Winman, Sarah - When God Was a Rabbit

When he improved, Grace knew he’d eventually be transferred to a public psych hospital, and that would conceal him deeper, mire him further in a system from which, without memory, he could never return.

He was standing at the window, a forlorn sight, singing a tune he’d picked up from TV. He turned to her and smiled.

‘Know how you lost that tooth?’ she said, pointing to his mouth.

He shook his head. ‘A fight probably.’

‘You don’t seem like a fighter,’ she said. ‘Too gentle.’

Then one night, as he lay sleeping, Grace went to his locker and took out his clothes for the last time. They were the only clue she had. She picked up the faded red T-shirt and saw again the faint drawing of a woman – a starlet maybe? – with the words Six and Judy’s above it, barely visible. She turned it over. Could hardly read it: Sing with all your Hear across the back.

It was all she had.

She typed in Six Judy’s and pressed SEARCH. Waited. Nothing on the first page. She reached for her coffee. It tasted stale. She stood up and stretched.

Clicked on the second page.

The word was Heart . It was the nineteenth entry:

Choir Sings for Sweet Charity

The Six Judy’s are an all-male choir specialising in show tunes and the era of Old Hollywood. We are a non-pro fitmaking group and have supported various charities, including Unicef, HelpAge USA, Coalition for the Homeless, Cancer Research Institute, as well as more personal projects like fundraising for kidney transplants and heart by-passes. If you’re interested in us, please contact Bobby on the number below.

It was late, too late to call, but she called anyway. A man answered. He wasn’t angry, just tired. She asked him if any of his singers were missing. One, he said. I think I’ve found him, she said.

‘He has a gap in the front of his teeth.’

His back was to me, framed by the window. The trees beyond were starting to change colour. A plane flew from right to left, skimmed the top of his head, trailed a plume of white lit by intermittent sunshine. It was a normal day outside. Inside, there was a vase of flowers, simple pink roses that Charlie had brought in a few days before; they were all he could get. I’d brought nothing. I suddenly felt shy, frightened maybe, of all he wasn’t. He was wearing the shirt I brought him from Paris, but he didn’t know that; he didn’t know me.

I’d had days to think about this moment. From the time of the phone call when we steered our storm-wracked boat back to shore and hauled our excited selves up the slope towards the house and my parents within. And from the moment I stood in front of them and told them all that Charlie had said and my mother said, ‘It doesn’t matter, we have him and that’s enough.’ And from the moment my father looked at her and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and she held him and said, ‘He’s come back to us, my darling. No sorry.’

Charlie let go of my hand and motioned me forward.

‘Hi,’ I said.

He turned round and smiled, looked exactly the same; more rested, perhaps, but no bruising, just the same.

‘You’re Elly?’ he said, and put his hand to his mouth, started to bite his nails; a gesture that made him, him. ‘My sister.’

‘Yeah.’

I went towards him, went to hold him, but he held out his hand instead and I took it and it felt cold. I pointed to his mouth.

‘You did that playing rugby, by the way.’

‘Ah, I wondered,’ he said.

I hadn’t seen the gap in years, since he broke the crown on a rogue piece of crab shell. I wondered if I should tell him. I didn’t.

He looked at Grace and shrugged. ‘Rugby,’ he said.

‘See, I says you were no fighter, Joe.’

She said ‘Joe’ as if it were a new word.

We had to go slow. The doctors said that. He was a blank photo album. I wanted to replace all the pictures, but the doctors told me it was important for him to create new ones. Go slow, they said. My parents entrusted Charlie and me to bring him home. But not just yet, the doctors said. Go slow. Work backwards. Allow him to unravel by himself. Go slow.

I saw her in the corridor as I was speaking to my parents. She was relacing her sensible black shoes, styled for comfort, not for fashion. What would I do with fashion? I could hear her say. My parents made me put her on the line, thanked her, invited her to Cornwall, to stay as long as she wanted; ‘For ever,’ my babbling father shouted, and he meant it, of course. Grace Mary Goodfield, who smelled so wondrously of Chanel and hope. I will know you for the rest of my life.

Charlie and I had already said our goodbyes, and we sat on the bed and waited.

‘Well, Mr Joe,’ said Grace. ‘This is it.’

‘I know.’

She reached for him as he moved towards her.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

And he whispered something neither of us could hear.

‘You keep in touch now. Get that aunt of yours to send some signed photos for us all. Item of clothing for the raffle would be nice,’ she added, laughing.

‘We’ll send her over in person. Get her on a few ward rounds,’ I said.

‘Do her good,’ said Charlie.

‘Even better,’ said Grace.

Awkward silence.

‘And don’t forget – Louisiana – always nice in spring.’

‘Spring it is then,’ we said.

‘I’ll never forget you,’ said Joe.

‘Told you, you were no fighter,’ she said, pointing to his mouth.

I am here but I am not yours.

He leant against the cab window, distant, quiet, non-reciprocal. We crossed the bridge and the lights lifted the dusk, and Joe eased his face towards the view beyond.

‘My God,’ he said as the illuminated world fired his imagination until I realised, naïvely, that this was probably the first time he had ever seen it.

‘And where were the Towers?’ he asked.

Charlie pointed. He nodded and we didn’t say any more after that; not about that day or where he was found or how that bridge used to be his favourite bridge – there would be time for that. Instead, we followed his gaze and quietly re-experienced the awe of the city neither of us had felt in years.

Charlie paid the driver and as we got out I felt a sudden chill I hadn’t prepared for.

‘This is home,’ I said to Joe, and ran up the steps expecting him to follow. He didn’t. He wandered into the middle of the road and looked up and down the street; trying to get some bearing, I imagine. He was nervous about entering an environment that would give clues to who he was.

Charlie patted his back, encouraged him towards the door. ‘Come on,’ he said naturally.

The hallway was lit and I could still smell the candle scent of two nights before; the night Charlie had filled me in on what to expect, the night we’d got stinking drunk into the early hours.

The house felt warm and the lighting cast shadows around the hearth and stairwells, and made the rooms look strangely bigger. Joe followed me in; he stopped and quietly looked around. He looked at the photos on the hall walls – a set of three Nan Goldins he’d paid thousands for – but he didn’t say anything, and instead ran upstairs and we heard him pacing on both sets of landings, until he ran back down to us and then beyond to the kitchen below. We heard the back door open. The sound of footsteps on the fire escape.