The Constant Rabbit Page 17

  For a change I decided to use the café in All Saints church so sauntered over there, ordered a coffee and panini and sat down. I opened my copy of the Smugleftie. Most papers relegated rabbit news to page five or six if they covered rabbit stories at all, and today, I turned there first. The articles mostly covered overcrowding in the colonies, the ballooning costs of MegaWarren and the worryingly broad remit of Rehoming legislation.

  ‘Panini and a coffee?’ said the waitress, placing the items on my table. I thanked her and she hopped back to the kitchens.

  I read on and learned that Smethwick was already six months ahead of schedule with MegaWarren and the planned Rabbit Rehoming Initiative. The site, after protracted and delicate negotiations with the Welsh Assembly, was just south of the Elan Valley and sandwiched between the reservoir complex and Rhayader itself, an ideal location as the disused railway from Builth could be easily relaid to allow ease of transportation for the million or so rabbits who would live there. At close to ten thousand acres and with a seventeen-mile perimeter fence – or wall, if they could get the rabbit to pay for it – MegaWarren would be large enough, Smethwick said, ‘to provide a lasting, workable and cost-effective answer to the pressing rabbit issue once and for all, but not so large as to encourage irresponsible levels of reproduction’.

  I was interrupted in my paper-reading reverie by a high-pitched peal of laughter that I recognised instantly. Connie Rabbit had just walked into the café with a friend. They were both carrying shopping bags, and were dressed in the ‘Moneyed Outdoor’ look of Hunter wellies, tweed shooting jackets and flat caps precariously perched between their ears. The conversation in the café muted for a few moments as they entered, then started up again, but in a lower tone, most likely commentary on their attire and overtly strident speech and manner. Connie and her friend seemed not to notice and ordered a skinny chai latte and a green salad each, then sat at a newly vacated table. I hunched lower and raised my newspaper. I’d be happier not to be recognised by her, not here in All Saints.

  Connie and her friend spoke loudly and not at all guardedly, and at one point described their recent sexual exploits in perhaps a little too much detail for the clientele. Several couples near by moved away, and after a few minutes the manager appeared and had a quiet word. To their credit, both Connie and her companion complied, and just as the room had got used to their presence she noticed me.

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Peter!’ she said in a loud voice. ‘Over here!’

  The room turned to see who they might be talking to. I tried to hide behind my copy of the Smugleftie but the newspaper had moved from broadsheet to tabloid format, which made it difficult to hide behind. Providence is guided by such quirks of fate. After realising that hiding was useless, I looked up, pretended to recognise her and strode over. Connie rose rapidly and hugged me fondly then planted a kiss on both cheeks, right there in front of everyone. While I confess being hugged and kissed by Connie Rabbit was not wholly unwelcome, I would have been more comfortable with no one watching.

  ‘This is Peter,’ said Connie to her friend in a loud voice, ‘about the only human I’ve ever really liked. We go back a ways. Peter, this is my twelfth cousin on my father’s aunt’s son’s daughter’s boyfriend’s aunt’s daughter’s side: Diane Rabbit. We grew up in adjoining burrows in Colony Three.’

  ‘We shagged our way off-colony,’ said Diane, who seemed to be drunk.

  ‘Oh, Diane,’ said Connie with a mildly embarrassed laugh, ‘you are a one.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, offering my hand for her to shake. She looked me up and down as you might regard a haunch of meat.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Diane, who smelled strongly of dandelion brandy, ‘this one is quite good-looking in a small-eared sort of way.’

  The café was listening to every word, and I could hear the other diners making derisive comments to one another about me, which somehow seemed manifestly unfair – I was getting more flak for being friends with a rabbit than Connie and her noisy friend seemed to be getting for actually being rabbits. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable, and I didn’t like it.

  ‘I’m trespassing on your time,’ I said, and made to leave.

  Connie didn’t answer and instead suddenly stood stock-still, whiskers trembling.

  ‘Diane,’ she said between clenched teeth, ‘oxfay at the oorday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oxfay at the oorday,’ she repeated, then, because Diane wasn’t getting it: ‘Fox – at the door.’

  I turned and noted that Mr Ffoxe, the Senior Group Leader, was indeed at the door, holding a copy of the popular periodical for foxes, Fox and Friends. He walked over to the counter to order and it didn’t look as though he’d noticed us.

  ‘I’m so outta here,’ said Diane, ears completely flat on her back. She turned to walk away and in her panic momentarily lapsed to lolloping on all fours like a standard rabbit, before she managed to regain her dignity to stand on two feet and then walk briskly away.

  ‘What’s the panic?’ I asked. ‘You’re legal.’

  ‘Foxes don’t give a limp lettuce for legality,’ whispered Connie. ‘The government putting foxes in charge of rabbits is like – I don’t know – putting a fox in charge of a henhouse.’

  She paused.

  ‘That idiom doesn’t really quite work, does it?’

  She indicated the table and asked me to join her.

  ‘I should be getting back to—’

  ‘Please?’

  She looked sort of desperate, so I sat down opposite. Diane had spilled a milk jug on the table earlier, and it had dripped on the chair, so I suddenly had a damp behind.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘is that the Diane who was caught off-colony and you had to bail out?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Connie, keeping a watchful eye on Mr Ffoxe. ‘She’s just been appropriated by a better husband. The duel was this morning, so we’ve been celebrating since then. I’m not sure duelling with pistols is the best way to sort it out, but they are quite fun – one of the odder things carried over from you after the Event.’

  ‘What do you think caused it?’

  ‘Diane’s appropriation? Boredom, probably.’

  ‘I meant the Event.’

  It was an oft-asked question, but instead of the usual shrug, she thought for a moment and said:

  ‘Since there were dramatic portents before the Event occurred – snow flurries, power surges, green sunsets, electrical storms, a full moon, dogs howling for no reason – perhaps scientists should reframe the question from how it happened to why it happened.’

  It was a good point. Behavioural psychologists had recently suggested that because the consequences of the Event seemed to highlight areas of the human social experience that perhaps needed greater exploration, understanding and some kind of concerted action, it was possible that searching for a physical reason for all of this was actually missing the point. Although once a fringe idea, the notion that the Event might have been satirically induced was gaining wider acceptance.

  ‘The Event does have all the trappings of satire,’ I said, ‘although somewhat clumsy in execution.’

  ‘We live in unsubtle times,’ said Connie. ‘I think—’

  ‘Well, well,’ came a low voice close at hand. ‘May I join your cosy little tête-à-tête?’

  It was Torquil Ffoxe. His copy of Fox and Friends was folded open at an article entitled ‘The lightning neck-break: your questions answered’ and he was holding a large cappuccino. I couldn’t be sure but he looked as though he were inhaling deeply to take in Connie’s earthy aroma. If so, it was to his liking, as his lips were wet with saliva. The neighbouring table found him repulsive and hurriedly left, but other diners found his politics sound enough to stay. They were curious, too. Foxes and rabbits were rarely seen together without some kind of conflict taking place, and I think a couple at the back were secretly taking bets with the diners next to them as to how many minutes before Connie’s skull was crus
hed.

  ‘Why don’t you join us?’ said Connie in an even tone, although I could feel her leg under the table shake nervously. Mr Ffoxe looked at me, then Connie, then sat down in the chair I had recently vacated to make room for him.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I appear to have sat on something wet.’

  ‘Diane spilt the soya milk,’ I said.

  ‘Who’s Diane?’ asked Mr Ffoxe.

  ‘Mrs Rabbit’s twelfth cousin on her father’s aunt’s sister’s daughter’s … Nope,’ I said, ‘I’ve forgotten the rest.’

  ‘I wasn’t interested anyway,’ said Mr Ffoxe. ‘Now Peter, aren’t you going to introduce me to your little bunny friend?’

  ‘I’m not sure “bun—”’

  ‘Your bunny friend,’ said Mr Ffoxe again, ‘introduce her to me.’

  I swallowed nervously. Even having a passing acquaintance to a fox spoke bundles about a person – and it was rarely, if ever, a proud boast.

  ‘Mr Ffoxe, this is Mrs Constance Grace Rabbit, my next-door neighbour. Mrs Rabbit, Mr Torquil Featherstonehaugh45 Ffoxe, Senior Group Leader, Colony One.’

  Mr Ffoxe narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Have we met?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said in a loud, clear voice, ‘but you told that scum at TwoLegsGood where they could find Dylan Rabbit, my husband. They came round and jugged him in front of the children.’

  He stared at her for a moment in silence, then said in a measured tone:

  ‘That is a disgusting and baseless accusation which does you no credit and for which you should be ashamed. Besides, it was never proven, and neither were any of the others.’

  ‘Others?’

  ‘Alleged others. Nemo sine vitio est.46’

  I saw Connie narrow her eyes and a sense of hardy resolve seemed to fall across her like a shadow.

  ‘It’s not the only time you and I have connected,’ she said. ‘Four years ago you murdered my niece for being caught off-colony two minutes before curfew and four miles away.’

  ‘She never would have made it home in time, and I’m sure you have many, many nieces. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘This: you crushed her head in your jaws, but didn’t finish the job. It took her nine hours to die.’

  ‘I don’t recall the incident,’ said Mr Ffoxe, ‘but then I retire a lot of rabbits so it’s tricky to remember individual cases. Most shiver with fright and shit themselves before I deal with them – and none try to resist. What evolutionary value is there in a species that won’t lift a paw to defend itself? There’s hunter, and there’s hunted. It’s the way of things.’

  Connie said nothing and instead picked up Mr Ffoxe’s cappuccino and then, slowly and deliberately, poured it out on to the floor next to us. The entire café was staring at us in horrified silence by now, and the expectation of sudden violence seemed to fill the air like a damp fog. When she was done, Connie placed the cup gently back on the saucer and stared at Mr Ffoxe defiantly.

  ‘Happy?’ he asked.

  ‘No, but it’ll do for now. Say, is that a little bit of mange on your neck?’

  The café, which I thought had already taken about as sharp an intake of breath as possible over the spilled coffee, took another. It was a grossly inflammatory comment, and one that I had not thought that anyone would ever dare make. The thing was, Mr Ffoxe did have a patch of mange on his neck, half covered by his silk cravat. We’d known about it in the office for a while, but foxes, notoriously sensitive over their orange fur and oddly small paws, usually took badly to anyone raising the subject. This time was no exception, and he lunged forward, mouth open, teeth bared. In my eagerness to get away I instinctively pushed away from the table and went sailing over backwards to land entangled with my chair in a painful heap on the floor. I struggled to my feet, expecting to find Connie’s neck limp and broken, but instead she’d produced a large pearl-handled flick-knife and had it pressed against Mr Ffoxe’s throat.

  While this was an interesting impasse and doubtless not seen before in All Saints, Mr Ffoxe had the legal upper hand. He could kill her now using the ‘natural prey’ defence and just go and order another cappuccino. On the other hand, Connie would have to cope with serious reprisals if she harmed him. She’d certainly be dead – and probably tortured47 first – and after that, not the usual hundred rabbits would lose their lives, but ten times that given his seniority. It would be friends and relatives and certainly include Doc, Kent, Bobby and any rabbit whom she knew particularly well. Violent reprisal was a strategy that worked well; not a single rabbit had killed a fox for nearly twenty-five years. Foxes were bad news and rabbits hoped them dead – but not at any price. You couldn’t, once again, outfox the fox. But oddly, there was a factor in Connie’s favour: most foxes were loath to kill a rabbit if there wasn’t a fee involved. ‘It would be like Tom Jones singing in the shower,’ quipped one fox, ‘a waste of money.’

  ‘You know what?’ said Mr Ffoxe. ‘I’m finding you curiously appealing.’

  ‘The feeling’s not mutual,’ said Connie.

  The fox’s eyes flickered dangerously and several drops of saliva fell from the tip of his canines and dripped on to the tablecloth. I knew I had to say something. Foxes never backed down, and Connie, well, I think she was made of pretty stern stuff too – and had a flick-knife. Foxes don’t like blades any more than they like foxhounds and shouts of ‘tally ho!’.

  ‘Well, this has been fun,’ I said in a trembling voice, clapping my hands together loudly. ‘I must get back to work, and Mrs Rabbit – weren’t you going to meet Diane at the cathedral to show her the Mappa Mundi?’

  I think they were both relieved at my intervention. Connie slowly withdrew the knife and folded it up without taking her eyes off Mr Ffoxe, then gathered up her bags and mobile phone.

  ‘Another time, Fox,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, for sure,’ he replied. ‘We’ll meet again – and what’s more, you’ll beg me to make it quick. Your defiance will make the chase that much more enjoyable, the struggle so much more alluring, the defiling and death that much sweeter.’

  Connie stared at him with cold defiance, then walked to the door with a slow, confident stride. She’d not blinked in the presence of a fox, and I couldn’t help but feel there was a sense of the warrior about her. I’d seen it before, years ago – her unyielding strength of purpose – but never quite been able to articulate what I’d felt.

  The café, for its part, breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to whatever it was doing. Coffee, I think, and banal chit-chat not quite so banal as before.

  ‘We’ll talk about this later, Knox,’ said Mr Ffoxe, glaring at me. ‘No rabbit is going to call me mangy and get away with it – unless,’ he said, having a sudden thought, ‘she had amorous intentions. You know what they say, how every rabbit secretly wants a fox?’

  ‘It was probably more to do with you leaking her husband’s name to the 2LG and murdering her niece.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said reflectively, ‘that might make her a little miffed, mightn’t it?’

  ‘I think so. Why didn’t you kill her?’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ he said airily, ‘as sure as night follows day. But there’s a time and a place for everything – and while All Saints would probably tolerate a killing, the dismembering I had planned might not go down too well, and having one without the other is like a Spice Girls reunion without Posh. Besides, I’ve just had this suit dry-cleaned.’

  He smiled and gave me a wink.

  ‘Oh, and thanks for your intervention, old chum. Well timed.’

  He picked up his copy of Fox and Friends and went to get another coffee.

  ‘Nice friends you have,’ said the couple next to me.

  ‘At least I have some,’ I replied, failing utterly to think of a suitably sarcastic retort.

  ‘The only safe fast breeder is a nuclear reactor,’ said a young man on another table, parroting a favourite slogan of Hominid Supremacists – an intellectual step up from the usual rallyi
ng cry of ‘Where dat pesky wabbit?’

  I was still trembling when I got back to the office. I found Lugless in the kitchenette, where he’d just made a cup of Ovaltine and was adding a slug of Jack Daniels. He didn’t hear me at the door – owing to the lack of ears, I guess – and I heard him muttering to himself: ‘Keep it together, Douglas, keep it together.’ I stopped, then very carefully moved away, just in case he reacted badly to me catching him in a state that presumably he did not wish to be found. I returned to my desk in the office and he rejoined me soon after, speaking on his mobile.

  ‘The suspect was working as a researcher for that turd Finkle over at RabSAg, Group Leader,’ he said, ‘but had something to impart: the Bunty is definitely in Colony One. Yes,’ he said, after a pause, ‘I will keep on trying, but the ones with good intel rarely come off-colony. We need to do a crime sweep, or simply pull them out during the Rehoming process … I will, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  He hung up, glared at me, then started to write out a report. If the Venerable Bunty was confirmed as being in Colony One, then that would be a matter of considerable interest. With her in custody, the Rehoming could go very smoothly indeed.

  ‘How was lunch?’ asked Lugless. ‘My therapist says I need to engage socially whether I like it or not.’

  ‘Eventful,’ I replied.

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘Bad.’

  I wasn’t kidding. Of all the thoughts churning around inside me – from having seen a rabbit momentarily better a fox, to Connie revealing that I was one of the only humans she ever liked and Mr Ffoxe’s admission that he routinely murdered rabbits or leaked their details to TwoLegsGood – there was another, more relevant fact dominating my concerns: Doc and Connie might be wondering who their next-door neighbour actually was, and just why, precisely, a Senior Group Leader knew me by name. Discovering my part in Dylan Rabbit’s death would surely not be far behind, and I didn’t think Connie would take kindly to me being complicit in her second husband’s death. Worse, Mr Ffoxe’s run-in with Connie and his request for me to keep them under observation indicated that Connie and Doc were rabbits of interest. If I’d been a rabbit, I’d work hard to ensure I wasn’t remotely interesting to a fox – especially one like Ffoxe.