* * *
In the Home Country house, the Quiet Man had fought his way to a foggy state of alertness. He knew where he was. He was home in Australia. He’d been here for weeks. What he didn’t know was how or why, through all that time, and still tonight, the reality of the place had seemed so tenuous - one layer of a double exposure - one gentle, familiar scene intermingled with a ghastly, violent, so much more futile one. Ghost images, ghost terrain, ghost people. All around him. How was he to know which parts were real? Which parts could be trusted and which not? Peace, if it came at all, came in such small doses.
Each time he woke, he consciously tried to fill his head with the elements of Home Country, ticking them off one by one. Wife. Son. Dog. House. Security. Silence. This time though, for some inexplicable reason, the air was filled with a chaos of amplified dog noise. While he’d slept, the place had become like a head - like his own head, with a monstrous rabid animal living inside. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t fathom it. Couldn’t revive any recollection at all of how it felt to be safe or confident or right or true.
Heart racing, he used the torch and made his way through the camp’s perimeter - the failing security of the house. In the bedroom, Tina, asleep. Yes. That at least was right. A touchstone. He remembered the how of that, if not entirely the why. And Neville! Where was Neville? He wasn’t with his mum. Was he in his own room? The living room? The bathroom? On the deck?
The unceasing din of yammering dog and howling humans filled him with foreboding but he forced himself to move, soon enough breaking into an unsteady run, seeking with his torch. Until finally, on the veranda, he found a single mystifying clue - a classic Beretta Model 1934 semi-automatic pistol. He raised it to his nose, drawing in the acrid, strangely comforting odour of cordite. Recently fired? At which exact moment, the clamour of noise was pinched off and a blossoming silence washed over him.
Ahhh! Better. But . . . what now? A weapon in his hand. The enemy momentarily in abeyance. Exercise your discipline, Lieutenant! Breathe. Observe. Be steady. Defend at all costs. Prepare for deadly force.
And faintly, there was still that quieter voice: No! No! This is home, not the other place! Find your markers!
But the markers were changing. The lights over there, where Ralph Daisley’s house should be - a moment ago they were on, now they’re out. That’s one less reference point. One outlier that’s been overrun.
He flicked off the torch and blinked. Willing his pupils to open wider, holding the gun close to his face again, again inhaling the smell of gunpowder. He could be anywhere now. Anywhere in any world. Or perhaps the worlds had merged. Perhaps the ghosts had come across, looking for him - looking for his family. Looking for his boy. Why would they do that? Because of the other boy, of course. The exploded boy. This one for that one. That’s how the worlds collide.
“Neville?”
He spoke it softly into the darkness and got no answer.
Nothing but a mewling sound, somewhere out there, somewhere not too far. Trying to lure him out into the open. That’s how they work. And then his eyes, just at the corners, thought they detected a movement. And still, rising from his nostrils into his brain, the smell of gunpowder.
“Nev’? Is that you, mate?” Again, oh so softly. And almost to himself, “Please be you.”
Still no answer. Just the muttering, mewling.
“Can’t be Nev’,” he said to himself. “Nev’ would answer. He’s a good boy. He’d answer. If he could. If he could.”
Then, the sound of the shotgun.
Neville the Less Page 63
