When God Was a Rabbit

Trees surrounded us as we turned off the main road and left the holiday traffic to chug along in Bank Holiday formation. We followed the single-lane track down towards the river, veering sharply left then right, following raggedy signs that said Trehaven.

The late afternoon sun hadn’t lost its heat, and leaves from overhanging branches were dappled by its fractured intensity and flickered like broken mirrors onto my face. I breathed in this new air; it was damp; warm damp, and now and then I thought I could smell the sea, and could actually, because the tidal waters that fed the small river below were on the turn.

‘We’re nearly there,’ I whispered to my brother as I leant back into the car, and for the first time during the six-hour journey, he sat up, interested. He started to bite his nails.

‘It’s all right,’ I said to him, and he smiled at me and took his hand away from his mouth and concentrated on the green world outside. I lifted god out of his box and showed him his new home.

‘You’ll be safe here,’ he whispered.

The road levelled out and as we took a sharp right, it lost its tarmac surface and soon the car was riding uncomfortably on rocks and gravel and compacted dirt. We stopped in front of a dilapidated wooden gate, TREHAVEN carved down the left-hand gatepost. Moss had bedded down within its curves and edges, and made the lettering vivid green against the damp darkness of the wood. My father turned off the ignition. I held my breath, not wishing to impede on the sounds of birds and forest life; I was still an observer, a participant not yet.

‘We’re here,’ my father said. ‘Our new home. Trehaven.’

We saw the removal van first and the clearing, and then finally emerging into sight came the house: large and square and off-white in the sunshine, and standing alone except for a small dilapidated outbuilding hiding in the shadow at its side. A small tree had taken sole occupancy of the neglected space within; its branches reaching for the sky.

I got out of the car and stretched, felt small in the shadow of our home. This was a house for rich people and as I stood looking at its grace and majesty, I suddenly remembered that we were.

I put god on a lead and ran down the lawn with him towards the river, carefully negotiating my footing on the flimsy mooring planks. They were rotten; eaten away by years of salt and wet and neglect, and there was a boat attached by rope, holed and half submerged, but clinging to its home like an elder with nowhere else to go.

‘What do you think?’ said my brother, suddenly behind me.

I startled and turned around quickly, for this was the land of spirits and sprites and other beings too light to elicit the sound of tread.

‘Look!’ I said, pointing to the river. ‘A fish!’

And my brother lay down on the jetty and placed his hands gently into the cold water. The fish darted to the side. I watched him look at himself; follow the ripple of his reflection as the waters slowly rose around his fingertips. I heard him sigh deeply. A melancholy sound.

‘How old am I?’ he asked.

‘Fifteen,’ I said. ‘Still young.’

A kingfisher flew overhead and landed on the opposite bank. I’d never seen one before.