Nicola Barker - Wide Open

A slight sound. So slight a sound that it was barely anything. A panting, perhaps. The sound of fur touching something. A boot? A broom? Connie turned from the book, very slowly, and glanced around her. She saw the wall, the door, the refrigerator, the dresser, the old kitchen clock. Nothing else. Nothing.

Her eyes returned to the book. The sky was blue. No sun was visible in the painting, but even so she could almost feel the warmth of it. She’d never imagined the crucifixion as a sultry, sensual, balmy affair before. Never. But here it was, and it was all of these things.

A clanking. This time Connie’s eyes flew straight to it. A small weeding fork leaning up against a wicker basket containing potatoes and carrot tops. It had fallen over. The fork. She was afraid, and fear made her move towards it. She bent over and picked it up. It was old and muddy with three small prongs.

She detected an even softer bumping, directly to her left. The kitchen table. The chairs. Their legs. They shifted, once, with a little clatter. Connie sprang backwards. Whatever this creature was it was surely a tiny thing. It was a little thing. It was nothing. But it was strange. She felt as if her whole heart had lifted. It felt higher than usual. And it was beating away inside her like a wooden spoon against an empty dish. In fact it was all she could do not to reverberate with it. Her hands were shaking as she held the fork up high in front of her.

And then…she blinked. She blinked again. Her eyes focused between the smooth forest of chair and table legs. Was it? Could it really be? She grinned, almost hysterically. A bunny?

Its ears. That’s principally what identified it. Classic bunny ears. Beatrix Potter ears. Bugs Bunny ears. One up and jaunty, the other curved and half-cocked. A plain brown bunny. Tiny. In the kitchen. Connie bent down slightly. It was facing away from her, but she could still make out its white cotton-ball tail and the gentle sprigs of paler fur on the back of its brown heels. It held its head to one side. It must have crept in, she reasoned, a short while ago when the kitchen was empty.

Her nose kept on running. She put her hand to it and gave a small sniff. The rabbit reacted. It lurched. It wheeled around to face her. Its head all lopsided. Its eyes almost bursting. Connie straightened up a fraction. This could not be right. There was something wrong. Its eyes were all weird-angled, and its head…It moved slightly and hit the table leg. Its head swivelled again, aimlessly. It looked upwards but at nothing. She saw its chest palpitating.

Who was the more frightened between them? Connie took a step backwards, away from this sick creature, this cornball perversion, this diseased thing, towards the back door. She reached out her hand and opened it. “Go on. Get out. Go on. Shoo!”

But it moved away from her voice, towards the Aga, horribly tentative, as if every second it might risk a bump or a crash or a jolt. Its eyes rolled uselessly. Its ears, so sweet before, so funny, now looked forlorn and broken and ruined and faulty. It hit the wall. Its head sank, then rose. It was lost. It no longer knew or cared about the difference between night and light.

Connie remembered her father breaking the neck of an abandoned fledgling. She remembered an old boyfriend stamping on an injured frog. To kill it. That would be the brave thing. She clenched the fork in her hand. “But I can’t. I can’t!”

She dropped the fork, hating herself, and grabbed hold of a kitchen broom. She held just the end of it. Slowly, she edged her way around the table. She swept the bristles along, hoping that their approaching swish would comfort the rabbit and not seem too cruelly random when they eventually made contact with it. The rabbit didn’t move. It remained close to the Aga, its nose twitching, its eyes bulging. The broom was soon merely a few feet distant, and then simply inches. Connie’s hands began shaking. To prod it! And what if it ran towards her instead of away?

But it did not run. It did not jump. The broom touched it. Connie barely felt the weight of the rabbit before it was moving, and not voluntarily, it was swept along, all stiff and still lolling.

She felt ashamed. Past the table she swept it, past the chairs, the wicker basket, the lines of boots, the galoshes, up to the doorway. But she couldn’t push it off the step and out into the darkness. No. There was a small metal rim at the lip of the doorway. The broom, the rabbit, came to a halt here.

“Get out,” she said. “Get out.”

She gave the broom a harder push. But the rabbit was stiff. It was lost in terror and in blackness. It would not move. All its places were terrible places.

Connie dropped the end of the broom, hoping that the clatter might frighten the rabbit backwards, over the doorstep, away from her. But the broom clattered and still it did not move.

“Oh no.” She fell to her knees. She waved ineffectually at it. “Go on. Just go.”

She inched closer.

“Goon.”

Closer. And then her hands were only centimetres away from it. Her fingers felt stiff and unwieldy in this close a proximity. She bit her lip. “Out,” she said, and then she touched it. It was a thing so full of horrors and yet so soft . And she felt its heart beating under her palms. It was terrified, but its head rolled, uselessly. She lifted it slightly. It was so light. Its ribs. She felt them. It was so thin .

“Go on boy. Out.”

Over the rim of the door and into the dark she lifted it. She gently touched it down. It was wet out and raining. She saw the rain hitting the rabbit. Its head swerved up to meet the rain, as if the rain could have been tin-tacks or little fists or anything.

Connie looked down at her two hands. Her mouth curled. She jumped up and ran to the sink. She turned on the tap and shoved her hands under it. She was crying. Her nose was running. She picked up a bottle of washing-up liquid to apply to her fingers.

The phone started ringing. She put the bottle down. She ran to the doorway, her hands still dripping, and stared out into the darkness. Was it gone? She wasn’t certain. She saw something pale near the woodpile. She slammed the door shut. She leaned up against it, shuddering. She tried to move the broom but a wave of revulsion prevented her. She sprang over it and sprinted into the hallway.

“Hello?”

The phone was in her hand.

“Constance?”

Not a voice she recognized. A rough voice, but gentle.

“Yes?”

“Hello. My name’s John Arnold. I’m ringing from the prison.”

“Yes?” She was almost gasping.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Uh…”

Connie felt a supreme urge to answer his question literally. Was this a bad time? Was it?

“I have a cold,” she said, and sniffed, “that’s all.”

She tried to stop her hands from shaking.

“I’ve been away on a transfer,” he said, “in Durham. My daughter’s been in hospital there.”

“Yes,” Connie nodded.

“It’s all been a bit…well, nerve-racking, but she’s fine now.”

“Good. Yes…”

Connie was staring down at her feet. They were covered in mud. She hadn’t noticed before. The man took a deep breath. “I heard that your father died.”

“Um…” she frowned. “Yes…” she blinked, “yes, he did die.”

“I’m very sorry.”

She sniffed. “That’s OK.”

“I only met him a couple of times but I liked him. He took people on face value and that’s a rare quality.”

“So…”

Connie could not think of her father.

“You shared a cell with Ronny, then?” she asked tiredly.

“No.”

She paused. “Pardon?”

“No.”

“You didn’t share a cell with Ronny?”