No Man’s Land. Simon Tolkien
Part Six : The Parting of the Ways
Chapter Thirty-Eight: February 1919
Chapter Forty-Four: 10–11 November 1919
‘I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.’
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, 1929
The first world Adam knew was the street. It came to him through his senses without mental dilution, filling up his head with sounds and smells and images that he couldn’t begin to unravel. Lying in bed at night with his eyes closed he could see Punch and Judy bludgeoning each other with rolling pins, just as if they were right there in front of him. Down they went and up they came, again and again: gluttons for punishment. He knew that Benson, the rag-and-bone man with the blue scar across his chin, was pulling the strings behind the tattered red curtain but that didn’t make the garishly painted puppets any less real. Just thinking about them made him laugh until his insides hurt,