Jasper Fforde - The Constant Rabbit

‘So she looked after you?’ I asked.

‘She was great. Sally and I were being given some verbal over the ecological impact of our toxic anthropocentric agenda, and Bobby led a robust discussion group in which we concluded that the notion of “ownership” needs to give way to “custodianship”, and that individuals must shoulder responsibility for groupcrime – even if they do not know they are doing it or even agree with it – and should atone for their de facto complicity by working ever harder to effect change, and consider restorative justice options. It was quite humbling, but empowering, too.’

‘Can you stop talking so loudly?’ said Sally. ‘Or just stop talking? I’m really not feeling so well.’

I poured her a glass of water and put it next to her. She groaned, and took the tiniest of sips.

‘Who drove you in?’ I asked as casually as I could. ‘Was that a RabCab?’

‘An ex-boyfriend of Bobby’s named Harvey,’ replied Pippa.

It was the sort of information I really didn’t want to hear. A rabbit’s social circle was immensely strong, inclusive and supportive. If Harvey was an ex of Bobby’s, he’d know Doc and Connie well, too – and I knew how the Taskforce worked, and how everyone could be implicated.

‘Bobby and Harvey are still good friends,’ said Pippa, ‘Harvey was there at the club with us.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes. He and Bobs and two others were talking about how they could suspend the Rehoming of Rabbits Act until a Pan-European Humanlike Rights panel can discuss and advise on the Rabbit Equality Issue.’

‘Sometimes I think that was why Nigel Smethwick was so glad for us to leave the EU,’ I said, trying hard not to think about Harvey, ‘so no one could legally challenge the UK’s record over rabbit rights and the introduction of the maximum wage. 43 43. For a group so reviled, the rabbit’s cheap and skilled labour force was essential as an economic safety net after Brexit. ‘Without the rabbit’s good nature and industry,’ said Finkle, ‘the UK would be on its knees.’ ’

‘Give equal rights to rabbits and it makes no sense not to give it to cows,’ murmured Sally, face firmly planted on the tablecloth, ‘or horses or bats or sheep. That’s the bigger issue here. The inherent rights of all life to enjoy the bounteous fruits of the biosphere – and not in a shared, abstract sense – but as a unifying concept for sentient life.’

She then groaned and said she felt she wanted to die, but somewhere glamorous, like Powys.

‘Why Powys?’ I asked. ‘It’s a pretty county, but I’d hardly call it glamorous.’

‘Not Powys ,’ said Sally, face still flat on the tablecloth, ‘ Paris . Excuse me.’

And she got up and fast-staggered out of the room in the direction of the toilet. I turned back to Pippa, who was staring at me.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’

She looked down and traced the pattern on the tablecloth with her finger.

‘You, working for the Taskforce. Do you really think that’s a good idea?’

Conversations about the Rabbit Equality Issue always led to discussion of the Compliance Taskforce. She’d probably talked about it a lot with Bobby and Harvey the previous evening.

‘I’m a junior accountant, darling, an infinitesimally small cog. I’m not leporiphobic; my employer is irrelevant to me.’

I got up and walked to the sink with my empty cup in order to hide the hot flush that had risen in my cheeks. There was another pause and I heard Pippa take a deep breath.

‘Dad,’ she said, ‘you don’t know the first thing about accountancy. You can barely add. You’re a Spotter. You ID rabbits for the Taskforce. I’ve known for years.’

‘What? Oh – well, yes,’ I said, then to cover for the lie, I lied again: ‘We’re forbidden to tell family members for security reasons.’

The hot flush in my face deepened, and I stood there at the sink, my back to Pippa, speechless. I felt ashamed of working there and of lying, but the short exchange also made me feel, well, relieved .

‘I don’t guide policy,’ I said, still with my back to her, ‘or undertake any anti-rabbit activities personally. I just recognise rabbits for forty hours a week, and check they’re being honest. If they were honest to begin with, I wouldn’t have a job. Besides,’ I added, trying to normalise my position through repetition, ‘given that I’m unusual in wanting to do my job properly, I’m actually a net positive to the whole issue. If I didn’t do it, there’d only be someone far worse in control.’

‘Hmm,’ said Pippa.

‘It helped with you, too,’ I added, ‘we always needed a little extra. Putting in a wet room and your bedroom downstairs, that sort of stuff.’

‘Don’t put this on me,’ she said, her temper rising. ‘I can do stairs if I want – and a bath too, at a pinch. Is Toby one too?’

I paused, then nodded.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘that makes it easier to dump—’

‘You need more toilet paper,’ said Sally, lurching back into the room, ‘and you may want to put the hand towel in the laundry.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

With Sally present the conversation moved on, and she was picked up by her mother soon after. But instead of the usual touching of her pearls, shy smiles and oblique references to her underused timeshare in Palafrugell ‘with a view of the sea from the bedroom’, Mrs Lomax glared at me savagely – as though it were entirely my fault that Sally was in a state.

After that, Pippa went to do an online training course on how to spot evidence of radicalisation amongst rabbits in the workplace, and I, since it was a Sunday, to wash the car and mow the grass. I did both on autopilot, wondering whether I should tell Lugless about Harvey’s identity. The only really good news about recent events was that Toby now had a greatly reduced chance of becoming my son-in-law. But if Pippa had known for years I was a Spotter, it wouldn’t take Connie too long to figure it out.

The rabbits were also out in the garden. Major Rabbit had his jacket off and was digging the lawn into neat furrows. Every now and then he would stop and mop his brow with a red-spotted handkerchief, which was pretty pointless as rabbits, being fur-bearing, don’t sweat. Connie, by contrast, was sitting on a sun lounger in the tiniest bikini imaginable while reading a copy of Ludlow Vogue . Her figure, like those of nearly all female anthropomorphised rabbits, was very humanlike, with bulges and curves in all the right places. By the way in which the post-church-service pedestrians slowed down as they walked past, I wasn’t the only one who thought this. It wasn’t long before the Malletts turned up.

We nodded greetings, then Norman lowered his voice and began:

‘I’m not sure this is the sort of village where rabbit females should disport themselves almost naked,’ he said, his eyes not leaving her form for one second. ‘Flaunting herself in that manner is unhealthy for our young men – might give them ideas.’

‘Semi-nudity encourages unsound moral behaviour,’ agreed Victor, also staring, possibly to make absolutely sure he disapproved. ‘Women should be chaste and demure, lest they lead men into temptation and precipitate their fall.’

The brothers nodded their heads vigorously, unaware they were talking crap, while still staring, eyes like organ stops.

‘Hell’s teeth,’ said Norman, suddenly noticing Doc, ‘is Major Rabbit digging up the lawn? Mr Beeton spent thirty years cultivating that piece of turf into the finest slab of green this side of Mansell Gamage, and what’s more, it was going to be one of our major selling points to the Spick & Span judges: “so smooth we could play snooker on it – and have”.’