The Constant Rabbit

Toby’s Torn T-shirt

Traditionally, carrots were a treat, not a staple, and aside from garden raids and compost heaps, unknown to Wildstock before the Event. While they are harmless in small amounts, overindulgence can lead to issues very similar to alcoholism in humans.

Toby had a lost and empty appearance about him. His T-shirt looked as if it had been pulled through brambles with him still inside as it was badly ripped and his torso was criss-crossed with scratches. His face was streaked with dried dirt, the mud in his blond hair made it look brown, and there was a large and very purple bruise on the side of his head which had partially closed his bloodshot left eye.

‘Toby?’ I said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I have never been better,’ he said, holding on to the door frame to steady himself.

‘You don’t look it. How did you get that bruise?’

‘I walked into a tree,’ he replied unconvincingly.

‘And the scratches?’

‘A … thorny tree.’

‘You know everyone’s looking for you?’

‘I guessed they might be,’ he muttered. ‘Is Pippa in?’

‘She’s gone to the flicks.’

‘Oh,’ he said, then: ‘Will you tell her that I’m sorry and that I’m not worthy? Despite strict RabCoT employment guidelines I’ve been a paid-up member of TwoLegsGood for the past seven years. I’ve hounded twenty-eight rabbits out of their houses and I am most definitely leporiphobic. I’ve also cheated on Pippa several times, usually with Arabella down at the pony club, but there were others.’

None of this was hugely surprising, but it was important he’d been returned. For Toby, obviously, but more importantly, it meant Mr Ffoxe had no justification for initiating a crime sweep through Colony One – and that Bobby definitely had connections to the Underground. I asked Toby whether he wanted to come in and sit down.

‘Better not,’ he said, glancing at the Rabbits’ house next door. ‘I’ve got to go home and explain where I’ve been.’

‘And where have you been?’

‘Oh. Er … on a monumental two-day bender. And visiting my aunt. Nowhere near Colony One, if I knew where it was – which I don’t.’

‘Everyone knows where it is,’ I said. ‘It’s been there years.’

‘Has it?’ he said unconvincingly. ‘Just goes to show.’

He looked around nervously and lowered his voice.

‘They know my every move. They have watchers. Even in the dark. Especially in the dark. It’s those carrots, you know. Will you tell Pippa it’s all over and I’m not worthy? It was one of the conditions of my release that I say that.’

‘I’ll tell her. What were the other conditions?’

‘That I resign from RabCoT, donate my worldly possessions to rabbit charities and then join a monastery and devote my life to prayer and silent contemplation.’

‘Very worthy,’ I said, not imagining for one minute that Toby was monk material.

Relieved at this, he staggered back to his car, which was so muddy it looked as though it had been buried, abandoned, then dug up and hastily cleaned with a yard broom. He fumbled with the key and then fell over, so I walked across, hauled him to his feet, pushed him into the car and drove him the half-mile back to his home, a large Elizabethan half-timbered house, one of the finest in the village.

I rang the doorbell while Toby sat dejectedly on the seat inside the porch. As soon as Mrs Mallett opened the door Toby went into a long and borderline coherent explanation of the ‘bender’ he had allegedly been on, interspersed with sobs and apologies and declarations of how much he’d missed them all, and how he was quitting the Compliance Taskforce and renouncing his membership of TwoLegsGood, even if that meant returning the funny hat and two-handled paddle used in his initiation.

The second Mrs Mallett was clearly relieved her stepson had reappeared, but without a huge amount of enthusiasm. After a few moments Victor Mallett appeared and demanded to know where I’d found him. I explained what I knew, and he looked at Toby, the state he was in, then the state of his car.

‘Kidnapped by friends of yours?’ he demanded. ‘Those sodding rabbits?’

‘I don’t know anything more than what I’ve just told you.’

Victor took a step forward. He was taller than me, a lot stronger and very intimidating.

‘If I ever find out you had a hand in his kidnapping, Knox,’ he said, ‘my revenge will be terrible. Do you understand me?’

‘I had nothing—’

‘Do you understand me?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand you.’

‘Good.’

And he slammed the door in my face. There was a pause, the door reopened, they bundled Toby inside, then slammed the door again. I waited for the door to reopen for the third time and then handed them Toby’s car keys.

As soon as I got home I went immediately into the kitchen.

‘It was Toby,’ I said outside the cupboard door, ‘and he looks as though he’s been beaten up and held captive by rabbits before being released, probably because they found out he was with the Taskforce, and they didn’t want a colony crime sweep.’

Connie didn’t answer.

‘What troubles me,’ I continued, ‘is that we mention to Bobby that Toby is missing and a member of the Taskforce, and she makes a phone call and all of a sudden he’s apologising to Pip and confessing he’d slept with Arabella from the pony club, and he looked frightened. Really frightened.’

I leaned closer to the cupboard door.

‘Is your family involved with the Underground?’

I paused.

‘You’re not in there, are you?’

I opened the cupboard door to find I was correct. Connie wasn’t there, and neither was the Alexandre Dumas novel, the torch – nor, oddly, the Henry vacuum cleaner. I shut the door, sighed, made myself some tea and sat at the kitchen table, wondering whether Harvey had a hand in Toby’s condition, whether he had been at the movies too – and whether they had even been going to the pictures at all. I reminded myself that Pippa was her own person then walked towards the living room, meaning to watch something – anything on the telly. I didn’t get that far as something in the hall caught my eye. Connie’s shoes were still parked where she’d left them near the grandfather clock. It had rained briefly that evening, and I knew that rabbits had a peculiar dislike for getting their paws wet.

She was still in the house.

I looked in the living room, then the utility room, where I could see Connie’s floral-pattern dress going round and round through the viewing port of the washing machine. Now more flustered, I checked the conservatory, my study and the dining room, but she was nowhere to be seen. I returned to the hallway, then heard the sound of the shower running upstairs.

‘Mrs Rabbit?’ I called up the stairwell. ‘Are you up there?’

She didn’t answer, and instead I heard her singing in a rather lovely voice. I stood there for a moment, undecided as to what to do, but then told myself that this was my house, so I padded slowly up the stairs.

The shower in use was the en suite in my bedroom, and the door was open. I could see her reflection in the mirror. With wet fur and discounting her tail and powerful thigh and calf muscles, she had a body that was almost identical to a human’s. I looked away, paused for a moment, looked back and then looked away again. If you can see a rabbit, they can see you.

‘Connie?’

‘Oh, hello, Peter,’ she sang out, seemingly unconcerned by my presence. ‘I didn’t know how long you were going to be so I took the opportunity to wash some things and have a shower – we can’t seem to get the hot water to work over in Hemlock Towers. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Well, no,’ I said, which was kind of true.

‘I’ve used all your shampoo,’ she said, ‘all two litres of it. I have a lot of fur. But I couldn’t find any conditioner.’

‘I don’t use it.’

‘Maybe just as well,’ she said, ‘as I tend to go a little fluffy. Would you pass me a towel?’

So I did so as best I could without looking as though I shouldn’t be looking, but not wanting to appear prudish, I made sure I did look at her, but just her eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she said, wrapping herself and stepping out of the shower. ‘You don’t have a hairdryer, do you? Fur takes an age to dry and can get a little spiky if not brushed immediately.’

‘I’ll get you Pippa’s,’ I said, and went downstairs to fetch it. When I got back Connie had dispensed with the towel and was staring at her naked self in the full-length mirror on the cupboard door.

‘Bunty teaches us that mirrors, endless selfies and self-aggrandisement on social media are the gateway to narcissistic self-absorption,’ she said, turning this way and that to get a better look at herself. ‘There are no mirrors in the colonies, we don’t have one in the house, and car mirrors are always reduced in size to avoid unseemly self-regard. What do you think?’

‘I think you are … very lovely, Connie.’

She smiled, took the hairdryer and started to blow-dry her fur, which, being quite fine, seemed to dry quite fast. She started on her hind paws and then worked upwards, all the time seemingly unconcerned by my presence.

‘They returned Toby,’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Bobby knows a rabbit who knows a rabbit who knows a rabbit.’

‘Are you with the Underground?’

‘All rabbits are with the Underground,’ she replied after a pause. ‘It’s an understanding rather than a recruitment. You get a nod or a tap on the shoulder or a phone call and you have to do the right thing, no matter what the personal cost. Unity and focus. Here, dry my back, would you?’

She turned round and I directed the hairdryer at her furry back. She passed me a soft brush and I brushed the fur at the same time.

‘Do you remember all those terrible films we went to see?’ she said over her shoulder. ‘And we sat in the back row because of my ears and we didn’t hold hands or anything, but the seats were small so we were touching?’

‘I remember that very clearly.’

‘I liked that,’ she said after a pause. ‘A sort of understated intimacy. I always felt that we kinda just clicked, you and I. Never had that since. Not with a rabbit, not with a human, not really with any of my husbands.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I felt that too. OK, your back’s dry.’

She turned round, took the hairdryer from me and then started to dry the fur on her arms and torso.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’

She turned the dryer on to her ears, which flapped in a comical manner.

‘About what?’

‘You know when I said I wasn’t a Spotter for RabCoT? Well … I lied. I am. For the past fifteen years.’

I looked down and saw that my fingers were knotted together in a telltale fidget. My heart was thumping and it felt as though there was a tight band of steel around my chest.

‘I knew you had the gift thirty years ago,’ she said in a soft voice, ‘when you could pick me out of a crowd of rabbits back at uni. I often wondered if you’d realise you had the skill, and what you’d do with it. I accept your apology for lying earlier. The Rabbit Way allows one to quash the stain of an untruth so long as one makes good within the hour and there was no advantage. I think you just squeaked through.’

And she smiled.

‘Nothing’s changed, Pete. Not between us.’

I took a deep breath.

‘That’s not really what I’m sorry about.’

‘Ah,’ she said, suddenly looking more serious, ‘then what?’

I stared at her for a moment, opened my mouth to tell her about how I was the secondary Spotter the night Dylan Rabbit was arrested and that I was pressured to confirm the ID. That I should have done more, that I could have done more. But what came out was:

‘Not being at the demo when you were asked to leave the university. My aunt wasn’t that ill – and eventually pulled through. I should have been there, with you.’

She shrugged.

‘I’d have been chucked out irrespective. Your aunt needed you. I have no problem with any of that; it was UKARP policy to change the university’s admissions policy, not yours. And Peter?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry too.’

‘What about?’

‘You’ll see.’

I was going to tell her that I’d always regretted not getting in contact, even after Helena had left, probably out of fear. Fear of seeing a rabbit, fear of me being wrong about what I thought we’d felt. But I didn’t get to say any of that, because Connie’s long and very elegant ears, which up until then had been draped in a relaxed fashion down her back, suddenly popped vertically upwards and she listened intently for a few seconds.

‘Bother,’ she said, ‘I just heard a car door slam.’

‘It won’t be Pippa back yet – probably a neighbour.’

‘It was the Dodge. A highly distinctive sound. Doc probably came back for the night. Rabbits become uneasy when not in their own bed at night.’

‘But … but the Middle East is a ten-hour flight away.’

‘No, no,’ she said, ‘not that Middle East – Nottingham.’ She pulled the sheet from my bed and wrapped it around herself while I went to the bedroom window and looked out. Sure enough, Doc had parked the Dodge and was hopping towards the front entrance of the house. Even though evening, being summer it was still quite light.

‘Well?’ asked Connie.

‘He’s gone into the house. No, hang on, he’s come out again.’

Doc stood there, sniffed the air and then began to stride in our direction.

‘He’s walking over here,’ I said, a tremor of fear in my voice.

‘Does he have a purposeful stride in his walk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘It’s just possible he’ll get the wrong idea about this.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he will definitely get the wrong idea about this. What are we going to do?’

‘Well,’ she said, looking thoughtful, ‘he’s already suspicious, so he’ll interpret this as an appropriation and challenge you to a duel.’

‘That’s fine; I can just refuse.’

‘Not really,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘If he challenges you then it’s a goer – only a spineless reptile of the very worst sort would try and back out.’

‘A spineless reptile?’

‘Of the worst sort.’

‘I’ve a better idea,’ I said. Her Dumas novel and torch were lying on the bed, so I handed them to her and opened the wardrobe door. She half climbed in, then stopped and turned back to me.

‘Doc is very big on honour and duelling and you may have no choice in the matter, so this is something you need to know: his set of duelling pistols is decorated with animals, and you’ll be given the choice of which to use. The one that has a picture of a lark tends to shoot off to the left, while the one with the engraving of the crocodile on the handle is pretty much straight on the money.’

‘I’ll never remember all that.’

‘It’s easy: the shot hits the spot if you’ve a croc on the stock, while the mark of the lark shoots wide of the mark.’

‘The shot hits the spot,’ I repeated slowly, ‘if you’ve a lark on … no, wait, a croc on the stock, while the lark with the mark … er, mark with the lark shoots wide of the mark.’

‘Don’t forget that,’ she said, ‘it could save your life.’ She smiled, gave me a kiss and closed the door.

The doorbell rang. Doc, it seemed, had a better idea of front-door etiquette than Connie or Bobby. I ran downstairs mumbling the rhyme, then composed myself for a few seconds, and opened the front door.