When God Was a Rabbit (26 page)

‘Can I swim?’ was all my brother had said. A question of possibility or safety, I couldn’t fathom which, but I dropped anchor and harnessed us to the sandy floor, a mere twenty feet below.

It was three weeks before Christmas and we’d been blessed with a day of freak sunshine that felt like the start of summer again, a day when the air was warm and unchallenged, and only the lack of bee sounds and leaves on trees placed us in the grip of a much later season. My brother felt the temperature – still in December’s icy grip – and his flesh pimpled as he peeled off the last layer of clothing.

‘Coming in?’ he said.

‘No, thanks,’ I said.

‘Charlie?’ he said, goading him with his eyes.

‘Maybe.’

He dived off the stern and we watched him glide just below the surface like the lone seals that often played along this stretch of coastline. He surfaced spitting sea water and laughter, and it was another first for him. The cold didn’t matter as the sensation gripped his body, another reminder of the return of life, a reminder for
us
to live. I hurriedly peeled off my clothes and beat Charlie to entry, and the cold took my breath away as I swam below into the sandy green depth, my eyes adjusting to the quiet lone world below. I remembered the first time I discovered this world – I must have been ten – eleven, maybe – and I wore a wet suit stuffed with rocks to weigh me down. Now as I sat on the rippled seabed, I looked up and was sure I saw their legs entwined above me. But the water could play tricks. Things distorted, things magnified; even hopes. My lungs felt tight – I was out of practice – and I swam eagerly to the shimmering line above my head and surfaced away from the boat. I saw them holding on to the rope that hung from the stern. I saw my brother place his hand over Charlie’s hand. I saw him reach towards his mouth and kiss him. I saw their future at last.

We were scattered about that afternoon, embroiled in tasks long kept on hold. My parents were inside creating a new on-line advertisement for their bed and breakfast, now that they felt ready again for guests. Nancy was sitting in a deck chair next to Nelson and me on the lawn, finishing off her screenplay about a Second World War bisexual double agent, which she’d casually entitled ‘Playing for Both Sides’. (A film that would actually go into pre-production the following year, but not, thank goodness, with its working title.) Charlie and Joe were at the bottom of the lawn by the water playing an extreme form of catch. They were throwing it as if it was a rugby ball and launched it high into the air, careful not to let it fall in case it should crack.

I didn’t know why they’d bought it in the first place, all they’d said was that they were cooking that night, cooking authentic Thai curry or something similar, and they needed it because it would make all the difference to the flavour, and so they bought it – the only one in the shop, of course – and now they were playing with it as if it was a rugby ball. It was Joe who threw it that final time, launched it high into the air, and Charlie knew it had gone too far, way before it had passed over his head, and he ran back just as Arthur unexpectedly came out of his cottage. It would have been all right if Arthur had stopped momentarily to tuck in his shirt as he usually did, or if he’d fumbled just that second longer, positioning his cane in front of him, or even if he’d just kept going. But he didn’t. He stopped, sensing something hovering above him, a bird maybe? And as he instinctively looked skywards, a shadow quickly descended upon his head and a smile formed upon his lips, until there was an almighty Crack! and Arthur lay motionless on the floor; a smashed coconut by his side.

Nancy and I got to him first and shouted that he wasn’t breathing. I saw Charlie fumble, look for a phone and then he ran inside. I felt for a pulse; nothing.

‘Try again!’ shouted Joe, running up the slope.

‘He’s dead,’ Nancy whispered to me.

‘Impossible. He can’t be. It should have happened ages ago.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Nancy.

‘This is all wrong.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The
yogi
,’ I said.

‘What
yogi
?’

Suddenly Joe ran over to us. ‘Count me,’ he said. ‘Let me know when I’ve done thirty,’ and we watched as he pumped and willed life back into the bony, unresponsive body. At thirty he bent down and breathed into his mouth, twice. Back up to the chest, thirty. Down to the mouth. Twice. No response.

‘Come on, Arthur,’ I said. ‘Don’t do this now.’

‘Come back to us, Arthur,’ said Nancy. ‘Fuck the yogi.’

Charlie ran out with my parents and took over as Joe sat down exhausted onto the lawn. I counted for Charlie. Thirty; down to the mouth; no response. The sound of an ambulance racing towards us. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

‘Come on, Arthur,’ said my mother. ‘Come on, you can do it.’

‘Come on, honey,’ said Nancy. ‘Breathe, damn it!’

And then all of a sudden, on twenty-seven, I think it was, Arthur coughed, or gasped for air; something that forced his body back to breath. He reached for my hand, and squeezed it frailly; but squeezed it. And just as the paramedics were running across the lawn he looked over at Joe and said, ‘Wipe those tears away, my boy. I’m not dead yet.’

I bent down towards him and said, ‘How did you know he was crying, Arthur?’

And he said, ‘I can see again.’

Everyone told me not to bother, but to wait. Said she’d be out sometime in the New Year. Should have been out before Christmas; I knew that, my father knew that, but the Powers That Be refused. And so I turned up that freezing Wednesday, even though I knew she wouldn’t see me – she never had, even after all these years. But I had to see it out, the pact we’d invisibly made, the one that said I am always here for you, communicated in letters and a newspaper column limping towards its finishing line, screaming for her return.

There was no warmth at all that afternoon, not even in the cab from the station; the heater had broken.

‘Sorry it’s a shit car, miss,’ the young man had said. ‘I can blow on your hands instead, if you like?’

‘I’ll manage,’ I said.

I waited in line holding a small bag of presents, unwrapped, of course – I’d learnt my lesson. I looked behind and saw a young man fidgeting with his phone; they’d take that from him soon enough. I could see it was his first time and usually I kept away from such interactions, but that afternoon I offered him a piece of chocolate, which he gratefully accepted, as much for the sustenance as for the relief of finally having company.

‘First time?’ I said.

‘Can you tell?’

‘Yeah, I’m afraid.’

‘Cold, isn’t it?’

‘Freezing,’ I said and looked at my watch.

‘Who are you visiting?’ he asked.

‘A friend. She’ll be out soon.’

‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘My sister’s in for three years. Just starting.’

‘That sucks.’

‘It does, just before Christmas an’ all,’ he said, and started to stamp his feet. ‘Is it all right for them? Inside, I mean.’

‘Not bad. People tell me there are plenty worse.’

‘That’s good then,’ he said. ‘I’d hate her to be in a shitty place.’

‘She’ll be all right. Most people end up all right.’

The gates opened and the queue moved forwards.

‘Good luck, eh?’ I said as we started to move forwards.

I passed through security effortlessly, but I knew the routine by now and they often smiled at me, or enquired about my health. I was known here, had a reputation, the one who always turned up but was never seen, the subject of so much speculation: I was the jilted lover. The hated family member. The Christian volunteer eager to spread the Word.

The visitors’ hall was warm, for a change. The decorations were the same as last year, faded and dog eared, and they drooped the same way and brought no smile to the Queen as they hung around her frame in a way that verged on treason. I thought about the tree we’d just put up in Cornwall, the one that joined floor to ceiling in a dense mass of green-scented pine. We’d dressed it a couple of days before, and Arthur had climbed the ladder to place the star on top, now that he had one good eye to see out the rest of his days, and to release Nelson to be the simple dog he was.

The women started to come out, and I saw the young man from the queue joined by his sister – she was one of the first to enter – who looked so happy to see him. And then Maggie over to the left; her daughter was wearing a new track suit. They turned to me and waved. I smiled. Maggie reminded me of Grace Mary Goodfield, and I thought again about her wise ways and sensible shoes and the visit she would make to us in February. I thought how well she would have got on with Ginger, Ginger the Brave. I started to write a gift list – a monocle for Arthur, he’d always wanted a monocle – and as I did a shadow fell across my page, a dark looming cloud from outside, or so I thought. I waited a moment for it to pass on but it didn’t, it stayed put.

And when I looked up, she was there.

Gone was the plumpness of those early years, the wild hair she hid her shame behind, the clothes she never grew into. All replaced now by a calm beauty. But the eyes, they were her; the eyes and the smile.

‘Hello, Elly,’ she said.

I stood up and held her. She smelt like she did as a child, she smelt of chips, and suddenly that world opened up once again, a world unlocked by a simple smell, a world we might finally put right; and as I pulled away to look at her again, she handed me a small tissue-wrapped gift.

‘Open it,’ she said. And I did.

There, sitting in the palm of my hand, was the fossil; the coiled impression of the creature from another time.
Nothing stays forgotten for long
.

‘I kept it safe for you.’

The sun was low; orange emanating across the ancient cityscape, burnished by the modern. We were wrapped in blankets, and candles burned on the battered table, emitting strong gusts of tuberose. I watched her looking out over the rooftops, over the meat market and the people below, and I thought of the path that had brought us here, of the strange day of reconnection six years ago, when her card arrived and pulled me onto her journey. She turned round and smiled. Pointed to the horizon.

‘Look, Elly, it’s almost gone.’

‘Ready to say goodbye?’ I said.

‘Ready,’ she said, and sat back down next to me. I handed her the computer and she started to type.

Acknowledgements

This book could not have been written without the love and encouragement of so many people.

I’d like to thank Mum, Simon and Cathy for a lifetime of support and making so much possible, and to my dear friends here and abroad who have helped along the way; especially Sharon Hayman and David Lumsden for the best years shared. Thank you, Sarah Thomson, for being such a trusted and erudite reader.

My gratitude always to Eamonn Bedford for taking a chance on me when few would, and for introducing me to Robert Caskie – literary agent, friend, unsurpassed in both roles. Thank you for your guidance, Mr Caskie.

My thanks to Leah Woodburn, my editor, for making this a better book, and to all at Headline Review for their overwhelming support and enthusiasm.

Thank you, Patsy, for everything.

1

The Covenant was released earlier that year, 1975, and enjoyed a cult following due to a fetishistic sex scene in a crypt. It was directed by B. B. Barole, a young man tipped for stardom, until he was tipped over the edge by acid.

2

Raining in my Heart was a 1983 Australian film set on an outback farm brought to its knees by a desperate drought.