Winman, Sarah - When God Was a Rabbit

They worked not by the clock but until the light ran out, and he seemed revived by the physicalness of the work, the unconscious memory his body felt at working with wood, with the feel of wood. As they walked into the kitchen, with its smells of boiling crab and garlic mayonnaise, they were collaborators in a successful day and my exclusion felt ever more intense. They washed their hands and chatted about the new shelving, the possibility of laying a wood floor, and I listened as I dropped the crabs onto the newspaper, half hoping they would scuttle to the floor and interrupt their rigorous prattling. I placed two bottles of wine on the table and sat down exhausted.

Joe reached across to hold our hands.

‘Let us pray,’ he said, bowing his head.

I looked at Charlie. What the fuck is this now?

He shrugged.

‘For what we are about to receive,’ said Joe, and then he stopped; looked at us. We lowered our heads and repeated what he’d said.

‘I’m only joking,’ he said as he reached for a crab and broke off its large front claw. ‘Just kidding,’ he added, and Charlie laughed. I didn’t. Fucker, I thought.

I retreated, said nothing all night, simply drank – we all did; no one was counting – and I felt my rage burn acid hot as I watched him grow in his present, seem happy in his present. I didn’t know why I felt like this. Normal , the doctor would have said, my feelings were normal. That’s what we paid him for, for the diagnosis of normal.

Charlie rubbed my leg under the table, a feeble reassurance; he looked at me and grinned, happy with his day of work, with his reconnection. Joe suddenly stopped chewing, and held his mouth; I thought he was about to be sick. Fucking crab shell, I thought, another fucking tooth.

‘Spit it out,’ I said.

‘I’m fine,’ he murmured.

‘You used to like crab.’

He held up his hand for me to stop. A palm in front of my face. New gesture. I hated it.

‘You used to love it,’ I said. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot – I’m not supposed to mention what you used to like, am I? Too much pressure.’

‘Ell, please,’ he said, still not chewing, holding his mouth; eyes closed, thinking maybe, trying not to speak. I got up and went to the sink.

‘I can’t fucking stand this,’ I said, and filled my glass with water.

‘Elly, it’s OK,’ said Charlie.

‘It’s not OK. I’ve had enough.’

The sound of his chair grated against the flagstones as he pushed it away and came towards me. He reached for my arm.

‘Fuck off, Joe,’ I said.

‘OK,’ and he moved away.

‘It’s too easy, isn’t it? You fight for nothing. You’re just not interested in any of it. Not us. None of it. You don’t care about what went before. You just fucking mock us.’

‘I care.’

‘Leave it, Elly,’ Charlie said.

‘I want to tell you so much but you never ask.’

‘I don’t know where to start, do I?’

‘Just start ,’ I said. ‘Just fucking start. Anything. Something .’

He stood looking at me, formulating nothing, no words. He held his mouth again, closed his eyes.

‘Ell,’ he said quietly.

‘OK, how about I start? You like bananas. And fried eggs well done. You like swimming in the ocean but not in swimming pools and you like avocados but not with mayonnaise, and little gem lettuce and walnuts and sponge cake and date slices and Scotch – blended, surprisingly, not single malt – and you like Ealing comedies and Marmite and lardy cake and churches and blessings, and you even thought about becoming Catholic once, after attending Mass with Elliot Bolt. You like ice cream, but not strawberry, and lamb rare – but not well done – and first-of-the-season chard. You weirdly like boat shoes and collarless shirts, orange round-neck jumpers, Oxford over Cambridge, De Niro over Pacino and—’

I suddenly stopped and looked at him. His eyes were shut and tears were rolling down his face.

‘Ask me something,’ I said. He shook his head.

‘You’ve had measles and chicken pox. And one girlfriend, Dana Hadley. You’ve broken three ribs. And a finger. In a door, not playing rugby. You don’t like raisins or nuts in chocolate, but you like them in salads. You don’t like rudeness. Or ignorance. Or prejudice or intolerance. Ask me something.’

He shook his head.

‘You don’t like rollerblading, or Starbucks coffee, or their fucking mugs.’

He sat down and held his head. Charlie moved over to the table.

‘You can’t throw a Frisbee. And you can’t dance. You see, that’s who you are, Joe. All these things. That’s the person I know, and through him is the way you’ll know me, because connected to all these things are moments , and for so many of them, I was there. And that’s the thing that hurts so much.’

‘Elly,’ whispered Charlie. ‘Stop.’

‘You see, you were the only person who knew everything . Because you were there. And you were my witness. And you make sense of the fucked-up mess I become every now and then. And I could at least look at you and think, at least he knows why I am the way I am. There were reasons. But I can’t do that any more and I feel so lonely. So forgive me. There’s not much point any more, is there?’

And for the first time ever, I emerged from his shadow and walked out, unready, into the darkness, and startled the bats at rest.

It was cold, my breath misted, and I realised that autumn had now gone, it was winter once again. I suddenly didn’t know where to go, this was not my land, and the darkness here was fierce; strange sounds, a dog bark or coyotes? I should have known the difference but I didn’t. This was ancient land, and the further I went towards the shadow of the mountain, I felt its rage and the visions of history.

I sat down in the middle of the old disused runway, a plaything, once, for a rich landowner, now cracked with grass and daisies growing amidst the tarmac. I watched it reach into the night like a frozen river until it disappeared into the black wall of trees, the land boundary of nothingness at the edge of the world.

He came out of the blackness, boldly striding, his blond curls picking up the remnants of moonlight, a white aura surrounding his head. His strange presence had uncovered a loneliness of such devouring longing, one that reached cruelly back into the past, and I knew I could no longer be around him. I would leave the next day; take the bus back to the city, a plane back to London and an explanation back to Cornwall. One day he might return. One day.

He was no longer striding but running towards me and he frightened me. I stood up and started to back away from him, away from his words, away from, ‘Ell, wait,’ and his outstretched hand, and before long I was running towards the blackness, into oblivion where nothing existed that night except the call of owls and the flight of midges and the ghosts of planes landing, their stuttering engines reaching for land in the bleakest of silence.

‘Leave me alone,’ I shouted.

‘Wait,’ he said, and I felt his hand on my shoulder.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ I said, my fist clenched at my thigh.

‘It’s just . . . something came back, Ell. In there. Charlie said I needed to ask you.’

‘Ask me what?’ I said, my voice cold, unrecognisable.

‘The word “ Trehaven ”. What is it?’

I looked up and saw Alan waving from the bridge. He looked nervous as we approached and when we stood in front of him he spoke clearly and loudly as if it wasn’t only memory that my brother had lost, but his hearing too.