* * *
The rest of that day, Neville was cosseted and coddled and allowed to move between his bedroom and the living room. But no farther. Ava was offered the door at various times and twice she went out, but both times she was whining for re-admittance practically before the door was closed.
At one point when they were all gathered in the lounge room mum pressed Neville to explain what had drawn him out into the night, and he told her what he felt he could. He left out mention of the unseen presences in Under (no need to frighten her with that since she never went there anyhow) and he left out the plan to poop in Shoomba Territory, which she certainly wouldn’t approve of. He also left out the Ragged Man on Apollo Dungeon, for fear the thought of him out there (being in touch with whatever / wherever the invisible world might be) would possibly frazzle her nerves beyond measure.
But he told about the Flying Foxes and about ‘Soon at the window; about the night geese and the Lightning Bug and the magic cyclone bolt that’d once saved the Home Country house (though not about ‘Soon’s theft of it). He even tried to explain Riff’s dream and how it was ‘Soon’s dream too because of her channelling and how the Quiet Man had been in it; how (if the dream was true and dreams didn’t always know what was true, but if it was true) as a soldier, he’d watched and somehow also not watched while Riff and Raff and their friends had killed and been killed by the pirates.
When he told that part of the story, mum held his hands and stared into his eyes so intently that he began to wonder if she too, like Afsoon, had the power to sneak inside the brains of people. It seemed to him that he was alone in his but . . . how could you tell? Near the end of the story he remembered the red dust - people being drowned in red dust - and as he told that, he was interrupted by a whimpered “Aaarr!” from Ava.
Both Neville and mum looked to her and then to where she was looking - the Quiet Man. And it seemed to Neville that some flicker or flutter of eyelids might have happened there just a moment before they looked. As if one of the nightmares might’ve peeped through the ceiling, saw and been seen by him, and pulled back. If Mum sensed it though, she didn’t react. Instead, she turned her eyes back to him and began, in her round-about way, to talk about Afsoon.
“Nev’, Afsoon or Mister Rahimi or even you or I might dream about . . . I don’t know - flying, for instance. But that wouldn’t mean that we can fly or ever could fly; or that we’ve ever known anyone who could fly! Because no one can! Except in their dreams! Because dreams are just imaginary!”
“Cookie could fly!”
“No, Cookie couldn’t fly! He might wish he could or imagine he could, but he can’t! And he never could!”
“Not even in another life? Or an invisible world?”
“There are no other lives, Nev’! And no invisible worlds! There’s just this life and this world! And we can’t ignore the facts of this one just because an imaginary dream one seems more . . . reassuring! Or because this one’s being difficult! If we do that, we’re no help to the people around us, who need us to be clear and strong. We make them frightened! Like you’re frightened for your dad! Like ‘Soon is frightened for her dad. Like I’m frightened for you! And being frightened never makes things better. It always, always makes things worse. Do you understand?”
He looked at her blankly. Why would she be frightened for him? Did she know about the Things in Under then? And if so, why say there’s no invisible world?
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry I tore my pyjamas.”
Even that, though, seemed to be the wrong thing.
“It’s not about your pyjamas, Nev’!” Her voice was rising, close once again to breaking. “Listen. The Rahimi’s have lived through some terrible, terrible times, Nev’. Like nothing any of us want to imagine. And ‘Soon . . . she’s been affected by it. She’s been hurt by it; hurt her in her mind. Understand?”
“D’you mean like the Quiet Man? Like her mind is lost in a jungle?”
“Well no, not exactly. With ‘Soon it’s more like . . . things she thinks she remembers or knows - things she believes . . . she was actually too little when their troubles happened to remember those experiences, Nev’. She was barely more than a baby! D’you see? So she can’t always be counted on to tell even the past from the present, let alone the nightmares from the real!
“And your father . . . he’s been through terrible times as well. Maybe even worse, we don’t know. But the thing is, for you and ‘Soon to go galloping off in the night on imaginary quests . . . that’s no help to anyone. It’s not going to chase away his nightmares or hers. Understand?”
He didn’t really, but he did want to be seen to be trying.
“She’s not frightened, you know! She’s brave as anything!”
“Yes. Yes I know.” And she went on, after drawing a deep breath, to explain that, brave or not, ‘Soon was not a good example for him to follow; that perhaps he needed to ‘step back a little’ from that friendship.
“You’re a smart boy, Nev’. You know right from wrong, I know you do! So play with her if you must but . . . don’t go losing your good sense, okay? Don’t go giving in to her . . . imaginings! ‘Cause it’s hard enough dealing with what’s real, isn’t it. If you have any doubts at all, come and ask me. Will you do that? Please?”
And despite his belief that Afsoon really did hold keys to unlocking the Quiet Man’s voice, and because of the plea in Mum’s face, he said okay. It only took him minutes to realize, though, that it resolved nothing; just left him that little more alone, and the Quiet Man a little more alone, and the Rahimis a little more alone. With hardly any ideas on how to get less lonely.
‘Hardly any ideas’, of course, didn’t mean exactly no ideas. He had one, which he tried out not long afterwards, when she was out of the room. Leaning very close to the Quiet Man he whispered, “Red dust.” There was no reaction. He pressed on.
“Okay, I’m just going to count to ten and if you don’t move your hand, I’m going to say that means Riff’s dream was wrong and you weren’t there, okay?”
And he counted. And the hand stayed still.
“Okay. Now I’m going to count to ten again, and if your hand still doesn’t move, I’m going to say that means you have an idea for getting you and Anosh escaped and come back. Okay?”
He counted. Still there was no movement. Excellent! If Neville the More had an idea then, really, the pressure was off Neville the Less! Although, it occurred to him, there was a chance that that answer didn’t actually tell him all he needed to know. He thought about the next question for several minutes before asking it.
“If your idea needs me ‘n’ Ava ‘n’ ‘Soon to help . . . move your hand.”
He waited and Ava waited, both focussed intently on the hand that lay across the belly of the man. It didn’t move. They looked to one another and blinked. Sighs of relief tentatively gathered in their lungs and would surely have escaped had someone else’s not beat them to it. Probably it was more a huff than a sigh, but still - it was from the Quiet Man. And when they looked to his face they found, to their astonishment, that he was looking directly at Neville - actually, apparently, seeing him! It was a look more hollow than solid, more pleading than questioning, but it was nonetheless followed, hoarsely and barely audibly, by a query.
“Pyjamas?”
Neville swallowed, unsure if he could credit his ears - or his eyes. He shook his head to break his tongue loose, then nodded; and barely perceptibly, the Quiet Man also shook his head, then nodded. One shake, one nod. And his arm rose. For a moment it seemed that he might touch the bump on Neville’s forehead but instead the arm fell across the No-Longer-Totally-Quiet Man’s eyes, blocking out the room and Neville the Less and Ava, the Guardian Terrier.
Neville spent the rest of that recuperation day in his room, thinking. The Quiet Man had looked at him, spoken to him! And he’d moved his hand. ‘Move your hand if you need me ‘n’ Ava ‘n’ ‘Soon to help,’ was exactly the question he’d ask
ed. And the whole arm had moved. And yet Nev’d also, more or less, promised mum that he’d step back from his friendship with Afsoon. How was that going to work?
Twice he went back to the lounge for clarification, but the silence had settled there once again. At dinner, he told mum what’d happened and she nodded, smiling broadly: “There, you see? That’s good! That’s a good sign! We just need to keep talking to him - sharing with him - trying to involve him in our regular life! You and I together, Nev! We’re all we need. We can do this!”
When night came, the Flying Foxes returned to the bottlebrush trees outside his window, the lights went on and off in Hayley’s bus and the bullet holes in the walls at Boogerville winked as merrily as ever. Eventually the knocking came at his window as he’d somehow known it would and, though he desperately wanted ‘Soon’s thoughts on the new developments with the Quiet Man, he pulled Ava under the blanket, wrapping his arms and legs around her to keep her still and quiet. She shouldn’t be out there in the night, alone, anyhow, he told himself. If we don’t answer, she’ll go home. Hopefully, having had enough sense to stay out of Under.
Not long after, the knocking stopped. But then the Quiet Man shouted out in the panic of a nightmare and Neville heard Mum’s voice hushing him, crooning to him. Neville immediately hopped to his knees and opened the window.
“’Soon? ‘Soon?” But she was gone.
3.Troubles Multiply
The next day, Neville’s forehead-egg was considerably reduced and it was only a matter of time before Mum, worn down by his sulky presence, shooed him and Ava outside. They went straight to the lilly-pilly cubby, which was empty. They went to the banana palm forest and tried to see around the animal house into Rahimi Island, but his promise to mum kept him from going farther. He waited, hoping ‘Soon would come through to Home Country, but she didn’t. Inevitably, impatient with his dithering, Ava disappeared into a patch of undergrowth and Neville decided that, if he had to be alone, he’d at least do it in a place where he could see what others were doing. He skinned up into the Poinciana tree, tiptoed across the garage roof and swung himself over into the waiting arms of the Duke’s Mango tree.
Right away, from the lower branches he was able to look back into Shoomba Territory where he spied Shoomba himself, edging amongst his treasures, lifting and moving things, pausing to scratch his head, even partially re-enacting a slip and a fall and a flick. Where was that magic iron cyclone bolt?
From a little higher up Neville could partially make out the Duke and Duchess in their walled-in courtyard. The Duke, it appeared, was sharpening wooden stakes with a hatchet, leaving the Duchess to lay them out for planting around the perimeter. He studied them for awhile and thought, if they were leaders of a pirate gang, their disguises were very good. But then so too was the Duchy’s, looking more like an ordinary, if densely planted back yard than a land strewn with traps designed by a Mongolovian wolf-hunter!
Eventually he moved higher, to a place from which the inner reaches of Rahimi Island could be seen. The little two storey house on its high stumps; the lake with the two metre replica of the refugee boat; the animal house that bordered Cookie’s Camp; Latifeh the goat, straining against her tether, and the two brown pigs and the dozen chickens wandering in and out of view, raising their separate little clouds of dust. Of Riff there was no sign, but the lovely Parisa was there pegging out clothes, bending and reaching with all the slow grace of a dreaming butterfly.
And Afsoon was there too, on her knees, wearing Neville’s cap, scraping at a large rectangle she’d etched into the dirt. She was using the end of the magic iron bar to loosen gobbets of soil. It was obviously unwieldy and awkward, not the right tool for such a job, but she gripped it in two hands and persisted, apparently trying all the while to explain something to Parisa. The pigs at one point drifted close to hear and Parisa nodded thoughtfully, moving her lips in answer. And then, as though he had sung out her name (which he definitely had not), ‘Soon turned to look up into the distant mango tree, shading her eyes to peer at precisely the patch of greenery that shielded Neville.