you in the banana palms. You said there was a path. I thought you’d be able to help.”
“Didja? What, point it out to ye, ye mean? Start ye off on it? Howja know I haven’t done that?”
A pair of scorpions skittered to the edge, to stare across the little strait of water that separated them from the Lightning Bug. On their way, they passed right through Ragged Man without seeming to realise he was there. He put his hand down to cover them and they ran through his bones as if they were air. His chest had become little more than a grey smokiness and his voice, when it came, was as thin and crinkly as rice paper.
“Doin’ a bad thing,” it whispered. “an’ bein’ ashamed of it, Nev’ - that’s not so awful. What’s way worse is doin’ a bad thing an’ not bein’ ashamed of it. Refusin’ to see it! That’s the worryin’ one.”
And then, his last words: “Gets lonely in these little boats, don’ it? Maybe that’s a place to start.”
And with that, the Ragged Man was gone, as surely as was the Great Storm that’d once lifted the Home Country house from its foundations. Other sounds washed in; the whisper of the sea and the faint hiss and clack of the scorpions. Neville actually thought he heard some faint words embedded in them: ‘Soon’s name and ‘The Folly’ and maybe something about Ava. And ‘a strategy’! Get a strategy! He tried to listen - tried to pay attention. But it was all too faint and indistinct and confusing.
And, distractingly, there was the pair of scorpions that’d run through Ragged Man. They seemed almost to be arguing. Then wrestling. Which resulted in one flattening out the long, coiled spring of its tail, while the second positioned itself over the barb.
Both fixed their tiny black eyes directly on Neville and he found himself unable to pull his own gaze away. The legs of the bottom one jittered this way and that. Until suddenly the flattened tail snapped back into its curl, catapulting the top scorpion, a small, black, flailing mass, across the water and straight onto the bones that only just managed to keep Neville’s heart from bursting out of his chest. He gasped, jumped, swiped, fell, hit his head and the whole of Apollo Dungeon, along with the consciousness of Neville the Less, disappeared from view.
6. Sharing the Lesson
Neville’s dream took him on a meandering search, back through the dark forest to the silhouetted hilltop from which people had waved him goodbye. It was lonely. He wanted them to come back - all of them - whoever they were. Instead, what did come back, flying into his face, was the widening vision of a flailing, pincer-clacking scorpion. It came out of the darkness, in slow-motion, and he knew before it was close enough to see, that it would have a human face. In the dream he prepared himself for it to be the pinched little fox-face of Beau the Bum or the chubbily fluberous face of Mister Shoomba. But it was neither of those. It was, unbelievably, the face (or rather a face) of the Quiet Man, teeth bared, the evil black barb hanging like a bayonet above cruelly purposeful eyes. The recognition jolted Neville straight out of bed and onto his feet.
He gawped and reeled into a room that w
as already occupied, by a boy in sweat-damp pyjamas; a boy whose mouth was twisted in panic, whose eyes dripped terror beneath a white, head-hugging bandage. For an instant Neville thought a stranger had sneaked up on him in the forest and touched him awake. And then, recognition. It was himself. He was back in his room again, framed by the backwards image of his own mirror.
He drew a shuddering breath and started to call for Ava before remembering. She would not be there. She was lost somewhere in the surrounding lands. He looked for the magic cyclone bolt and, amazingly, it was there, leaning as casual as a tramp in a corner. One hand reached for it, the other went to the latest throbbing goose egg on the back of his head, and before either hand made contact, the floor lurched away, leaving him on hands and knees, clinging to the vinyl. He lowered himself the rest of the way, pressing his cheek to the floor for the coolness. He’d been in the Lightning Bug, at Apollo Dungeon. There’d been a scorpion. Now he was home. How had that happened?
A small circle of words bobbed on the surface of his mind, like a life ring from a sunken wreck: ‘Refusing to see. That’s the worrying one.’ But what was there to see? Perhaps if he looked now, again, more carefully, he’d see that conditions at Home Country had altered - or even improved. He slithered through the dizzily spinning pantry to the edge of the kitchen, there to secretly assess the condition of the new morning.
In the lounge room, the Quiet Man was lying as usual on the couch, one arm over his eyes, the other dangling floorwards where, in other times, the damp comfort of a terrier’s tongue might have waited. So no change there. Out the back door, however, a sight he’d not seen before. A variety of matching Shoombas slowly circled one another in the big veranda chair, each noisily and identically sipping tea and munching biscuits. Unseen, Neville squinted, closed one eye, then the other and finally pressed his cheek to the cold floor.
‘That’s different!’ he thought.
It was so different, in fact, that he was a little panicked. If ‘Soon was right about Mister Shoomba (and the possibility had not yet been eliminated) then there was a potential pirate of a neighbour relaxing and sipping tea on the Home Country veranda! Did Mum know? Did anyone know? Shouldn’t someone be shooing him away?
And then, as though they’d all suddenly heard this thought, the revolving Shoombas condensed themselves into one, which clunked down its tea cup and began to grizzle.
“Arp arp arp! ‘At’s right! ‘At’s what’ll I’ll do then!”
The big chair creaked with gratitude, a board on the veranda floor popped and, as quick as that, Shoomba was on his feet and moving toward the screen door, behind the base-plate of which, lay Neville’s already damaged and bandaged noggin. In exactly the place where, if he didn’t get fallen on, he would surely at least be stepped on. It was like a trap had come to his home to catch him while his head was too confused to escape and, in one more second, it would leave him lifeless on the floor. Mum would find what was left of him, crushed to juice, lying half in the pantry, half in the kitchen.
‘What’s happened here?’ she’d ask and Shoomba would say: ‘Sorry, love, I’ve squashed your little Neville. That wet spot there is all that’s left.’ And, ‘Jeepers!’ she’d answer, just like Beau and Hayley’s mum once would’ve: ‘Well I guess there’ll be fewer of us for breakfast tomorrow then!’
Even as this scenario was flashing through his mind, the huge paw of Shoomba landed on the door’s handle and set the rail in front of Neville’s face to rattling. Too quick, too late for Neville to react with anything but limpness and resignation. The end was at hand.
The door, though, at the moment that it should have opened, didn’t. All became still. Then the handle snicked back into place and the veranda boards creaked again, clear evidence that Shoomba was backing away toward the edge of the veranda!
“Wharr!” Neville heard him rumble a second time, followed by, “Wassat? Stinkin’ Shaggy Little Bitch come back? Eh? Zat you? Arrr?”
Neville fancied he could hear the click of eyeballs as Shoomba studied the back yard. There was the sniffing sound of a man tasting the air and the Ragged Man’s description came back to him: ‘one horrible big lonely snot-dripper, sniffling out to look ye over.’ It was exactly the incentive he needed.
By the time Shoomba’d contented himself and returned to the door, Neville was back in his bed, tucked under the sheet, with only the tuft of hair above his bandage left to show it was really him. He listened tremulously to the snort of disdain Shoomba directed into the living room. He jumped when the tea cup clattered against the metal drain board. He held his breath as the footfalls approached his room and he bit his tongue when, through the weft of the sheet, he saw his bedroom door ease open.
Nothing could then have tempted Neville to move; certainly not Shoomba’s tricky needle of a question: “Ye right?”
The shadow lingered a long snuffling moment in the doorway, until finally issuing forth a surprisingly mean assessment: “Ahhrr! Woman’s way too good for you pair!”
And then, though Neville prayed fervently that it would leave, the shadow emitted a different sound again, a grunt of recognition. And instead of backing out, it stepped all the way into the room.
“Ahh!” it smiled, slick as a pickpocket, leaning to inspect the magic cyclone bolt. “So ye got it in here have ye! Little thief! Wouldn’ let go of it las’ night, wouldja? Glued to yer fingers las’ night, wun’ it? My word! Not jus’ the ol’ Lightnin’ Bug yer makin’ free with, is it, eh?” He leaned close to the sheet and whispered darkly, “Places in the world . . . they wrap stealers in sacks ‘n’ drop ‘em in the river. D’ja know that?”
Neville was terrified. He imagined that the pounding of his heart must surely be setting the sheet over his head to flapping like a flag. Why wasn’t Mum here, to order Shoomba back into the kitchen and out of the house? Or Ava, to bark blue murder and maybe amputate his big fat leg? Or even ‘Soon, to slam the heels of her hands against the great belly and frighten the wrinkles out’ve him with a witcherly spell? Even Beau the Bum would be welcome to wander in with his air rifle if it would send Shoomba reeling off - preferably minus his weener or dying of an arse pellet. Someone! Please! Anyone!
But there was no one. He was alone; ‘lonely in that little boat’ were the Ragged Man’s last clear words, and how true they were! And how wrong the feeling was!
It seemed an age until, through the thin crosshatch of the sheet and the narrowest slit of eyes he saw the Shoomba-shadow step back, having apparently decided, for the moment, to leave the magic bolt in place. The shadow dragged its wig from its head, used the shag of it to wipe its brow then turned to the mirror and arranged the damp thatch back on its noggin.
“Bolt’s still mine, but!” it muttered to itself in the glass. “Can’t give sump’m an’ just take it back, no way!”
And then, finally, it went, shuffling out through the pantry to the back door. Before it exited the house, though, it floated a final sneer over its shoulder - a sneer Neville was certainly meant to hear: “Sacks in the river for both o’ yez, if I’m asked! Hopeless pair o’ Nevilles!”
Footsteps sounded across the veranda, down the stairs and he was gone. He was gone but still, in the ensuing silence, Neville remained frozen, as quiet as a worm beneath his sheet. He could not have moved even if a new scorpion had crawled into his ear and shouted his name. Even his tears were too frightened to fall. Because after all, really, though he’d hoped for change, he would never have wanted it to be one that allowed Shoomba to drink tea and clump about in Home Country! The only thing in him that tasted remotely of something other than fear was the thought of that mean thing Shoomba had said: ‘Hopeless Nevilles’.
Okay, maybe he could say that about Neville the Less. But not about Neville the More! Not ever about Neville the More. Neville the More was a soldier and a Hero who - even if he had secrets whose eyes no one was allowed to look into - had a plan! A plan that would bring his mind home, safe and whole again, throu
gh all the dangers of the world. And then he would put Home Country and all the neighbourhood back to rights! And when that day happened, Shoomba would think at least three times before making remarks about rivers and hopeless Nevilles!
Neville the Less Page 19