Jasper Fforde - The Constant Rabbit

‘Disgusting,’ said Victor.

‘Reprehensible,’ said Norman.

‘But—’ I said as Doc made a lunge towards Connie. She ran off with a giggle but Doc – maybe accidentally, maybe on purpose – stood on the bedsheet and she was suddenly completely naked, right there on the IKEA rug in the hall. In front of everyone.

There was a sudden hollow and very empty moment in time that seemed to hang for an eternity.

‘Whoops,’ she said with an embarrassed grin, then bounced out of the door past the Mallett brothers to spring with the utmost of elegance over the dividing fence. Within two more bounds she was back inside her house, her husband close behind. There was a crashing of furniture, some breaking of crockery – then silence.

I looked back at Victor and Norman. They were all staring at me in shocked silence, mouths open.

‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ I said.

‘It seems abundantly clear to us that this is exactly what it looks like,’ said Victor.

‘Is this how Much Hemlock disports itself?’ said one of the people holding the clipboards, who I now recognised as Reginald Spick, one half of the Herefordshire Spick & Span award team. ‘As a hotbed of base, lewd and depraved behaviour?’

‘You would come around right now ,’ said Victor, who had also just recognised him.

‘The judges appear randomly to maintain fair play,’ said Mr Spick in a haughty manner.

‘For a very good reason,’ said Mrs Span, Mr Spick’s partner.

‘Can’t you just pretend this never happened?’ said Norman. ‘Just go away and come back later?’

‘Nothing whatsoever happened,’ I said, partly for the judges, partly for me and partly for the Mallett brothers, ‘and even if it did, what is it to you?’

‘Quite a lot, actually,’ said Victor. ‘This is a good village, and we have a respectable way of doing things – and that generally excludes lying down with vermin.’

‘Connie’s not vermin.’

‘Not to you, obviously.’

‘I think we’ve seen enough,’ said the judges, making to leave. ‘This sort of thing never happens in Pembridge. Winning a Spick & Span award is not just about a fine herbaceous border, roses to die for and local honey of impeccable quality, it’s about cultural propriety. Why do you think Slipton Flipflop has never won a prize, when they have the finest hanging baskets in the county?’

‘But just a minute,’ said Norman, the issue over Connie and me momentarily forgotten, ‘this is emphatically not what we discussed – and considering the sum we paid you, we expect at the very least a fair shake of the stick.’

‘We’re bribed by everyone ,’ said Mrs Span in a tart manner. ‘Don’t think we owe you any special treatment because of it.’ She paused. ‘But I suppose we could be persuaded to rejudge so long as your current issues have been … dealt with. Do we understand one another?’

Norman said that they definitely understood, thanked them for their patience and forbearance and Spick & Span made their exit as Victor and Norman turned back to me.

‘I think the course of action is clear,’ said Norman. ‘The well-being of the village comes before you and your little bunny chums. But since you were once a friend and we are reasonable people who embrace proportionality and fair play, we’ll throw you a bone. Forty-eight hours to get out, and you can take your fickle daughter and long-eared chums with you. It’s non-negotiable, Knox. And if you can’t persuade the Rabbits to go, then we will – using whatever means at our disposal.’

Since I now knew Toby was TwoLegsGood, it stood to reason that his father and uncle were too. This wasn’t an empty threat.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘perhaps we can start a dialogue or—’

‘Forty-eight hours,’ said Norman, glaring at me in the sort of way I imagine a psychopath might do, just after they unchain you from the radiator, but just before they remove your liver with a spoon, ‘is that enough dialogue for you?’

‘Yes, OK,’ I said.

And they left. I thought of going over to the Rabbits’ and warning them of the impending shitstorm, but instead locked the door, waited until the wash cycle finished, then put Connie’s dress in the tumble dryer. I waited until midnight for Pippa to come home, but when she didn’t, I turned in.

At the last count there were eight hundred and seventy-two rabbits living in the Isle of Man safe haven. All had been granted full UK residency by the Tynwald and seventeen applications for passports were being considered at the time of the Battle of May Hill.

I woke to the sound of the doorbell. I rolled over in bed, caught a whiff of Connie’s scent on the sheet and stared at the clock. Half past six. I pulled on my bathrobe and walked slowly downstairs. Pippa’s keys and bag were on the kitchen table so I was relieved at least that she’d made it home safe and well. I approached the front door and, without opening it, said:

‘Who is it?’

I was hoping it was Connie, calling round to assure me she’d tell everyone that her comment that I’d ‘given her twice as good as her husband’ was to goad Doc, nothing more. Even if it was her and she wanted everything to be made right, somehow I felt the damage was already done.

‘Who is it?’ I said again. Silence.

There was no one outside when I opened the door, and I stepped out into the early-morning light. It would be a hot day later, but for now, a low mist hung in the trees. Seeing no one, I turned to go back indoors and then noticed someone had spray-painted ‘Bunnyshagger’ on the garage door. I stared at the graffito, first thinking that it was outrageous, then thinking it was probably small beer to what the rabbit had to contend with on a day-to-day basis. I looked over the fence to see whether the Rabbits’ house had been similarly defaced, but it had not.

‘Probably because Hemlock Towers is Grade II listed,’ said Pippa when I told her two hours later over breakfast. ‘Remember that 2LG’s core demographic is middle-class professionals who would be more likely to have a subscription to Radio Times than be a member of a far-right gang.’

I outlined what had happened the previous evening. I told her about Connie, the script, Toby’s reappearance and the shower, the bedsheet, the Spick & Span judges and finally Norman’s forty-eight-hour ultimatum. I decided not to tell Pippa that Toby had slept with Arabella at the pony club.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, taking a slurp of coffee.

I sighed. Although I’d never consciously discriminated against rabbits, read a single issue of The Actual Truth or considered myself leporiphobic in the least – I was. As a young man I’d laughed at and told anti-rabbit jokes 51 51. Why don’t Petstock and Labstock mate? Because the offspring might be too lazy to steal. When are rabbits really good mothers? When they eat their own young. What looks best on a rabbit? A pie crust. What’s the difference between a rabbit and a bucket of turds? The bucket. and I never once challenged leporiphobic views when I heard them. And although I’d disapproved of encroaching anti-rabbit legislation I’d done nothing as their rights were slowly eroded. My words and thoughts had never progressed to positive actions. No rallies, no angry letters, no funds to RabSAg, nothing.

‘Dad?’

‘I’m still thinking.’

But even if I had made a stand, my long-term and sustained employment at the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce would have negated everything. My most pressing emotion right now was not a sense of righteous indignation, frustration at the unfairness of my situation or even a courageous sense of justice that a fight needed to be fought and won. No, what I truly felt was a sense of deep and inexcusable shame .