* * *
The rest of the day passed. Neville cleaned up the glass as best he could and propped the broken frame with its scrunched picture on the table. He made himself a vegemite sandwich and then, because it seemed right, made two more. One, he placed on the coffee table next to the Quiet Man, the other he placed on the bedside table beside Mum. Both parents lay with their backs to him. Neither acknowledged him.
How lonely can you be in your own house? He wanted Ava to be there with him. He wanted to talk more with ‘Soon about the plan. He wanted desperately to tell Mum that she was wrong about the Things in Under; that they were real and terrible and far more important than any medal; that it was them who were inflicting nightmares on the Quiet Man and that if Neville the More was going to be brought fully home, (which Neville was committed to achieving, despite Shoomba’s assurance that it could never happen), then those Things had to be faced up to and gotten rid of. He wanted to reassure her; to tell her all would be well: because, finally, he had a strategy that was going to start the process of fixing everything. Even if it killed him.
Neville also wanted to tell the Quiet Man that he didn’t hate him for not being a Hero. If the medal had said it was for being a Hero, he probably wouldn’t have taken it and he certainly wouldn’t have left it abandoned in the chokos. But in this one thing at least, Shoomba had been right: what was the purpose of any kind of medal if it meant a person had to hide his mind in a jungle; or that whatever he did to get it meant Riff and Raff Rahimi had to drown men in red dust and ride in a boat and lose Anosh to pirates? And in one other thing, Shoomba’d also been right: that if anything was to be done, it would need to be done by someone who was still on his feet.
Neville actually did, in the spirit of honesty, say much of that to the unresponsive Quiet Man, fairly certain he’d be free from all reproach. And he added softly, speaking through his own sandwich, “I know you have your own plan and it prob’ly is just for me to do nothing. But I got Ava to think of too, and ‘Soon and Anosh, and I don’t think it can wait. So the best I can think is . . . just to start . . . like Ragged Man said. So tonight, I’m going to get rid of the Things in Under. Once and for all. It’s all of us or all of them.”
The Quiet Man, as expected, made no acknowledgment and Neville turned to leave. Over his shoulder, he started to say, “So if you hear some noises later . . . !”
But he didn’t finish. The Quiet Man’s arm was raised, straight up toward the ceiling; and his fist was clenched, like a defiant remnant of a flag atop a short, muscular pole.
The Battle Begins
He put himself to bed very early and feigned sleep when Mum peeped in to check on him. He smelled her soap, heard her breath and, here at the end of the day, felt her fingers brush lightly at the hair above his bandage, much as ‘Soon’s had done at the day’s start. He would’ve liked to say goodnight to her, and maybe sorry and thank you, but she would’ve lingered then, and there wasn’t time for that. So he let her go. When the knocking began at the back door, half an hour later, he could hardly hear it over the scrabbling, mewling, cacophony of noises the Things in Under were making - in preparation, he assumed, for the coming battle.
He knew the scenario at the door already, of course. It would be Hayley, run across through the bottlebrush, beneath the shrieking Flying Foxes, seeking Mum-the-nurse’s help to deal with Boogerville chaos. Beau the Bum would be the victim, seeming to be wounded with his own rifle (though how, or even if, Hayley was going to fake that wound had remained her private information).
“No!” Hayley would insist. “We can’t tell the oldies! They’re out! Everyone’s out but me ‘n’ Beau! I got him in the tub so’s he doesn’t get blood all over the place! The ol’ man’ll kill him if that happens!
“No, I can’t call an ambulance! There’s no ambo’ insurance and the ol’ man’d kill him ‘n’ me both - ‘n’ maybe the ambo’s as well! If you say he needs the hospital, I’ll take him in the Ute! I promise! But I don’t want to unless I have to because they’ll have to report him, and Mrs Hughes had the Child Welfare down on us already - says the way he’s left to run amok’s just like abuse! They’ll take him away and lock him up, I know they will! Please! You’re the only one I know! Please come!”
If anyone could coax a tired, disconsolate Mum out into the night, it would be Hayl’s, the high school drama teacher’s ‘wonder child’. Even the Things in Under diminished their ruckus, probably to listen in awe to the passion of her appeal. (Neville imagined their Thing-y paws poised for a round of applause.) And sure enough, at the end of a grumbling demurral, Mum’s tiptoe footsteps sounded in the pantry. She peeped, Neville rasped a little snore in the back of his throat and she left. Moments later he heard their whispered passing below his window and popped up to watch the path of their torch-light, wending back through the bottle-brush.
Before the Boogerville door had closed, he was into his sandshoes and ready to go. No time to change from his pyjamas. No time to check on the Quiet Man. No time for any hesitation whatsoever. Only time to snatch up the magic bolt and ease the screen door closed behind him.
Neville the Less Page 25