Winman, Sarah - When God Was a Rabbit

‘If you don’t know then you’re stupider than you look,’ and I punched him hard again in the same place.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Because you shouldn’t have done that to him.’

‘I had to be careful,’ he said. ‘My dad, you see. He keeps watching me, he’s really weird. Tell him that for me. Tell him . . . something nice.’

‘Fuck off and tell him yourself,’ I said, and started up the hill, suddenly revived, suddenly powerful; suddenly changed.

Had my parents ceased for one glorious moment, to stop and be still in the silence, they would have heard the sound of my brother’s heart break in two. But they heard nothing except the sound of the Cornish waves and birdsong that were to fill their lives and ours to come. It was left to Nancy and me to pick up the pieces that my brother had become; to resurrect his shrunken spirit and pull his pale tear-stained face from beneath his pillow and give sense to a world that had given him none: he loved, yet wasn’t loved back. Even Nancy had no words of comfort or explanation. This was part of life and she was sorry that the realisation had hit him so young.

We stayed with her at Charterhouse Square as the cavernous summer holidays opened up, and she kept us busy with continual visits to museums and art galleries and cafés, and gradually his lack of interest in everything except his wounded self started to wane, and he tentatively emerged, squinting into the late July sunshine, opting to give life one more chance.

‘When did you know?’ he asked her as we walked along the Thames, heading towards the South Bank complex and an old black-and-white film.

‘A bit older than you, I suppose. Sixteen? I’m not sure really. I knew early on what I didn’t want, and I got a lot of what I didn’t want, so my choice became easy.’

‘But it’s not easy, is it?’ he said. ‘It stinks. All that hiding and shit.’

‘Then don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t hide.’

‘Sometimes I wish I was like everyone else,’ he said, and Nancy stopped in front of him and laughed.

‘No you don’t! You’d hate being like everyone else. Don’t kid yourself, sunshine – being gay’s your salvation and you know it.’

‘Bollocks,’ he said, trying to stifle a smile. He unwrapped a stick of chewing gum and checked out the dark-haired man who passed in front of him.

‘Saw you,’ I said, nudging him with my elbow.

He ignored me.

‘I saw him look, Nancy. At that man there.’

‘Shutup,’ he said and walked on, hands stuffed in too-tight jeans, the ones my mum said would make him sterile.

‘So, has your heart ever got broken?’ he added nonchalantly.

‘Oh God, YES!’ said Nancy.

‘Her name was Lilly Moss, actually,’ I said, finally able to interrupt their conversation, ‘the main one, that is. Everyone knows that story, Joe. She two-timed Nancy and tried to take her for all she was worth. Didn’t get away with it, though, did she, Nancy?’

‘No she didn’t,’ said Nancy, ‘although she did get away with a rather expensive diamond necklace, if I remember rightly.’

‘I’m never going to fall in love with anyone again,’ my brother declared robustly, and Nancy smiled and put her arm around him.

‘Never’s a long time, Joe. Bet you won’t make it.’

‘Bet I will. How much?’ he said.

‘Tenner,’ she said.

‘Fine,’ he said, and they shook hands, and Nancy walked on, safe in the knowledge that the ten-pound note would one day be hers.

‘We’re moving,’ my father suddenly said over a full English breakfast. My brother and I looked at each other and carried on eating. The back door was open and August’s heat was sending the bees wild, and their intoxicating buzz thankfully filled the silence that had settled in the wake of our cruel indifference.

My father looked disappointed; he thought his exciting declaration might have elicited more emotion, and he wondered if he really knew his own children; a thought that would trouble him many times throughout the coming years.

‘To Cornwall,’ he said enthusiastically, and he raised his arms as if he’d just scored a goal and said, ‘Yay!’

My mother left her position at the grill and sat with us at the table.

‘We know it’s sudden,’ she said. ‘But when we were away at Easter a property came onto the market and suddenly we knew: this was what we wanted. What we’ve dreamt of for our family. And so we bought it.’

She paused to allow the absurdity of what she was saying to slap us across our cheeks and to wake us up. It didn’t. We carried on eating in a daze.

‘We need you to trust us, that’s all,’ she said. (That book again.)

My brother pushed his plate away and said, ‘All right. When?’

‘Two weeks today,’ my father said apologetically.

‘OK,’ my brother said, and he got up clumsily from the table, leaving two untouched rashers of bacon, and headed towards the stairs.

My brother was lying on his bed flicking an elastic band across his arm; rising red welts crisscrossed on his skin.

‘What are you thinking?’ I said from the doorway.

‘I’m not,’ he said.

‘Do you want to go?’ I said, sitting down next to him.

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘There’s fuck all for me here,’ and he turned towards the open window and its view of all he would leave. The sky had turned a deep violet grey since the morning. The atmosphere was sticky. Starting to aggravate.

‘What about Jenny Penny?’ I said to him.

‘What about her?’

‘Do you think she can come with us?’

‘What do you think?’ he said, turning towards me and flicking my knee.

‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘ Un necessary.’

‘Of course she can’t come, Ell. She lives here, with that dopey cow of a mum,’ and he rolled back over to face the window.

‘How am I going to tell her?’ I said, suddenly feeling scared and sick.

‘Dunno,’ he said as he drew a line down the misted windowpane. ‘We need a storm. Clear the air. That’ll make things easier,’ and as if prompted by his careless words, the first rumble of thunder rolled across the horizon, displacing startled birds and settled picnics as it went.

The rain fell immediately. Large drops – nearly sleet – saturated the parched gardens and soon gutters were spilling over and the wash of dusty overflow filed down pathways and pooled in craters of mud. The sky lit up, one fork, and then another, lightning stabbing at the horizon between the fence of poplars. We saw Mr Harris run out to his washing line, too late to save his drenched jeans. We ran down the stairs and out through the back door, another fork of lightning – the sound of a fire engine. My brother reached into the hutch and pulled out my shivering rabbit.

‘About bloody time,’ said god as I held him close to my chest. ‘I could’ve died out here.’

‘Sorry about that,’ I said. ‘Really I am.’

‘Sorry about what?’ shouted my brother.

Dogs barked three houses over and children danced screaming into the onslaught, laughing and awash with joyful terror. The thunder roared and shook the ground. Mr Fisk, at the back, ran out to secure a tarpaulin, its unruly edges billowing in the wind, wanting to take flight. And we stood in the middle of our garden, unsheltered, unprotected and looked around at the turbulence of the lives we backed onto, sat next to, the lives of the neighbourhood, and it shook clear our apathy until we saw again what our life here had been. There was the sledge our father had made, the one we took to school, the envy of all; and the ghosts of swings and climbing frames that had held us, and dropped us, the sounds of our tears. And we saw again the cricket and football matches that had scuffed bare the grass of the bottom lawn. And we remembered the tents we had made and the nights spent within; imaginary countries, us the explorers. There was suddenly so much to say goodbye to. And as the storm blew across and the first of the sunbursts lifted our corner of the world, there she was. Her face drenched, peering over the fence. Not smiling. As if she knew.