Remember Why You Fear Me (14 page)

She swung open the trunk. “I’m sorry,” she said, she was apologizing already and she hadn’t even seen it yet, she couldn’t have told you what she was sorry for, for what she was about to do or that it had taken her this long to do it. For a moment she thought it wasn’t even there—the towel was empty, it had been scuffed aside. And then she saw it, hiding in the corner. It shuffled forwards, to the light, to the rain, and to her. “Hello,” she said, and felt a bit stupid.

It gave another grunt—quieter this time, as if it knew it no longer had to make itself heard through layers of aluminium and plastic. It blinked, and fluttered its wings uselessly. She looked for a wound. The stomach was all but bare, the rabbit had nibbled away at its fur, and the skin beneath looked thin, like cellophane. Something moved beneath it, bulged.

“Oh God,” she said. Warily she put her fingers to the belly. And then she was ashamed of herself somehow, that she was being so squeamish, this poor animal wouldn’t even be in a Welcome Break car park if it wasn’t for her, she put her fingers to the belly and
pressed
. And the belly pressed back against her, a kick, just a little kick.

The rabbit grunted again. And then it just lay back, its distended stomach waving up at the woman brandishing the atlas. It almost made her laugh. Go on, the rabbit seemed to be saying, displaying itself. I’m ready, love, take me. She got a sudden insane urge to lick at the rabbit’s toes, I’m going to lick you all over. And then she really did laugh, out loud and barking, and the rabbit tutted impatiently.

The skin was so thin, it just needed the littlest help to break. She wasn’t one to grow long fingernails, they were a bugger to type with at work, but they were sharp enough anyway. Just one little slit, and that was it, there was something a little wet running over her fingers which she supposed might have been blood but felt different somehow—and the skin pulled back of its own accord from the puncture, opening out into two flaps. And poking free, a little nose, no, several noses behind it, all trying to jump the queue. They were all pushing through the open door at the same time, if they were only that little more patient there’d have been plenty of room, but the babies were blind and stupid. So she put down the atlas, and with both hands held open the flaps a bit wider. And flop—out came the first. And then there was more space, out came all the others, mewing and cooing as they hit the bottom of the car trunk with a bump.

Five came out altogether. She waited for a sixth, wondered if she should pick up the rabbit, try to squeeze one out. But at last the mother relaxed, it was all over. Her head lolled back against her own fur pluckings and a couple of empty crisp packets. Her babies kept bouncing around, into each other, into her, chattering away for all they were worth, but she didn’t seem to mind. The eyes stared upwards, fixed upon her human midwife. One of the children took a jump right over her head, but she didn’t break focus, it didn’t distract the severity of that look. Well, lady, the eyes said, what now?

The first baby out, clearly the most entrepreneurial of the bunch, took the leap to jump back over its mother. It jumped higher this time, and as the woman watched, she could see a tentative flap of something small and leathery. A tiny wing slid out from the baby rabbit’s side, then back in again, as if it didn’t know whether it belonged on a rabbit or not.

And as the rabbit mother stared at her, so she stared at the babies, all of them starting to stretch their wings, to realize they had wings in the first place. And they, of course, didn’t stare at anything, their eyes still sealed tight, crying out not in distress but obvious bewilderment.

The expression on their faces reminded her that her lover would be back soon.

“Come on!” she urged them, out loud. “Come on, quickly!” And she flapped her arms by her sides. They couldn’t see her, of course, and even if they could have done, and had had even a
glimmering
of what she was trying to encourage them to do, they’d have found the demonstration somewhat impractical. The mother rabbit grunted at her, and even seemed to roll its eyes.

She picked up one of the babies, the one that seemed to be the genius of the litter. It was soft and wet and seemed composed of nothing but clay skin and those ridiculous tiny wings, she felt its little heart beat as it sat confused in the very palm of her hand. “Come on,” she said to it again, “please,” and it bounced around as if summoning up the nerve for a test flight. And then it
did
it, it did, it actually flew, it made the jump out of her hand—and she thought it would simply drop to the ground, and it did drop, that’s true—but before it hit the surface it rallied, steadied itself, gained height again. She watched it fly, it was flying, not in a straight line, with no confidence, it was like a drunkard tripping his way home, but flying all the same.

And she turned back to the trunk, and saw its siblings, all of them too, jumping about, taking experimental little hops into the air. “Please,” she said again, as if that would do any good—and then, one by one, each of them rose up out of the car, and took to the night sky. They
soared
. Only a minute old, two minutes, out in the wet, and the cold, and with no mother to suckle them: what chance could they have? And for God’s sake, they were blind, they were flying
blind
at a motorway. Their eyes were still glued tight, she ought to get them back, she could catch them and stick them back in the boot, anything would be better, surely? But she couldn’t see them anywhere. She looked up at the lamp post, there were creatures buzzing around the light—but they’d never have made it that high, they must be gnats.

She looked back to the mother. She couldn’t see the wings, they must have slipped back inside the body, it didn’t look special anymore. She knew it was silly, but she couldn’t help it, she studied that rabbit face for something—gratitude? blame? But there wasn’t anything to be seen, it was just a rabbit, that’s all. She supposed she should finish what she’d started. She ought to bludgeon it with the hard spine edge of the A to Z Great Britain Road Atlas (2002 edition). But as she picked up the book the rabbit closed its eyes, gave one shuddering breath, and was still.

She got back into the car.

She really thought she’d like to cry now. She really thought that would be nice. She gave it a good go, too; she scrunched up her eyes, tried hard to force something out. The effort made her head smart. It was no good. She clearly wasn’t the crying type.

There was a knock at the glass, and she started. He was there, grinning, motioning for her to wind down the window. She did.

“Sorry I’ve been so long,” he babbled, “I made a couple of phone calls, they were very excited. Don’t think they minded I woke them up.” He passed her a plastic cup, she accepted it dumbly. “And I got you some coffee anyway. And yes,” he laughed, “I know, I know, it’s soya milk, don’t you worry, I got you the soya, don’t you worry about that.”

And she told him she didn’t want any fucking coffee, if she’d wanted any coffee she’d have fucking got some for herself, what did he think she was, an idiot? What did he think she was? Because he didn’t
know
her, he didn’t have a clue, he didn’t have the faintest fucking idea. And how
dare
he talk to her about soya milk, as if it were some private fucking joke between the two of them, he hadn’t earned the right for that, he hadn’t earned the right for anything—some joke about soya milk they could be nostalgic about one day, do you remember the time we first met and you’d only drink soya milk, blah blah, that was the same weekend he’d run over the rabbit, how hilarious, she
liked
soya milk, that was all, okay, and it hadn’t got the slightest fucking thing to do with him.

And they drove off. If he noticed the fact the grunting had stopped he didn’t say anything, but then he hadn’t bothered to react when there
had
been grunting, so there was no surprise there. In fact, he didn’t say very much at all, and if it wasn’t companionable silence, it was at least silence, so thank God for small fucking mercies.

He’d clearly gone to bed eventually, because when she was woken up at half past eight by a knock at the door he was fast asleep next to her. He wasn’t exactly at the far end of the bed, he could have moved further away from her had he really put some effort in, but there was still an appreciable gap between her naked body and his. In sleep his face was utterly without expression, turned towards her. He was cuddling a pillow tightly.

“Just a second,” she called out, and got out of bed. She looked for her nightie, then remembered she hadn’t actually packed one. She thought to get a towel from the bathroom instead.

He stirred. “What is it?” There was another knock at the door. “Oh!” he said, and his eyes were open, he was wide awake, and he bounded to his feet. “You go back to bed,” he told her, “my treat, this is my treat. . . .
Just a second!” he called out, and hurried over to the wardrobe. He took out an ironed pair of pyjama trousers, struggled into them.

“Good morning,” he said, as he opened the door. “Is it breakfast?”

“Breakfast ready,” said a man.

“Do you want me to take it from you, or do you . . . ?”

The man came in, pushing a little trolley in front of him. On it was a couple of plates of steaming food, she thought she could smell bacon, and a mound of toast. “I’ll leave it here,” said the man. He was short and ugly and had a sort of beard, although she couldn’t be sure whether that was intentional or simply because he hadn’t bothered to shave for a few days. He looked across at her, now safely back under the duvet, nodded. “Morning,” he said.

“This looks nice,” said the vision in pyjama trousers, flapping after him. “Lovely. Are you Neil?”

“Yes.”

“You’re married to Marcia?”

“Yes,” said Neil.

“Your bedroom is just through there,” and he pointed at the wall. It wasn’t really a question, and Neil could have ignored it, but he confirmed that this was the case. “And you were there last night.” Neil didn’t reply. “Nice.”

“Enjoy your breakfasts,” said Neil. Formal to the end, no hint of a smile, he gave another nod at them both, first to him, then to her. Then left.

“So,” he said. “That was Neil.”

“Yes,” she said.

He looked over the trolley. “Quite a feast here,” he said. “Sausages, baked beans, mushrooms, egg, fried tomato. Are you hungry?”

“I don’t really do breakfasts,” she said.

“No,” he said, “nor me. But breakfast in bed. How could we not?” He brought her over a plate. “There you go,” he said. She held it in both hands, it was uncomfortably warm. “Oh,” he said, “and you’ll be needing . . .” and went to fetch her a knife and fork. “There you go,” he said. He went to get his own plate, got into bed beside her.

It was hard to eat without a surface to lean on. She’d have rested the plate on the duvet, but she’d have worried the tomato sauce from the beans would have washed over the side. She speared anything that was small, she made short work of the mushrooms. “Do you want my sausage?” he asked her, and she said no, she hadn’t even started thinking about the mechanics of eating the one she already had. “Fair enough,” he said.

They ate there in silence for a while. She wished she could turn the television on, just for a bit of company.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked her. “We’re on holiday, it’s up to you. There are some quite nice things around here. I was looking at some of the leaflets last night. There are some underground caves, not a million miles away. There’s a gorge. Do you like gorges?”

“I don’t know. What’s it like? You grew up here, didn’t you?”

“I’ve never been. You know what it’s like. You don’t do gorges on your own doorstep. Thank you for last night,” he said, suddenly and seriously. Oh God, she thought. “I couldn’t sleep, you know what it’s like. I just sat there and felt, well. So lonely, actually.” Oh
God
. “But you were so lovely. I came to bed, and you opened your arms, and I thought, she wants to hug me, she wants a hug. She wants to look after me. And you held me. It was really nice.”

“That’s okay,” she said, and remembered nothing.

“No, it really meant a lot. And I felt so at
peace
. Peace I haven’t felt
for . . . well, quite a while. You know what I’ve been through recently, well, you can guess, you know what it’s like. I could have slept like a baby. I didn’t actually, ha! I was enjoying it too much, your arms around me, I just kept myself awake. Ha! And you smelled so nice. Quite tired now, actually.”

“Well,” she said.

“And I thought, she’s one in a million, she’s really special. A great friend, whatever else happens. Thank you,” and he leaned across to kiss her. She wasn’t sure if it was meant for the lips or not, she wasn’t sure even what she
wanted
this kiss to be, and she was pretty sure he didn’t know either, his mouth hovered in front of her face for a bit. Then it made a decision, fell upon the forehead, and she blinked under the earnest pressure of it, and thought, well, that’s it then, that’s the choice he’s made. And she felt oddly relieved and oddly saddened, and she splashed some tomato sauce on the duvet anyway.

“Come on!” he said, and laughed. “We’ve a whole day ahead of us. It’s a holiday!”

They never saw Neil again; they found Marcia in the kitchen, and paid her. “My treat,” he said, although she tried to pay half, “no, my treat, you get next time.” “You two have a lovely holiday,” said Marcia, “nice couple like yourselves.” They asked her about the gorge, and she said, yes, it was very beautiful, well worth a visit—no, she hadn’t been herself, but the leaflets made it look very nice indeed. But they didn’t visit the gorge—next time, he said, if we come back—it was a longer drive than he’d thought, and there was a long drive back ahead of him, he didn’t want to spend all his holiday driving. “There’s a twelfth century church,” he said, “we could pop inside for a bit.” So that’s what they did, and wandered around for a good twenty minutes—a woman asked if they wanted a guided tour, and they really didn’t, but it felt rude to say no. So she bought them a tour for a fiver, he tried to pay, and she said, no,
her
treat,
her
treat. As they stood there, listening to a treatise on medieval pulpitmaking, he tried to hold her hand, and for a while she even let him do so. “That was very nice,” he said, when they came out, “I liked that,” and he went on to say that religion wasn’t really his thing, how anybody could believe in religion in this day and age was beyond him. He walked on, just solving the mysteries of life and death so glibly, and she felt the urge to say she was a devout Christian, to take offence, but she couldn’t quite be bothered, and besides, she didn’t believe in God. She never had before, and she certainly wouldn’t now, she had no reason to believe in God; she had a few Christian friends and after all that had happened she was
deluged
with sympathy cards and maudlin emails and best wishes on the answering machine, for Christ’s sake, and all of them assuring her that the pain would pass, the pain
would
pass if only she could give up her troubles to God, she had to put her strength in God. And her husband had said, well, maybe that isn’t such a bad idea, and she’d been utterly floored by that, he’d never believed in
anything
, he’d been the one who insisted they get married in a registry office, he’d been the one who’d upset her parents because he said he couldn’t go through the whole hypocrisy of pretending to believe when he just, frankly, couldn’t. It really pissed her off, this sudden turnabout on his part, the way a tragedy could turn him into someone so patient and caring and sanctimonious; he said they had to find faith in something, otherwise how could they go on, how could they go on?