The Constant Rabbit Page 15
‘Dad,’ she said, giving me the look Helena gave me when I had not the slightest chance of winning an argument, ‘parental orders worked when I was thirteen. They don’t any more. If you have a genuine grievance, I’m all ears – if not, I’m going.’
I thought for a moment.
‘OK – but if asked, use your mother’s surname.’
She paused for a moment, then said:
‘If it makes you happy.’
‘It makes me happy.’
A car horn sounded outside, and Pippa gave me a cheery wave, dumped her coat and bag on her lap and was out of the door in a flash. I followed her outside, where Bobby was standing beside another large American car that I learned later was a Chevy Impala, probably from the seventies. It was a licensed RabCab in the usual orange and green livery, and the uniformed driver, I noted, was a male Labstock, features partly hidden behind dark glasses. He climbed out to assist Pippa into the car, and as I stood there feeling worried and silly and fathery, the low sunlight caught his long and elegant ears, and my heart missed a beat.
He had the pattern of capillaries in the shape of a squashed Tudor rose in his left ear.
He was John Flopsy 7770. There, in the fur, right in front of me. Living, breathing.
Shit.
While I was rooted to the spot wondering what to do, he returned to the driver’s door, then turned and, seeing me staring at him, lowered his dark glasses and winked at me with the click of his tongue. He then climbed into the car and a few seconds later they were off in a sedate manner down the lane.
I took a mental note of the number plate as they drove away, then waited until the car was out of sight before hurrying indoors. Always assume that if you can see a rabbit, they can see you. I ran into the kitchen, picked up my mobile and dialled the RabCoT Crisis Room, which was on Speed Dial One disguised as ‘Aunt Vera’. All I needed to do was to pass them the details of the car and the duty sergeant would be on to it. Given the importance of this particular Flopsy, there would doubtless be a hard stop before they even got as far as Hereford.
I gave the controller my name and employee number, and they asked me, as was standard practice, to answer ‘that’s right’ if I was being coerced or had in any way been compromised. I told them I wasn’t and hadn’t.
‘Pass your message.’
I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it again. Since Flopsy 7770 had been flagged by Lugless as ‘seditious’, ‘highly wanted’ and a ‘serious bounce risk’ there would quite likely be weapons involved in the hard stop – and Pippa was in the car.
‘Oh,’ I said, trying to think quickly, ‘wrong number. I actually need to speak to Human Resources. I’m not going to be in work tomorrow.’
‘It’s Sunday tomorrow.’
‘Monday, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll call them in the morning. Monday morning.’
The duty officer asked me again whether I was OK, then, satisfied I was either an idiot or drunk or quite possibly both, rang off.
I put the phone down and leaned on the edge of the kitchen table, trying to calm down. Pippa was just going to a rabbit party with Bobby and Sally. She’d been to dodgier parties with worse people. Pippa was sensible. She’d text me if she needed anything. And as for Flopsy 7770, he was a RabCab driver. All journeys were logged. I’d have his name first thing Monday.
I wandered into the living room and watched Mastercook on the telly, which featured, unusually, a bright-eyed Wetstock named Sue Patton Rabbit. She apparently ran a fashionable bakery in Brick Lane called Empire of the Bun, although I hadn’t heard of it until now.
‘Well, Sue,’ said Greg, ‘what will you be cooking for us tonight?’
‘I thought I’d start with carrot three-way,’ she said a little nervously, her ears covered by a tall chef’s hat, ‘with a carrot jus, carrot crumble and quintuple fried baby carrot.’
‘OK,’ said Greg, ‘and for the dessert?’
‘Carrot soufflé,’ said Sue, ‘with a caramelised carrot sauce and crumbed carrot sprinkles.’
‘Hmm,’ said Greg, ‘you don’t think that the taste of carrot might dominate the meal?’
‘I’m counting on it.’
‘OK – you’ve got sixty minutes to make your dream a reality.’
Sue carefully chose her ingredients from nineteen separate carrot varieties, and then started chopping.
‘You don’t wash off the earth?’ asked Greg, peering over her shoulder as she prepared the carrots.
‘It adds a little frisson to the three-way,’ said Sue. ‘My sister likes to throw in an earthworm or two for good measure but she was always a little bit crazy like that.’
Just then, the doorbell rang. Not on the telly, obviously, but for real.
It was Toby.
‘She’s out with Sally and Bobby,’ I told him when he asked whether Pippa was in.
‘Sally and who?’
‘Bobby Rabbit,’ I said, ‘who lives next door. They’ve gone to a party.’
‘She’s gone to a bunny bop with Sally and a buck rabbit?’
‘Bobby’s a girl,’ I said, ‘short for Roberta. Like in The Railway Children.’
‘Ah – Jenny Agutter.’
‘That’s the one. And look, even if away from work, we should actually say rabbits these days. “Bunnies” isn’t—’
‘Yeah, I know. Political correctness gone completely bonkers. They are bunnies in the same way that we are humans. Besides, they call us “Fudds”, which is equally offensive and basically just reverse specism.’
‘I’m not sure that it is.’
‘What isn’t? The offensiveness or the reverse specism?’
‘Both. I think it’s a false equivalency.’
He shrugged.
‘Whatever. I never knew Pippa was friendly with rabbits.’
There was a perjorative lilt to the ‘friendly with rabbits’ comment. It was one of those British phrases, along with ‘May I help you?’, that can be either exceedingly polite or hugely aggressive.
‘Pippa is friendly with anyone who wants to be friendly with her,’ I said.
‘She might have told me she was going out,’ he said. ‘I’d turned down several parties to be with her.’
There was a sense of Pippa ownership about him that I suddenly didn’t much like. His politics had always been suspect, and he wasn’t much fun as a co-worker. Actually, he was a pain in the arse. Rarely got the teas, endlessly cozied up to Whizelle and Flemming and never did a Danish-and-decent-coffee takeout run to Ascari’s. In an instant, I decided that I no longer wished to give him the benefit of the doubt in the likeability stakes.
‘I’ll pass on your comments,’ I said, now wondering when Pippa was going to dump him, and whether I could devise any strategies to assist in that direction. He paused for a moment, jangling his keys in his pocket with indecision.
‘Is there anything else?’ I asked.
‘May Hill, right?’
He didn’t really need to ask. The next-closest colony would be Bodmin. So after bidding me good evening, he departed.
When I’d made some coffee and got back to Mastercook, Greg was trying out Sue Rabbit’s meal.
‘I’ll be truthful,’ he said, ‘I’m not a big fan of carrots, but there are a host of warm subtleties that play off one another in an unexpectedly exciting way.’
All the guest chefs had similar comments, which were delivered in a state of shocked bewilderment. I got the impression that Sue Rabbit had been brought in to tick some boxes somewhere, and wasn’t expected to go anywhere in the contest.
‘That is quite, quite brilliant,’ said Greg, tasting the carrot soufflé, which collapsed beneath his spoon with a contented sigh, ‘although perhaps a little more sugar.’
Sue Rabbit easily made it through to the next round, and I then fell asleep while watching the director’s cut of While You Were Sleeping, and was woken by a car door banging and the unmistakable burble of a large V8 engine. I looked at the clock. It was two in the mornin
g. The front door creaked open; we never locked it.
‘Still up?’ asked Pippa once I’d walked to the hall.
‘I fell asleep in front of the TV.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, realising I’d stayed up for her. ‘I would have texted but my phone got stolen.’
I leaned down to give her a hug. She smelled of soil, brandy and dandelion tobacco.
‘Not a problem,’ I said. ‘Hello, Sally.’
‘Hello, Mishter Knoxsh,’ slurred Sally, who was leaning against the door frame, much the worse for wear and with her skirt on backwards.
‘So,’ I said, ‘anyone want tea?’
‘No thanks,’ said Pippa, and made for her room, pushing Sally in front of her with a foot. ‘Sal needs a shower and then we’re going to bed. We’ll tell you all about it during breakfast.’
‘I’d like to pre-order a bucket of coffee,’ mumbled Sally, ‘and a paracetamol the size of a dustbin lid.’
I waited until I heard the shower turn on, then called Mrs Lomax to tell her Sally was OK and she could pick her up tomorrow. We’d actually spoken three times that evening already. She’d suggested coming over with a Lancashire hotpot that was ‘way too much for one’. This wasn’t the first time she’d proposed a cosy late-night tête-à-tête since Mr Lomax passed away, and it wasn’t the first time I’d quietly refused, even though Pippa and Sally had both suggested on numerous occasions I invite her around. ‘You won’t be disappointed,’ Sally had told me in a comment not really awash with ambiguity.
‘Colony One?’ Mrs Lomax had said when I’d told her where they were going. Traditionally, she had little to no idea of what her daughter got up to. Sally was the same age as Pippa, and Mrs Lomax, like me, often had difficulty coming to terms with the fact that the little girls we remembered so fondly were now fully grown-up women who did fully grown-up woman things.
Tittle-Tattle and Toast
Buttons are tricky for rabbits to manage with paws; zips ditto. Velcro would be usable, but is regarded by rabbits as: ‘a hideously inelegant method of clothes fastening’. Buttons can be done up by them, but it’s a two-rabbit job and requires specialist tools. The human equivalent would be ‘trying to mend an aneroid barometer in boxing gloves’.
The following morning over coffee they told me about the previous evening. Rabbit parties, I learned, were pretty wild. There was loud music, booze, fights, impassioned political discourse, more fights, more music, more booze – and a lot of sex, usually in cosy side burrows at regular intervals. But it was the music that impressed Pippa the most.
‘It’s kind of like swing and jazz and mambo all at the same time,’ she said, ‘and played with such gusto. The trombonist actually died of a brain haemorrhage during his solo and the next number was dedicated to him – then everything just carried on as before. They have a zest for life that we don’t possess; as though they need to pack as much fun and good living into their lives as possible.’
‘Rabbits have high mortality issues what with disease, foxes, industrial accidents and trombone solos,’ said Sally, who was now wearing dark glasses, avoiding all sudden movements and speaking in a quiet voice, ‘so have to live life to the full, just in case.’
‘Makes sense, I guess,’ I said. ‘What’s it like inside Colony One?’
‘Like you see on the documentaries,’ said Pippa, ‘centred around May Hill but mostly below ground, and highly ordered. Tidy, neat, zero crime and not a speck of litter anywhere. We were in a subterranean club called The Cottontail Club. While everyone danced bits of dry earth fell from the ceiling. I asked Bobby about whether there were ever any collapses, and she said there were – frequently – but they just burrowed themselves out, and to keep close to her, just in case.’
‘So she looked after you?’ I asked.
‘She was great. Sally and I were being given some verbal over the ecological impact of our toxic anthropocentric agenda, and Bobby led a robust discussion group in which we concluded that the notion of “ownership” needs to give way to “custodianship”, and that individuals must shoulder responsibility for groupcrime – even if they do not know they are doing it or even agree with it – and should atone for their de facto complicity by working ever harder to effect change, and consider restorative justice options. It was quite humbling, but empowering, too.’
‘Can you stop talking so loudly?’ said Sally. ‘Or just stop talking? I’m really not feeling so well.’
I poured her a glass of water and put it next to her. She groaned, and took the tiniest of sips.
‘Who drove you in?’ I asked as casually as I could. ‘Was that a RabCab?’
‘An ex-boyfriend of Bobby’s named Harvey,’ replied Pippa.
It was the sort of information I really didn’t want to hear. A rabbit’s social circle was immensely strong, inclusive and supportive. If Harvey was an ex of Bobby’s, he’d know Doc and Connie well, too – and I knew how the Taskforce worked, and how everyone could be implicated.
‘Bobby and Harvey are still good friends,’ said Pippa, ‘Harvey was there at the club with us.’
‘Really?’ I said.
‘Yes. He and Bobs and two others were talking about how they could suspend the Rehoming of Rabbits Act until a Pan-European Humanlike Rights panel can discuss and advise on the Rabbit Equality Issue.’
‘Sometimes I think that was why Nigel Smethwick was so glad for us to leave the EU,’ I said, trying hard not to think about Harvey, ‘so no one could legally challenge the UK’s record over rabbit rights and the introduction of the maximum wage.43’
‘Give equal rights to rabbits and it makes no sense not to give it to cows,’ murmured Sally, face firmly planted on the tablecloth, ‘or horses or bats or sheep. That’s the bigger issue here. The inherent rights of all life to enjoy the bounteous fruits of the biosphere – and not in a shared, abstract sense – but as a unifying concept for sentient life.’
She then groaned and said she felt she wanted to die, but somewhere glamorous, like Powys.
‘Why Powys?’ I asked. ‘It’s a pretty county, but I’d hardly call it glamorous.’
‘Not Powys,’ said Sally, face still flat on the tablecloth, ‘Paris. Excuse me.’
And she got up and fast-staggered out of the room in the direction of the toilet. I turned back to Pippa, who was staring at me.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
She looked down and traced the pattern on the tablecloth with her finger.
‘You, working for the Taskforce. Do you really think that’s a good idea?’
Conversations about the Rabbit Equality Issue always led to discussion of the Compliance Taskforce. She’d probably talked about it a lot with Bobby and Harvey the previous evening.
‘I’m a junior accountant, darling, an infinitesimally small cog. I’m not leporiphobic; my employer is irrelevant to me.’
I got up and walked to the sink with my empty cup in order to hide the hot flush that had risen in my cheeks. There was another pause and I heard Pippa take a deep breath.
‘Dad,’ she said, ‘you don’t know the first thing about accountancy. You can barely add. You’re a Spotter. You ID rabbits for the Taskforce. I’ve known for years.’
‘What? Oh – well, yes,’ I said, then to cover for the lie, I lied again: ‘We’re forbidden to tell family members for security reasons.’
The hot flush in my face deepened, and I stood there at the sink, my back to Pippa, speechless. I felt ashamed of working there and of lying, but the short exchange also made me feel, well, relieved.
‘I don’t guide policy,’ I said, still with my back to her, ‘or undertake any anti-rabbit activities personally. I just recognise rabbits for forty hours a week, and check they’re being honest. If they were honest to begin with, I wouldn’t have a job. Besides,’ I added, trying to normalise my position through repetition, ‘given that I’m unusual in wanting to do my job properly, I’m actually a net positive to the whole issue. If I didn’t do it, there�
�d only be someone far worse in control.’
‘Hmm,’ said Pippa.
‘It helped with you, too,’ I added, ‘we always needed a little extra. Putting in a wet room and your bedroom downstairs, that sort of stuff.’
‘Don’t put this on me,’ she said, her temper rising. ‘I can do stairs if I want – and a bath too, at a pinch. Is Toby one too?’
I paused, then nodded.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that makes it easier to dump—’
‘You need more toilet paper,’ said Sally, lurching back into the room, ‘and you may want to put the hand towel in the laundry.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
With Sally present the conversation moved on, and she was picked up by her mother soon after. But instead of the usual touching of her pearls, shy smiles and oblique references to her underused timeshare in Palafrugell ‘with a view of the sea from the bedroom’, Mrs Lomax glared at me savagely – as though it were entirely my fault that Sally was in a state.
After that, Pippa went to do an online training course on how to spot evidence of radicalisation amongst rabbits in the workplace, and I, since it was a Sunday, to wash the car and mow the grass. I did both on autopilot, wondering whether I should tell Lugless about Harvey’s identity. The only really good news about recent events was that Toby now had a greatly reduced chance of becoming my son-in-law. But if Pippa had known for years I was a Spotter, it wouldn’t take Connie too long to figure it out.
The rabbits were also out in the garden. Major Rabbit had his jacket off and was digging the lawn into neat furrows. Every now and then he would stop and mop his brow with a red-spotted handkerchief, which was pretty pointless as rabbits, being fur-bearing, don’t sweat. Connie, by contrast, was sitting on a sun lounger in the tiniest bikini imaginable while reading a copy of Ludlow Vogue. Her figure, like those of nearly all female anthropomorphised rabbits, was very humanlike, with bulges and curves in all the right places. By the way in which the post-church-service pedestrians slowed down as they walked past, I wasn’t the only one who thought this. It wasn’t long before the Malletts turned up.