Winman, Sarah - When God Was a Rabbit

Mrs Penny was as drunk as I’d ever seen anybody be. She lurched like a dying man from one dance move to another and disappeared occasionally down the alleyway to expel vomit or urine, only to emerge refreshed and almost sober, ready for another ladle of toxic punch. That night, though, the neighbours watched with care, not judgement, and hands were gentle as they rested on her back, guiding her to safe passage that was a chair or a wall, or sometimes even a lap. For that night they all learnt that the boyfriend had gone. Had taken a bag of his things and some of her things – things she wouldn’t even know about until much later – things like an egg poacher and a jar of maraschino cherries. As I passed her dancing shadow, she reached out and grabbed my arm tightly and slurred a word that could have been lonely .

With the last record played and the last sausage roll eaten, Jenny Penny and I went with my mother in search of Mrs Penny. The street was virtually empty, now that the tables had been swiftly stacked on the pavement for the Council’s removal.

We went up and down the street several times in case she’d taken refuge in a bush or in an unlocked car. But it was as we were heading down the alleyway for the second time, that we saw two shadows swaying towards us, and as they came close to the flare of a streetlight we could see that it was Mr Harris holding up Jenny’s mother. She looked sheepish and wiped her mouth. Smudged lipstick, mouth of a clown. Sad not funny. Jenny Penny said nothing.

‘I was simply helping the woman,’ said Mr Harris tucking in his shirt. ‘The woman’, he’d said. She’d been lovely Hayley to him all night.

‘Of course you were,’ said my mother, sounding unconvinced. ‘OK, girls, help Hayley back to the street and I’ll join you in a minute,’ and as we walked away, her weight evenly balanced on our small frames, I turned back and saw my mother poking Mr Harris angrily in the chest and I heard my mother say, ‘If you ever ever take advantage of a woman in that state again, God help what I do to you, you arrogant shit.’

My mother and father didn’t even get her anywhere near upstairs before she vomited in her hallway. Jenny Penny turned away embarrassed until my father’s reassuring smile made her feel less alone. But she remained quiet throughout the clean-up proceedings, following my mother’s orders like a besotted disciple. Bowl of hot water, towel, sheets, blanket, empty bucket. Pint of water. Thank you, Jenny, you’re doing really well. My father helped Mrs Penny onto the sofa and covered her with lilac sheets, and as she slept my mother stroked her forehead, kissed it even, saw the child.

‘I’m going to stay here tonight, Jenny,’ my mother said. ‘You go back to ours with Elly and Alfie. And don’t worry about your mum, she’ll be fine. I’ll look after her. This is simply what happens when adults have so much fun. She didn’t do anything wrong, Jenny. Just had fun, that’s all. And she was a lot of fun, wasn’t she?’

But Jenny Penny said nothing. She knew my mother’s words were mere scaffolding holding up a crumbling wall.

Our slow footsteps echoed along the dark street. Jenny Penny reached for my hand.

‘I wish my mother was like—’

‘Don’t,’ I said harshly, interrupting her. I knew the word that was to follow, and that night it was a word that would have punctured my heart with guilt.

Looking back, it’s quite clear my parents had made the decision to move by the time they returned from their trip to Cornwall that Easter. They’d been on a second honeymoon, Nancy said. They’d needed to reconnect, to find each other as people once again and when they walked through the door, ruddy and salty, there was an energy about them, an energy I’d never seen before; a kindness not bound by familiarity or duty, and when my father sat us down and declared that he had decided to quit his job, I felt relieved that the fragility of expectation that had hung over us during the last eighteen months had finally turned into the decisiveness of action.

My father worked out his notice by the end of June and then, shunning all goodbyes and celebrations, sat in his car in the deserted car park and cried late into the night. The police found him hunched over the steering wheel, eyes red and swollen like boils. When they opened his door, all he could say was, ‘Forgive me. Forgive me, please ,’ and for a young policeman three weeks out of Hendon this appeared to be a shocking confession, as his imagination jumped from textbook to crime novel in one easy leap. He believed my father had murdered his family, and called for a squad of cars to rush over to our house. The door thundered under the blows of fists, and my mother, disoriented, torn from sleep, rushed down the stairs, fearful that the bearer of unbearable news had once again found his way to her door.

‘Yes?’ she said in a tone that was neither helpful nor passive.

‘Are you Mrs Kate Portman?’ said the policeman.

‘I am,’ said my mother.

‘Do you know a Mr Portman?’ said the policeman.

‘Of course I do, he’s my husband. What’s happened to him?’

‘Nothing serious, but he seems a little distressed. Could you come down to the station with me and collect him?’

And my mother did, and found my father pale and trembling in the fluorescent light under the care of a kind station sergeant. He was wrapped in a grey blanket and was holding a mug of tea. The mug was patterned with the insignia of the West Ham supporters’ club and somehow made my father look more pathetic, my mother said. She took the mug from him and placed it on the floor.

‘Where are your shoes?’ she asked.

‘They took them from me,’ he said. ‘It’s procedure. In case I did anything to myself.’

‘What? Like trip yourself up?’ she said, and they both laughed and knew that it would be all right – for the moment, at least.

And as they walked out to the car park, she stopped and turned to him and said, ‘Leave it here, Alfie. It’s time. Leave her here.’

Her name was Jean Hargreaves.

My father had been working in Chambers at the time and was chosen to defend a Mr X against child molestation charges. It was one of his first cases and, emboldened by new fatherhood and the responsibility placed on his green shoulders, he undertook Mr X’s defence as a sort of quest, a noble vocation against the dragon of slander.

Mr X was a known man, a respectable man of such gentle ways that my father found it unspeakable that he should be forced to defend himself against such heinous allegations. Mr X had been married for forty years. There was no whisper of affairs or marital grumblings, and their union was held up as the pinnacle to reach. They had two children; the boy went into the army, the girl into finance. He was on the board of directors of several companies; he was a patron of the arts and financed underprivileged children through university. But more importantly, he was the man my father wanted to be.

And then one day, a young woman called Jean Hargreaves walked into Paddington Green police station and unburdened herself for the first time in thirteen years, revealing the humiliating secret that liked to visit her at night. She had been ten at the time and subjected to a cycle of horrendous abuse, whilst her mother diligently cleaned the outer reaches of Mr X’s house. The police would have thrown out the case if it wasn’t for one mitigating circumstance: Jean Hargreaves could describe perfectly the heraldic ring her attacker wore on his little finger, and had noticed the smallest fissure across its shield.