The Legend of the Travelling Nev
Whenever world-weary travellers gather to share a yarn or spin a tale, there will always be a clean shaven, leather-skinned old man with a thick bushy beard who settles in the corner with a whisky in each hand and a pipe in the other, pushes his hat to the back of his head and peers out from under it.
"Have ye heard the tale o' the trav'llin' Nev?", he'll say, eyes glinting in the moonlight, sun shining through the boarded up windows. Experienced travellers - those that have been around the world twice and back again - will smile to themselves quietly and eye their glass thinking about the next drink. They've heard the tale before and they'll doubtless hear it again but it's never the same twice; maybe this old fellow can weave a good belly laugh or two in there, maybe he can't. We'll keep an ear on him and another can listen for the call for last orders. The other can pick up the gasps of amazement coming from the younger travellers during the telling of the tale.
Ah, those youngsters...fresh faced and naive as they come. Everyone here was like that at some point but were they ever that young? First time they've been involved in a good old gab and they've thrown themselves into it with every little event that's happened since they left home. Everyone smiles. They're keen. There's nothing nobody's heard a hundred times before. Now they're gathering closer to the old man to find out more about the Travelling Nev.
"Some say he started his journey many years ago in the foothills of Edinburgh, some say that when he started, there was no such thing as Edinburgh. Either way, it's been many a year since he was able to settle anywhere." the old man takes a deep draught from his glass, wipes the beer from his beard and beckons the youngsters closer.
"Cursed he was, y'see. With a terrible curse. A terrible, terrible curse had been cursed upon him like a curse. No-one knows why, how, when or why but, since many a year past, the Trav'llin' Nev has been cursed to wander the planet until he finds a town where nobody knows who he is but wherever he goes, his story is already known. Of course, that's the cunningness o' the curse - the more he travels, the more his tale is spread; the more his tale is spread, the further he has to travel to find peace."
The youngsters are spellbound, their glasses sitting untouched, their mouths open in wonderment. No, it can't be true, can it? Is it? A man travelling endlessly around the world only to find he already knows everyone? No...?
"Ah, I see fr'm yer faces we've a coupla disbelievers amoungst ye. Well, feast yer eyes on this...", the old man fishes in the inside pocket of his travelling jacket, a jacket that's circumnavigated the globe a few times now and looks like it could probably do it once more on its own. He pulls out an old wrinkled, faded photograph that's been folded more than a few times and hands it over to the group which now includes the season travellers whose interest had been piqued.
"That, my friends, is the Trav'llin' Nev", he says as he sits back in his chair, a faintly triumphant smile spreading across his lips, and falls asleep.
In other news, I bumped into Nev this week.
