Neville the Less
By Robert Nicholls
Copyright 2015 Robert Nicholls
Table of Contents
1. Home Country
2. A Journey
3. Troubles Multiply
4. The Making of Plans
5. Alone at Sea
6. Sharing the Lesson
7. A Penny for your Medal
8. Phase Two
9. Interregnum
10. Plans
11. D-Day
12. Where it Ends
1. Home Country
Neville
Something is happening in Under. Every night I hear creaking and bumping - and the sound of sand being moved, as though the dead forest is coming to life. Which I know can’t be true. I know because I asked Mum and she said definitely not. It’s a dream, she said. Give yourself a pinch when it happens, she said, and you’ll see.
But what is it then? Last night I pinched very hard and it didn’t stop. And then Ava started to growl. I would’ve pinched her as well but I worried that if she started barking, Mum would have to come and she’s already got her hands pretty full with the Quiet Man. I heard him last night too, shouting out again. I think he hears the noises in Under too. Things are not very good just now.
Nightmares
The Quiet Man lay on the couch as he had every day of every week, for the whole of the month and a half that he’d been home, staring into the ceiling.
“He doesn’t see us anymore,” Neville said to his mother.
“Nevertheless, he knows we’re here, Sweet.”
“Why doesn’t he talk to us then?”
“He can’t, Nev’. Not yet. He’s got a jumble in his mind and he needs to sort that out before he can talk to us.”
A jungle in his mind, thought Neville. Snakes and lions and monkeys and tall, tall trees. Or maybe it’s a dead forest, like the one in Under, with things that dig and groan.
“Does he know who I am?”
“Yes, of course he does! He knows you’re his son! Nevertheless, he can’t talk to you or to me or to anyone - not properly. Not until he finds his way through the jumble. He’s got to do that first. I know it’s hard, but we just have to try to be patient and understanding. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Neville, thinking, He knows I am his son, Neville the Less. He knows but his mind is lost in a jungle and until he finds it, he can’t talk.
“How come, if he can’t talk, I hear him at night, hollering and shouting? And I hear you shouting back? And I wonder if he’s hurting you?”
“Oh, Sweet! He can talk! He just . . . can’t decide what things to tell us! And he’s never hurting me! He wouldn’t hurt me, or you! He loves us both. It’s just . . . he has awful dreams sometimes. Dreams that frighten him and that he can’t wake up from. Not without help. So I call out to help him; to show him a way to go, to get back to us. That’s all it is.”
“Nightmares?”
“Yes, nightmares.”
“From the jungle?”
“From the jumble, yes. But you mustn’t be frightened. Because you and I know that nightmares are just scary shadows, don’t we. Shadows that can pretend to be real when there’s darkness all around. That’s why I keep the light on in the hall all night, see? And that’s why he watches so carefully from the couch all day. So that, if those nightmares try to creep up on him, he’ll be able to see them for the shadows they are. That’s what he needs most of all, Nev’. Just to know he’s safe. And when the time comes that he knows his fears are nothing but shadows, he’ll be able to chase them away for good. And then he’ll come back to us. Understand?”
“So he’s watching for them in the ceiling?”
“Yes. I guess so. In the ceiling.”
It would make more sense, Neville thought, if he was watching the floor, to catch them coming up from Under. But who was he to question?
“You always tell me to think happy thoughts when I have nightmares. Or to pinch myself. Why don’t you tell him to think happy thoughts? Or pinch him?”
“Nev’, I know this is hard for you. But look. It’s true that nightmares shrivel up like little raisins when happy thoughts are around. But your father . . . he doesn’t have many happy thoughts just now. Not just now. He’s trying! He’s trying his best. And he’s strong. He’s very strong and brave. But . . .!” And he knew she was about to give up on him; “. . . there’s just a Bigger Picture happening, Nev’. One that . . . it wouldn’t be fair for you to have to think about.”
“Is it the war?” he whispered and his mother, suddenly sobbing into her hands, fled from him into the kitchen.
“Or is it us then?” he asked the room, which was empty of anyone who could think what to say.
Later though, when they met in the kitchen, he tried a different tack.
“What is a war, anyhow? How do you get one?”
“Oh Nev’! You don’t have to worry. It’s a thing that couldn’t happen here! But where it does happen, it’s because people get frightened and confused by one another - by things they don’t understand about one another. And then they get mad because stuff just isn’t how they want it to be or wish it was. And they decide to hit out because hitting out’s easier than . . . thinking. Hitting and hitting and being more and more frightened. That’s what war is.”
“But why couldn’t it happen here? Don’t people get frightened and confused here?”
“Yes, of course they do. It’s just that . . . we don’t hit here.”
“The Quiet Man does! He’s a soldier!”
“Yes. And soldiers are made to do things, sometimes, that they hate to do.” And suddenly she was angry, bending to him, clasping his shoulders roughly and staring into his eyes. “But you see where that’s got him?” The tear tracks were there on her cheeks again and a drop of something clear waggled at the end of her nose.
“Promise me you’ll never be a soldier!” she demanded, shaking him so hard the drop fell from her nose and splashed on the floor. “Right now and for all time! Promise me that when you grow up, you’ll never fight or hurt or kill or hate or . . . be the kind of person who . . . sees hitting out as the only way!”
Before he could answer, she pulled his face against her breasts, holding him tightly there where he most loved to be, even though the sweet baby powder scent of her always made his head swim. Then, with another drop at the tip of her nose, she pushed him away and went instead to the sink, to splash water on her face. Afterwards, she dried off on the tea towel (which was strictly against the rules) and, as though she’d forgotten him entirely, fell into a reverie, gazing out across the neighbouring yards. Neville waited, wishing she’d come back to him and hold him again. She didn’t. But eventually she drew a deep breath and let his name slip slowly, pleadingly out.
“Nevertheless.”
Neville wasn’t certain why she, and others in her wake, had begun referring to him as Neville the Less. He reasoned, though, that it was probably fair enough since his father, who’d been away at the war and had become, first The Hero and then The Quiet Man, had also once been a Neville. Neville the More, supposedly.
Neville the More, who went to war and left his mind in a jungle.
Mum
I can’t believe I did that! Obvious that Nev’ would’ve been hearing his father’s nightmares and fretting over them, but me? I completely overlooked it! He put me on the spot about them today and I managed a half-baked, off-putting explanation that really . . . well, if he took anything from it at all, it’d be a miracle! Then he asked me, ‘What’s a war! How do you get one?’ How do you get one? I mean, like you’d order one made up at the shops or something! I don’t know; who knows? There’s no explaining it! Not even to a smart kid like him; even one
with his sensitivity and imagination! Where would you begin?
I don’t know where he got that – the imagination, I mean. Must be nice. If I’d been able to imagine, for example, a person’s character being stomped flat by a job they loved and believed in - that would’ve been helpful wouldn’t it? To say the least? Or to imagine what the army psych’s really meant when they said, ‘Expect some loss of interest. Maybe some nightmares.’
If they’d just said, ‘Expect a husk’, that would’ve at least prepared me a bit. Even the treatment! ‘Talk to him,’ was what they said. ‘Let him know you need him in your lives.’ This to a man who has no memory of what ‘being needed’ means, let alone of what our lives are about!
So now I’m trying to imagine a way to explain to a six year old that his big, brave soldier of a father went to war and came home . . . empty. Not empty of everything, mind! Mostly just empty of his son! I mean, he does talk to me - in grunts and whispers admittedly, but he at least acknowledges me. And he’s certainly loud enough in his nightmares! But when Neville’s around . . . nothing! I doubt he’s spoken a word to Neville in the whole six weeks he’s been home! Doesn’t look at him, refuses to see him! And despite all Nev’s determined patience, I don’t see any hint of change. I don’t know what to do. Not for him, not for myself, not for any of us. All I can say is, thank God we’ve got Ava. She’s our one reliable anchor in a world gone totally stupid!
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