When God Was a Rabbit

I waited at the small station, looking down from the bridge at the simple symmetry of tracking that went left or right: to London or to Penzance. I’d got there early. I liked to get there early, hopeful that the impossible might happen and the train would shatter its timetable, but it never did. The morning air was grey and freezing. I blew on my hands and misted breath streamed from my mouth. The cold had quickly got through to my shoes and was settling down into my toes; they would be white now and only a bath could give them back life.

I hadn’t seen him for three whole months; locked away was he into term life and those London streets that stole him from me and left me instead with a pile of letters that were filed away in an A4 folder, with PRIVATE taped on the front. He was really good at Economics, he wrote, and he was really good at Art. He was in a choir and had started playing rugby again, now that he felt settled, now that he was happier. I thought ‘playing rugby’ was code for a new boyfriend, but it wasn’t; he really had started playing rugby again. Love, it seemed, was as distant as memory.

There was nothing at this station; no café, no waiting room. There was only a shelter on the platform that became both useful and not useful, depending on the direction of the wind. I was too excited to wait in the van and listen to Alan’s tape of Cliff Richard, which I seemed to know backwards and would have sounded much better to me had it been sung that way. Alan liked Cliff Richard, but he loved Barry Manilow. He’d listened to him in prison and the words had given him hope, he said. Even ‘Copacabana’? I asked. Especially ‘Copacabana’, he said.

Alan had been our driver for a year now, and ferried our guests with the patience of a saint. He couldn’t get any work before us, but he’d been honest with my father, who was the one man who believed in the redemptive power of a second chance. He put Alan on full pay, with the sole caveat that he should be ready for duty day or night. Alan agreed, and as the wage and respectability re-entered his life, so did his wife and child, and that faint stint of incarceration faded into make-believe, until nobody could really be sure whether it had happened or not.

The red and white signal marker suddenly raised its sluggish head. I saw the smoke first, as always, then the dark barrelled front barging its way across the countryside like some unstoppable bully. First class passed underneath me and then the buffet, carriage one, then two and then another until the train slowed into the station and I started to practise what I was going to say to him. Just as the train stopped, a door flung open and I saw his arm. He threw his kitbag out first (apparently they were all the rage at his school), and then he emerged wearing a Santa hat and sunglasses.

‘Joe!’ I shouted, and ran to the end of the bridge. He darted up the slope towards me.

‘Stay there!’ he yelled as he fought against the wind and attempted to get his heart pumping after three and a half sedentary hours in a forward-facing seat. And I felt myself lifted up into the grey morning sky, before falling into his woollayered chest. He was wearing aftershave. I’d bought him aftershave for Christmas, damn.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You look great.’

‘I’ve missed you,’ I said, as the first of my tears fell onto his sunglasses.

Alan always drove the long scenic route back to our house whenever my brother came home. It gave us time to gossip about my mother and father, and for my brother to reacquaint himself with the fields and hedgerows and vistas he once knew so intimately. Now and then, I would catch Alan looking in the rear-view mirror at us, eyes widening over information most normal families would have kept private and wouldn’t have discussed until they were safely behind the confines of a closed door.

‘Nancy kissed Mum,’ I said to Joe.

Alan’s eyes grew very big.

‘When?’ said Joe excitedly.

‘About a month ago. When she broke up with Anna.’

Alan steered into the verge.

‘She was really sad about that,’ Joe said.

‘Devastated,’ I said.

‘It was to do with newspapers and stuff.’

‘Was it?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know. Well, anyway, Nancy was crying outside on the patio and Mum was holding her and when Nancy looked up, she pulled Mum onto her lips and kissed her; tongues as well.’

Alan crunched the gears. He couldn’t find third.

‘No?’ said Joe.

‘And,’ I said, now really trying to catch my breath, ‘they didn’t move. They stayed like that for ages. Mum didn’t move.’

‘No?’ said Joe.

‘And,’ I said, ‘when they finally pulled away, they laughed.’

‘No?’ said Joe.

‘And,’ I said, ‘Mum said, “Oops,” and they laughed again.’

Alan stalled.

‘And guess what?’ I said.

‘What?’ said Joe.

‘I told Dad.’

‘You didn’t?’ said Alan, suddenly taking his eyes off the road.

‘I did,’ I said to Alan.

‘What did he say?’ asked Joe.

‘He laughed and said, “At last! At least we’ve got that out of the way.” ’

‘Unbelievable,’ said Joe.

Alan lost his wing mirror turning into our gateway.

My brother looked around his room, looking for differences, changes we might have made in his absence. But it was all there, exactly as he had left it: a room stalled by an interrupted moment; a grab-a-bag dash to catch a train; an exposed deodorant (now dry) awaiting his return; a newspaper, three months old, sprawled next to his bed.

I sat down and watched him unpack a bag full of dirty laundry.

‘Did you know that Michael Trewellin died?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said my brother as he folded one of his clean shirts.

‘Drowned,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he said.

‘We went to his funeral,’ I said.

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘They’re weird, aren’t they?’ I said.

‘S’pose they are,’ he said.

‘Everyone staring at the coffin,’ I said.

‘I didn’t know they found the body,’ he said.

‘They didn’t. Maybe that’s why we were all staring at the coffin,’ I said.

‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘Wondering what was inside,’ I said.

I reached for a magazine and opened it up at its centrefold: a tanned man in a very small towel. I was used to pictures like this when my brother came home. He’d probably give the magazine to Arthur and Arthur would say, ‘Oh, you naughty, naughty boy.’

‘I saw Beth in the village a couple of days ago,’ I said, trying to sound lighter.

‘Beth?’ he said, stopping to look at me.

‘Michael Trewellin’s sister. I don’t think you knew her very well,’ I said. ‘She was younger. About my age.’

I watched him fold a jumper.

‘Is she all right?’ he said.

‘She looked very sad,’ I said. ‘Understandable really.’

He came and sat next to me on the bed, as if he knew where my thoughts were heading.

‘Nothing will happen to me, Elly,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ and he placed his arm around my shoulder. ‘I’m not Michael.’

‘I don’t think I could bear it,’ I said. ‘She just looked so sad.’

My father asked for the lights to be turned off as he proudly held up the neon sign.

‘There’s aways rum at our im?’ said my mother, trying to read the joined-up writing shining green in the darkened room.

‘There’s always room at our inn,’ said my father, a touch of exasperation entering his voice. ‘It’s my Christmas message. I told you last summer I was planning something different,’ and he had.

We’d been in the kitchen making lemon ice when he’d told us about his plans for a no-charge policy over Christmas.

‘Our door is open to everyone, rich or poor,’ he said, and my mother told him she loved him and led him out into the garden for a quiet kiss. For a man whose severe dislike of organised religion was notorious, his charity was becoming more and more Christian every day, and my brother looked at me and shook his head and said, ‘This can only lead to a donkey, a stable and a real baby.’

‘And don’t forget the star in the east,’ said Arthur.

‘That’ll be me then,’ said Nancy, as she walked through the door, lighting a cigar.

My father quickly turned the lights back on and said he was going to affix his sign at the top of the pathway between the waving camel and the naked Santa, should anyone wish to join him. Strangely no one did.

Our one and only guest that Christmas was a Ms Vivienne Collard, or Ginger, as she liked to be called. She was Arthur’s closest friend, and had first come to us four months ago with a broken foot as well as a broken heart (the two weren’t connected). She was a Shirley Bassey impersonator, and with her red hair and pale skin, she stood out as one of the unique ones, if not exactly the best. When she sang ‘Goldfinger’ she curled her index finger in front of your nose and when you could finally focus, you could see that she had painted it gold. And when she sang ‘Big Spender’ she threw Monopoly money into the air. But when she sang ‘Easy Thing to Do’ no eye was left dry in our tinselled house. Arthur said he would have changed sides for a woman like that, until she sang a cover of ‘Send in the Clowns’, dressed as one.

Arthur and Ginger were inseparable when they got together. They had first met years ago on the London scene when their faces were smooth and devoid of experience, and had ended up sharing many things, including a flat in Bayswater and a ballet dancer called Robin. Their banter was rich and comfortable, their teasing intimate and profound; their ‘I love you’ without the use of those startling words.

Ginger arrived at our house at five o’clock on Christmas Eve, armed only with a suitcase full of champagne ‘and a change of knickers’, as she liked to whisper to Arthur, just to make him recoil into the darker recesses of our living room.

‘Thank you, Alan,’ she said as she tucked a five-pound note into his large palm. ‘And a happy Christmas, pet.’

‘That’s not necessary, Ginger,’ said Alan, attempting to tuck the note back into her coat pocket.

‘You get something for that little girl of yours,’ said Ginger, and Alan said he would, but never told her that the little girl was actually a chubby little boy called Alan junior.

‘I love Alan,’ said Ginger turning to my father, as the van disappeared up the drive. ‘What was he in for again?’ she asked nonchalantly.

‘Can’t catch me out that way, Ginger,’ he said as he hugged her tightly.

Everyone wanted to know what Alan’s crime was, but my father never told anyone, not even my mother.

‘Hello, my treasure,’ Ginger said to me as I carried freshly laundered towels to her room. ‘Come and sit here and tell me your news,’ and she patted her legs and I went and sat on her wide lap. I always worried that I’d crush her but when I felt her thick thighs beneath mine, I knew she was made of hardy stuff.

‘Made any good friends yet?’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet. Joe says I’m a loner.’

‘Me too, kid. Nothing wrong with that.’

(She wasn’t but I was grateful that she’d tried.)

‘And how’s that Jenny Penny? Is she coming for the holidays? Will I meet her at last?’

‘No, her mum said she can’t.’

‘Strange one, that one.’

‘Mmm. She’s got her period now, you know.’

‘Has she now? And what about you?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. Still waiting,’ I said.

‘Well, you wait on,’ she said. ‘You’ll have that bloody thing clogging up your knickers for years. Lift up,’ she added, clumsily adjusting the position of her skirt. ‘So how’s that big bad brother of yours?’

‘He’s OK,’ I said.

‘Still queer?’ she said.

‘Yep. It’s definitely not a phase.’

‘Well, good for him,’ said Ginger. ‘And you? Got a boyfriend yet?’

‘No, I don’t want one, actually,’ I said.

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Well,’ I began, ‘there was somebody who was a bit interested in me once. But I left it too late.’

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘And what? He just buggered off, did he?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘He drowned.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘He was called Michael,’ I said.

‘Well, good job you weren’t with him, eh?’ she said, ‘otherwise you probably wouldn’t be here now,’ and she started to rummage around in her suitcase, obviously unable to think of anything better to say. But Ginger was like that: emotions embarrassed her except when she sang. My dad said that was exactly why she sang.

‘Here,’ she said, handing me a beautifully wrapped gift. ‘I wrapped it myself.’

‘Is it for me?’ I asked.

‘Who else?’ she said. ‘It’s a ring.’

‘Gosh,’ I said.

‘It was my mother’s, but I can’t get it on my finger any more because I’m too fat. Thought you might as well have it,’ she said, not looking at me.

(Translation: I love you and would like you to have something that’s very dear to me.)

I opened the box and saw a diamond – and sapphire-encrusted ring, which caught the overhead light and shone into my face like footlights.

‘But this is so expensive, Ginger,’ I gasped.

‘Best you enjoy it now, rather than when I’m dead,’ she said.

‘Oh, I will, it’s so beautiful, thank you.’

‘That’s all right then,’ she said, and I felt her face flush with warmth as I kissed her and told her she was one of my most favourite people in the whole world. Because she was.

It was rare for Nancy not to be with us at Christmas, but we forgave her because she was skiing in Gstaad, allowing her heart to be mended by mountain air and a woman called Juliette. After lunch we called her and thanked her for our presents. She sounded ever so happy (drunk) on the phone, and Dad whispered to us across the table that Mum was probably a bit jealous.

‘So what has she got that I haven’t?’ we heard our mother say to her down the phone.

‘A girlfriend,’ Nancy apparently replied.

I left them all in the dining room to their brandies and After Eights and stories of Christmases past, and I crept into the hallway, the flagstones cold and unforgiving beneath my bare feet. This was the moment I’d been waiting for, the quiet moment when Jenny Penny would tell me all about her day.

Every year I called her at the same time, always after lunch because she never woke up early on Christmas Day – probably the only child in the world who didn’t – because she said she preferred to stay in bed and use the time to think.

‘To think about what?’ I said.

‘About the world. About life,’ she said.

‘About presents?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I know what I get every year. A craft set, bigger and better than the year before,’ (it never was) ‘and an item of knitwear that my mum starts making in July.’

She’d spent that first Christmas with us, that legendary first Christmas we’d talk about for years, when she’d arrived by train with my brother with a small bag that held only a change of jeans, a change of underwear, and a long-held yearning for a change of scenery. And he told us how she’d stood transfixed in front of the carriage window as it left Exeter and hugged the coastline – the closest she’d ever been to the sea – and the waves lapped against her forehead, against her beaming smile as her reflection never moved, never faltered, until that shimmering coast disappeared behind crags and trees.

When she arrived, she ran down the lawn with me and fell into the river, and her squeals of glee shamed our privileged hearts, for what should have been a birthright was, in a single second, a brace of unattainable riches. Even as she was pulled from those icy waters, her lips turning blue, her teeth chattering, her joy was contagious and we all knew immediately that this would be a time to remember.

The night before Christmas we guided her carefully into the darkened living room so she could turn on the tree lights, and when she did her body shook with the excitement of the overwhelmed. The lights were of every shape, size and colour, and in the darkness turned a make-believe world into one of incandescent reality. ‘Wishes come true in a room like this,’ she’d said.

Later that night, as we lay in bed, she told me what she’d wished for – that she might one day come and live with us – and in the darkness we listened out for the sound of sleigh bells, and even though we were probably too old to still believe, we heard them outside and I saw her smile, wide and uncynical, and I was grateful that I had a brother who’d wanted to stand outside in the cold and dark and shake a small church bell simply to make her feel good. But we all did everything that first Christmas to make her feel good.

The following morning, I woke her up early and we crept downstairs and saw the pillowcases bulging with gifts and the part-eaten carrot and mince pies and the half-drunk sherry and the soot scattered on the carpet leading from the hearth. I looked at her as she stood transfixed, as tears ran down her cheeks, as she said, ‘Father Christmas never visited me before. I don’t think he ever really knew where I lived.’

I picked up the phone. I knew her number off by heart now, it had the rhythm of a poem with all those fives and threes, and it rang briefly and clearly before she answered.

‘It’s me,’ I said, happy to hear my best friend’s voice. ‘Happy Christmas, Jenny Penny!’

‘Elly, I can’t talk for long,’ she whispered.

It was hard to hear what she was saying, so soft was her voice.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

‘It’s all gone wrong.’

‘What?’

‘We have to go,’ she said.

‘When?’ I said.

‘Now. Soon,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Because we have to.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘We just have to,’ she said. ‘I can’t say anything else, I’m not allowed to. She won’t let me.’

‘But where are you going?’

‘I don’t know. Mum won’t tell me. She said it’s best that no one knows.’

‘Even me?’ I said.

‘I’ve got to go, she’s coming. I’ll let you know when I get there,’ she said. ‘Bye, Elly.’

The line went dead and the last of my words disappeared into an unforgiving silence.

I summoned my mother away from the television marathon that had become as traditional to our family as turkey and mince pies, and told her what had happened. She didn’t know anything for certain, she said. Just suspected.

‘We have to wait and see,’ she said. ‘When they get there they’ll let us know.’

‘Get where?’ I said.

‘To safety,’ she said.

Ginger stayed on with us after Christmas to perform at the Harbour Moon for New Year’s Eve. She was topping the bill with a Tony Bennett impersonator who she called T. B. and who she hated because he made her feel ill.

‘He doesn’t even look like Tony Bennett,’ she said when she got the news. ‘I look more like Tony Bennett than he does,’ and Arthur nodded in agreement. The money was good, though, and it was actually the party of the year for our village, which was a little bit like topping the bill at Vegas if you really used your imagination. The village became a playground for dressing up and people came from afar to show off their fancy-dress costumes, which had been planned months in advance. My father had started mine four months before and only he and I knew what it was going to be. All we said was that it was going to be bigger and better than the previous year’s attempt, which wasn’t going to be too difficult, seeing as I had been a thumb.

They were all in the living room, slouched around and unruly, and I could hear my brother goading Ginger and Arthur into another chorus of ‘Why Are We Waiting?’. My mother crept out into the hallway to make sure I was all right.

‘One more minute,’ my father said to her, as he shook out my costume.

The trouble was, my heart wasn’t in it any more. My worry for Jenny Penny had dulled all enthusiasm, and for a whole week I’d waited by the phone, waited for the news that never came. It was only because my father had made such an effort that I ultimately would too, and together we marched into the living room and waited for the lights to dim and the chatter to still.

I put on the shimmering grey dress with fin slits for hands and attached the long fish-tail train. I could have been a mermaid, or even one of the Three Degrees, at this stage and it was fun to keep everyone guessing. Then my father carried in a very large box and the room hushed. He opened the box and took out something shaped like a helmet, which was covered by a beach towel. He placed it over my head and through the eyeholes I could see the striped towelling pattern and what I could only make out was a piece of dry seaweed.

‘Da-nah!’ shouted my father, and he suddenly whipped the towel away. Everyone gasped. Through my eyeholes I saw hands quickly reach for mouths.

‘What is she exactly?’ asked Ginger, downing an early Scotch.

My father turned to me and said, ‘Tell them, Elly.’

‘I’m a MULLET!’ I shouted, and everyone went, ‘Ah yes, of course.’