Winman, Sarah - When God Was a Rabbit

My mother carefully replaced the photograph.

Silence.

‘I’ve never been a crazy person, Elly, not hysterical. I’ve been rational all my life and so when I say, he’s not dead, it’s not wishing or hoping, it’s rational; it’s clear thought.’

‘OK,’ I said, and started to unzip my bag.

‘Your father thinks I’m mad. Walks away when I say such things, says it’s grief making me mad, making me say such things, but I know it, Elly. I know it I know it I know it.’

I stopped unpacking. Halted by the desperate grip of her words.

‘Where is he then, Mum?’

She was about to answer when she saw my father standing in the doorway. He looked at her and came towards me and handed me a pile of old Cornish Times .

‘Thought you might like these,’ he said, and backed out of the room, hardly looking at my mother.

‘Stay,’ I said, but he chose not to hear me and I heard his footsteps heavy and sad on the oaken staircase.

I found him in his workroom. A stooped figure, suddenly old. A makeshift lamp was clamped to an overhead shelf just behind him, and his face appeared soft and masked in the illuminated dust, his eyes dark and sad. He didn’t look up as I came in and I went over and sat on the old armchair, the one we’d brought from our old terraced house in Essex, the one that was re-covered in burnt-orange cotton twill.

‘I’d do anything,’ he said, ‘anything to have him back. I pray and I want to believe her, I so do. And I feel I am betraying her. But I saw the images, Elly. And every day I read about the fatalities.’

He picked up a sheet of sandpaper and started smoothing the edge of the bookcase he’d almost finished.

‘I’ve always known something like this would happen. Something has always hung over this family. Something, just waiting. I can’t hope any more. Because I don’t deserve hope.’

He stopped working and leant over his bench. I knew what he was talking about again and I quietly said, ‘That was all a long time ago, Dad.’

‘Not for her family, Elly. It’s still like yesterday for them,’ he said. ‘Their grief is my grief now. The circle’s complete.’

I lay on the bench, shivering, until night lay with me and the moon struggled to penetrate the canopy above. The leaves were unyielding, hanging on firm in the sudden chill that succeeded sunset; they would not fall yet – not tonight, at least.

The sounds of unseen creatures and movements – once the sound of creeping dread – were now familiar to me, and kind, and I breathed in the dank mustiness, the earth-laden chill, and filled my nostrils and put out those fires that raged still within. Sleep was mine. Unencumbered by dreams, I slept long, long into the early hours when I awoke to rain. It was almost morning as the sun haloed the outer reaches of the forest. I sat up on the bench; my underside dry. I felt in my pocket and pulled out a half-eaten bar of chocolate. It was dark chocolate, bitter, Arthur’s favourite. I always took it with me when we went out for a walk. I broke off a square and let it melt in my mouth. A little too bitter for breakfast, but I was grateful.

I heard the sound of rustling first and knew what it was before I saw it. I hadn’t seen it in months, almost a year maybe. The dark intense eyes came out of a pile of leaves, followed by the chestnut fur, the pointed nose twitching in recognition. It stopped in front of me, as if wanting something. I tried to shoo it away with my foot but it didn’t flinch this time; stayed staring at me. It didn’t even startle at the sound of my phone, the loud ringing harsh in the feeble dawn. Its eyes never left mine as I picked up and nervously said, ‘Hello?’ And it stayed staring at me as I listened to her voice – now so much older – as she whispered the words, ‘Elly, I can’t talk for long,’ just like she said twenty-one years ago. ‘Listen to me, don’t give up. He’s alive, I know he’s alive. Trust me, Elly. You must trust me.’

Its eyes never left mine.

I didn’t shower, just changed into an old fishing sweater bought almost fifteen years before. The elasticity had gone, and it hung straight across my hips, hung from the neckline too. Joe used to say it was my comfort. Maybe he was right. It felt coarse and rustic after the cottons of summer; it felt defiant; as if winter was within reach.

Arthur was at the breakfast table when I came down and he was listening to his pocket radio, a single wire dangling from his left ear. The other two had left a note: ‘Gone to Trago Mills to buy paint.’ Buy paint? I didn’t know whether to be glad or not. It was a start, was all I kept thinking. Something they were doing together.

‘Coffee, Arthur?’ I said, as I pulled apart a croissant.

‘No, I’m fine, dear. Had three already and I’ve got palpitations.’

‘Better not then.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

I bent down and Nelson came towards me. I nuzzled him, rubbed behind his ears and gave him a piece of the pastry, which he tried to refuse but couldn’t. He tried so hard to be conscientious, but we as a family had ruined him. From the day he arrived, earnest and full of intention, all we ever saw was the prettiest of souls and treated him as such, until his single-mindedness turned into flighty, everyday distraction. And as I rubbed his belly, the sleekness was now replaced by rotundity, for he had become the receptacle of my parents’ grief and ate whatever was offered; preventing them from feeding their own gnawing heartache.

I brought my coffee to the table and sat down.

‘It’s so quiet here without you all,’ he said, turning off the radio. ‘Your absence has made me old.’

I reached over and held his hand.

‘I can’t believe all this. I thought I’d left such violence behind,’ and he took out his neatly pressed handkerchief and quietly blew his nose. ‘I’m ready now, Elly. Ready to depart. The fear has gone, together with my desire for life. I’m so tired now. Tired of saying goodbye to those I love. I’m so sorry, my darling.’

I kissed his hand. ‘There’s a new family of herons on the river, I believe. Dad heard them the other day. The young should be ready to leave soon. How about we go and find them?’

He squeezed my hand. ‘I’d like that,’ he said, and I finished the last of my coffee and dropped the remainder of my croissant into Nelson’s grateful mouth.

A brisk wind blew up the valley, carrying occasional rain and the smell of salt, and the water chopped and slapped at the sides of the boat as Arthur yelled in delight. Nelson stood at the bow like a figurehead until a flock of Canada geese startled him as they unexpectedly took flight, and he jumped down and hid behind Arthur’s warm spindly legs. I turned off the engine and paddled along the riverbank in search of the large nests the herons always built at water level along this stretch. We hid under overhanging branches, paused to listen to distinct river sounds, and as we beached momentarily on a shingled shelf, the leathery greens and the grey-greens and the black-greens of watergrowth surrounded us, and merged with the dark front that suddenly rolled up the river like thick dark smoke. I barely managed to pull the heavy tarpaulin over us before the first of the lightning flashed and the sleeting rain fell.

‘Oh, I see it all!’ shouted Arthur, as he staggered out into the rain and lifted his face to the onslaught, squealing as the mad urgency of nature whipped his eager senses. The air rumbled with the cannon sound of thunder, and the lightning bounced from field to tree to field.