Remember Why You Fear Me (12 page)

“What is it?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Try to angle the car. You know. So we can see what it is in the lamps.”

He did his best. She still couldn’t identify it, it was sprawled in such an odd position, she couldn’t even see if it had a head. But there had to be a head, because it was definitely alive, whatever it was it was twitching, you couldn’t twitch without a head, could you? “Probably a bird,” he said, and she jumped, she hadn’t heard him get out of the car, “you saw the way it flew at me, probably a bird.” And he sniffed. But it looked a bit large for a bird, and besides, surely that was fur? “We should go and get it,” she suggested, and he looked horrified. “It’s in the motorway,” he said, “we can’t walk out into the motorway.” But there were no cars coming, no headlights in the distance, and the creature twitched again, for God’s sake it was
twitching
. “It’s not as if we’ll be able to help,” he said, and she gave him a look, said a “Sod it” under her breath, and then ran out into the road.

Up she scooped it into her arms, and she made to dash back, but as she did so she felt that the creature had been stuck down on to the tarmac, she fancied there was resistance as she pulled it up, and she was suddenly terrified that she’d left bits of the body behind, that she’d make it back to the safety of the hard shoulder with only half an animal and the rest of it trailing after her. “Are you all right?” he asked, and his arms were out wide, and for a moment she thought absurdly that he wanted to
hug
her, after all that had happened, and she thought, no, he wants to take the animal from me, he wants to
share
this—but not even that, now his arms had dropped uselessly to his sides, he was doing nothing to help, nothing. And as she reached him she had a sick urge to drop the creature to the ground, but what would be the point of that, why bother rescuing it in the first place? And though she suddenly felt such revulsion to it, she kept it in her arms those few seconds longer, she knelt down and laid it out gently on the hard shoulder. And she realized at last that it
was
fur, matted fur, and she wondered whether it was matted with blood or with rainfall. “There,” she said, as she pulled away from it at last, “there you go,” and, stupidly, “you’ll be all right now.” And it did have a head she saw, thank God, and it turned that head and fixed her with its eyes.

“It’s a rabbit,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Or a hare. I always get the two muddled up. Aren’t hares supposed to have longer ears? Or is that the other way round?” He thought for a bit. “Do you think those are long ears?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nor me. If we had another rabbit here, you know, side by side. You know, we could compare.”

They stood there for a good half minute, just looking down at it. And it lay there, for the same length of time, just looking back. “It’s not moving much,” he said.

“No.”

“Do you think it’s dying, or what? There isn’t much blood. I mean, unless there was in the road. Was there a lot in the road?” She didn’t answer. “What do we do now?”

“I think,” she said heavily, “we have to put it out of its misery.”

“Right,” he said, “right. And are you sure,” he went on, licking his lips, “that it’s actually
in
misery? I mean, it’s not making much noise. It’s not squealing or anything. Surely if there were misery, there’d be squealing and stuff.”

“Help me find a rock,” she said. And they both went up to the embankment, scrabbled around in the grass. It didn’t have to be a rock, anything sharp or heavy would have done, but it was rocks that they found. Hers was better than his. When he saw that, he dropped his to the ground.

“How are you going to do this?” he asked her.

“I’m not going to do it,” she said, and she’d never been more sure of anything. “You’re going to do it.” And she gave him the rock.

“You could have just left it in the road,” he said. “Why didn’t you just leave it in the road? Some car would have come eventually, squashed it, there’d be no need for rocks and shit.” And she felt such a flare of anger at that, but she didn’t raise her voice, “Go on,” she said. Go on, finish it. Finish what you’ve started.

So he stood there, all five foot six of him, weighing the rock in his hands, aiming downwards. “You’re going to have to get closer than that,” she said. “Jesus,” he said. “What, right down in the, you want me on my, right, Jesus.” And he got down on his knees. “I hope you’re happy,” he said. “I hope this is what you want. Jesus.”

“You’re going to have to hit it pretty hard,” she told him. And she almost laughed at the look he threw her then, and it wasn’t funny, not really, she really
mustn’t
laugh. But he’d tried so hard all weekend to accommodate her, to keep smiling no matter what, and here on his face at last was something like fury. “Go on,” she said. And he muttered something, and lined up the rock to the rabbit’s skull, as if he were taking a snooker stroke, for God’s sake, as if he were swinging a golf club. “You might want to hold its head,” she added.

“I’m not
touching
it,” he said. “I’ll kill it, but I won’t touch it. Oh. Oh. Wait. Look.”

And she’d had enough suddenly. “I’ll do it,” she said, “if you can’t.” I just want to get home, she thought.

“No,” he said. “What’s this?”

She stooped beside him.

The rabbit had a wing. It was thick and black and leathery. And
wide
, it lay stretched out to the left, a wider span than the body from which it had unfurled. The rabbit blinked at them, as if it was as surprised as they were.

“It can’t be real,” he said. “It must be stuck on.” And he hadn’t wanted to touch the creature before, but now his fingers were all over it, feeling the wing, prodding at where it met the fur. “I can’t see any join,” he said. “I thought it must have been stitched on or something, but it just comes out of the skin.” The rabbit gave a little cough, almost politely—and from out of its right side a second wing unfolded. It spread even wider, and it fluttered a little under the drizzle.

The rabbit shuddered and gave a single grunt. It was only for a beat, it was very quiet, but they both heard it. “I don’t see what difference it makes,” she said.

“Maybe there’s some sort of scientific base nearby,” he was saying. “You know, where they put ears on mice and things.” He was on his feet now, looking about, as if expecting to see a laboratory on the horizon. “Do you think that could be it? I mean, maybe it escaped. Maybe they want it back.”

“Give me the rock,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” And for a moment he genuinely didn’t know. Then he grinned at her, talked very slowly, very patiently. “But, no. But we can’t kill it now. That would be terrible. I mean, look at it,” although he was doing nothing of the sort himself, he was beaming with a big smile now and his eyes were bright. “I mean, what if this is even
better
than an experiment from a lab? I mean, this could be a new
species
. Can you just think of that?”

“No,” she said.

“Look,” he said. “Look.” And then he was silent for a moment, as if trying to work out what she should be looking at. “Okay, look. We came out here for something magical. Didn’t we? I mean, that was the whole point. And maybe this is it. This is something magical.”

“It’s in pain,” she said.

“We’ll get it a towel,” he said. “There’s one on the back seat, I think. Yeah, we’ll make it nice and comfortable. Go on,” he said. “Go and get the towel. Go on then,” and there was just a touch of impatience in his voice now, and as she looked at him his eyes were gleaming in the rain, it was raining for real now and it made his face look shiny and alive.

And she fetched the towel, and he wrapped up the rabbit within it as gently as he could. Lovingly, she thought, almost lovingly. She tried to help, but he waved her away. He stroked the wings and he stroked the fur, and told the creature it was going to be okay. The creature looked at him a little doubtfully, but at least it didn’t make that grunt of pain again, that was something. And they carried it to the boot, they shut it in, and then they drove away.

And on the way up all they’d done was talk. After a few hours, halfway up the M5, he’d admitted to her he’d been a bit nervous, what if they hadn’t found things to chat about? And she’d laughed, and said fat chance! The words had just spilled out of both of them, sometimes there were about three different conversations going on at once—she thought it was rather exhilarating and laughed every time she lost her train of thought only to find another altogether. First off, of course, they’d talked about work—he’d only been at the office for a few weeks, whereas she’d been there for
years
, she could tell him all the gossip—and he said he was relieved, that the people he thought he was beginning to like were the ones it was safe to like, and those he hadn’t taken to were precisely the ones to steer clear of. It was good to get such inside information! And they’d discussed their family, why it was he didn’t get on with his mum, why she didn’t get on with her dad. “It’s the same sort of thing,” he told her sympathetically, “but in reverse. Jesus, what’s wrong with our parents anyway?” They’d even touched on politics, and although she rather suspected the views he held were just watered down versions of her own, at least they weren’t going to argue, at least they were in the same general ballpark. He’d picked her up from the top of her road first thing that morning; as it turned out, he could have done so from the house, she’d sorted everything out, but he said it might be safer his way. “Is that all your luggage?” he’d said, and she’d smiled, and said she didn’t think she’d need much. And she’d sat in the passenger seat beside him, and there wasn’t any crap lying on the floor, and there was a smell of lemon. She thought he must have cleaned the car especially—and then thought, why not just ask him? So did. And he blushed and said he had, actually, was that really pathetic? “No, no,” she said, “it’s nice, it’s nice.” And meant it.

She navigated. He told her he didn’t have a satnav. “Well, I do,” he said, “but I don’t like it, I think the voice is a bit creepy.” And she’d laughed, and agreed, those voices
were
a bit creepy, weren’t they? Although she didn’t find her satnav creepy in the slightest. And he’d said that maybe they only hired actors to record those satnav things if they had creepy voices, and he’d tried to picture the auditions involved, even acting it out, turning down Mel Gibson, Jack Nicholson, because they didn’t sound enough like axe murderers, and the joke must have been run on for over half an hour, and somehow never quite stopped being funny. She was pleased to see he didn’t mind when she gave the wrong directions, when they came off the motorway at the wrong junction. “It’s a holiday!” he said, “it’s not as if we’re in any hurry!” They pulled into a service station, and he bought them both a coffee. He noted how she insisted it come with soya milk, he told her with mock grimness that was important knowledge he would store away for future reference, and then grinned.

“Look,” he said. “Silly to ask. But just so I’m sure. What we’re doing is what I think we’re doing, isn’t it?” And he played with his plastic stirrer. “You know. We are shagging, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Oh, good,” he said. “Oh, that’s what I thought. But it’d have been embarrassing if . . . I mean, I only got us the one room. Good.”

She leaned forward across the coffee and the soya milk. And the detritus of how many other travellers, maybe they were all going down the M5 for a spot of shagging, why not. He looked surprised, and it took him a few moments to realize he should lean in too. And she kissed him on the lips. He responded very well, actually. There was a bit of movement on his part, a sort of nibbling, but not too much, he didn’t get carried away. And although the tongue did make an appearance, it didn’t hog the party the way it sometimes could, it was just a push against her teeth, a quick hello and goodbye, a quick see you later maybe.

“You’ve done this before,” she said.

“What, kiss?” he said, and was puzzled. Then he realized she was teasing, and said, “Oh yes, kissing, I’ve kissed a few times, yeah.”

“Good to know,” she said.

“But never,” he added, as they got up and put on their coats, “someone who tasted of soya. That was a new one on me.”

“It’s a lovely part of the country,” he told her as they drove on. “I grew up there as a kid. And I hope you like the hotel. It had a nice website. It’s a family hotel, you know, nothing posh, but I don’t like those posh hotels much, do you? They’re not very personal. I like personal, personal’s nice. This one looks nice, the pictures are nice, it has off street parking.”

“So long as it has a bed,” she said, “we’ll be fine.”

The landlady was waving at them from the front window. “This must be it,” he said, and they pulled up in the driveway. “Hello, hello!” said the landlady, opening the door to them. “And welcome! We spoke on the phone, yes? I’m Marcia. I hope you’ll be very happy here.” Marcia was fiftyish and grey haired, with arms thick enough to churn butter.

They introduced themselves. “Married?” asked Marcia. “Yes,” she said. “No,” he said. “Only the one of us,” she said. Marcia laughed. “Say no more!” He looked embarrassed, but she didn’t mind—she’d rather he’d been mistaken for her husband than her son. Marcia led them through to the back of the house. “And here’s your little part of our home,” she said. “Here’s the key, and there’s a separate door through the garden, you see, if you want to come in late at night. Just so you won’t worry about disturbing me or my husband.” She watched them take in the room, the wardrobe, the TV mounted in the corner, the bathroom door, for some reason a painting of a goose. And the double bed, big, bold, bloody unignorable, right there in the centre. “Have fun!” she said, and left them.

“I like her,” he said, “she seems nice.” She put down her bag on the bed, kissed him from behind on his neck. “Oh!” he said. “What are you doing? We haven’t even unpacked yet.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No,” he said, “I’m sorry. Sorry.” He opened his arms, and she thought, a hug, he wants a
hug
. She stepped into the embrace anyway, and he held on to her gingerly as if she were cut crystal, and he rubbed his cheek against hers, and gave her a peck. Then he thought about it for a moment, grinned, what the hell, and kissed her full on the lips. It was for longer this time, and the tongue gave more than its cameo performance. “Okay?” he asked.