‘Robert?’
The handle moved.
‘Robert?’
‘Robbie?’ That was Jess.
The door opened.
‘Robbie?’ said Jess again.
‘Yes?’
‘Lucy’s just been next door, you know, Mrs Allardyce’s, she’s wondering whether you forgot you were supposed to go for tea on Saturday.’
‘She said perhaps you could go this coming Saturday instead,’ said Lucy. ‘And she asked me to give you this.’ She was holding an envelope.
‘It’s not my birthday.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Go on, open it,’ said Jess.
Robbie didn’t move.
Lucy got to her feet. ‘Come on, Jessica, we’re not welcome here.’
‘Okay, I’ll open it for you,’ said Jess.
‘Fine,’ said Robbie, so she did.
‘Just inviting you round,’ she said. ‘Nice picture, though.’
Robbie turned the card over. It was a picture of a white hare, running.
19
‘SO YOU came,’ said Mrs Allardyce. ‘I’m glad.’
‘Sorry about last weekend.’
‘Well, we all know about that.’
‘Do you?’
‘Of course.’
‘No one seems to have noticed at home.’
She didn’t reply, but stood blinking in the sunlight, in a dress covered in flowers. There were flowers everywhere, in the pictures, on the wallpaper, and real ones on the tables. She didn’t wear any make-up, and her skin seemed to Robbie grainy like porridge that’s gone cold, but with a rosiness that was lovely. Rosy porridge.
The house had more light than Robbie’s, and the rooms were bigger, which seemed a bit unfair, because there was only her and her husband to rattle around in it. Mr Allardyce was sitting in the kitchen reading the paper, and eyed Robbie over his glasses.
‘Ah, Robbie, what an honour. An honour and a pleasure.’
‘Let’s go into the sitting room,’ said his wife.
More light. One wall was window from floor to ceiling. The telescope, in all its glory, was at the other end of the room.
‘Walking on eggshells, I should think they are,’ says Mrs Allardyce. ‘Tea?’
‘I don’t really like tea, actually, Mrs A.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of other things. We were just thinking we hadn’t seen you in a while, we were wondering how you were getting on. It sounds terribly nosy of us, of course, but you do remind us a bit of our oldest son when he was your age. They’ve all gone now, all three of them, as you know, so we’re, what do they call us, empty-nesters, aren’t we, Hugo?’ She turned to watch him pootling about in the kitchen. ‘Getting some tea, I hope,’ she went on. ‘What will you have, Coke, lemonade?’
‘Coke would be nice,’ said Robbie. ‘Thanks.’
‘Hear that, Hugo?’ she called. ‘A Coca-Cola for our guest. Shall we?’ She pointed to a chair. Robbie found himself facing away from the windows, one of which was open, thankfully not blinded by the sunlight but with the heat beating down on the back of his head. There was an ancient fireplace almost as tall as him, and lots of books, old and new, and the chairs were covered in dark blue and more flowers, green and red.
‘I’m glad you came,’ she said again.
‘What’s your son do now, Mrs Allardyce?’ he asked.
‘Mary. Call me Mary. He’s a lawyer. In London.’
‘Clever, then.’
‘Sharp as a tack. As are you.’
‘Am I?’
‘Oh, yes, anyone can see that.’ She laughed a little laugh as if she knew something Robbie didn’t.
‘Tea’s up,’ said Mr Allardyce, bringing a tray in.
‘And how are you finding village life after the hurly-burly of the metropolis?’ asked Hugo. It took Robbie a moment to work out what he meant.
‘’S’all right. Well, some of it’s all right.’
‘It’s difficult for you,’ said Mary, as if she was talking to no one in particular. ‘Sheila’s a lively woman.’
‘Did you say lovely?’
‘I said lively, but I’m sure she’s lovely too.’
‘And Alan seems happy to be back where he grew up. Green, green grass,’ said Hugo.
‘Making friends is always the hardest thing,’ said Mary. Now she turned her gaze on Robbie as if she was expecting something.
He remembered why he was there.
‘So, the picture on the card you sent me.’
‘It meant something to you?’ Mary asked.
‘No, I’ve just never seen a white hare before. It made me wonder. Do they exist? I’ve never even heard of one.’
‘They do exist quite naturally in the wild,’ said Mary. He had her full attention now. ‘The mountain hare changes its colour in winter, and turns snowy white.’
‘Where do you find them?’
‘Here and there.’
‘England, Wales?’
‘There are none in England or Wales.’
‘Well, that’s probably why I haven’t seen one. And I don’t know anyone who has. That’s why I noticed the card.’
‘I don’t mean there are no white hares to be seen in England at all,’ she said.
‘Well, you just said there aren’t any.’
‘It depends on whether you have the eyes to see them. Some do. Most don’t.’
‘Almost nobody does,’ said Hugo.
‘That’s right, that’s right,’ said Mary. ‘They’re very few and far between, the people who can. They’re special. Very special.’
There was a hungry look in their eyes.
‘So we can be sure you’ve never seen one yourself?’ asked Hugo.
‘Why, ’cos I’m not special?’
‘Oh, no. You haven’t been listening. We think you are.’
‘Well, I’ve never been to Scotland or wherever.’
‘In your dreams, perhaps?’
‘Dreams are dreams.’
There was a little sigh from both of them.
‘Do you know about dark energy?’ asked Hugo, leaning forward. ‘No, don’t pull a face, there’s a serious point to this, it’s rather like, I don’t know if you know this, but dogs can only see in black-and-white. Did you know that?’
‘It’s the sort of thing Maggie Carr might have told you. You know what she’s like with her animals,’ added Mary.
Mags. Was that what this was all about? Suddenly Robbie was on the alert.
‘No, she never said that.’
‘The point is, dogs rely on smell and hearing far more than we do. They experience the world in a very different way. Now the thing about dark energy is this. It’s something that exists in the universe that we can’t see, that we only learned about relatively recently. There are only a handful of things we know about the beginning of the universe. One is that it is expanding, and we know that because of the shift in the waves the galaxies are emitting, just as the sound of a siren changes in the street when it passes you. We know that the universe is full of radio waves, and that it is full of helium. Both point to a big bang, the beginning of all things, the beginning of time and matter, because both these things, the radio waves and the helium, would have been caused by the universe starting up, by the heat causing lots of high-energy radiation and the first three minutes being like a nuclear fusion reactor which made the helium.’
‘Hugo,’ said Mary. She’d obviously heard all this before.
‘Well, the universe should be slowing down. Gravity should be making it do that. But it’s not. It’s accelerating. And what’s more, it’s denser than it should be. By about five times. So out there there’s a whole lot of energy we can’t see, and a whole lot of other matter we can’t see. Dark energy and dark matter. And what do you think the universe would look like if we could see these things? There could be – who knows? – waves and clusters and clouds, constantly whirling and flowing and pouring over and around each other, endless differentiations of colour an
d form, things we cannot even imagine. Perhaps it would be like a boiling furnace, terrifying, cataclysmic, an infinite turmoil. Perhaps,’ Hugo said, ‘we can only see what we can bear to see.’
‘Maybe dogs can see it,’ Robbie said.
Hugo stared at him. Then he laughed. ‘Oh, yes. Very good. Very funny.’
Mary smiled. ‘It is a thought, Hugo.’ She looked at Robbie. ‘But you understand what he’s saying don’t you?’
‘I think so. I can’t see what’s in front of my nose, sometimes.’
‘Different kinds of perception,’ said Hugo.
‘A simple question of understanding, of using what you know. For instance, why did someone paint the word “Run” on the side of your house?’
‘Someone doesn’t like us.’
‘Did you notice anything about the lines painted underneath it?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You mean someone else did?’
‘No, I just mean, they were just lines, right?’
‘Did Mags see them?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes.’
‘She might’ve.’
‘And did she say anything about them? Everyone knows you two are inseparable. She must have seen them.’
‘Okay.’
‘So what did she say?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing. I can’t remember.’
Mary leaned back in her chair and regarded him thoughtfully. He sensed a change of tactic coming.
‘Why are you so interested in Mags, anyway?’
‘What we’ve been saying,’ began Hugo, ‘applies to people too, you know.’
‘Especially to people,’ added Mary. Her thoughtful look became more purposeful. ‘You’re right about the card I sent you.’
‘Am I?’
‘The white hare has a very special significance. That is, it can have. Is there any more tea, Hugo?’ Hugo got up and shut the window. ‘It’s said that a jilted lover can return in the shape of a white hare. You don’t seem surprised to hear that. Perhaps you knew?
‘Legends are strange things. They’re not just stories, you know. Myths and legends can be truer than anything else. They tell us elemental things about ourselves, about the world we live in, about how we relate to each other. They are about the passions and fears that are inside us, that sometimes, very often, we cannot see or feel or understand ourselves. They are about the essences of our lives, which, and this is a point I want you to remember, reappear and reassert themselves time and time again. Over the decades, the centuries, the millennia.’
‘So legends are real, and they happen over and over again?’
‘In a way, yes. In the way I described.’
‘But do you believe the story about the white hare?’
‘At the moment I’m simply wondering what you believe, what you know, and what you have seen. Did you know that hares are associated with fire?’ She was watching him closely. ‘And you know something about fire, don’t you? It’s a strange thing. It’s said that when a hare runs through a village, a fire will break out in one of the houses very shortly afterwards. They don’t fear fire, you know. When we burned the stubble in the old days they all stayed behind till the last, then hurled themselves through the flames. Some of them got badly singed.
‘But the white hare, now the white hare is only interested in one thing, and that’s her lover. She may save his life. It’s been known. But in the end, she will always cause his death.’
‘You could just shoot her,’ Robbie said.
‘Oh, it’s a sin against the Holy Ghost to kill the white hare,’ said Hugo.
‘Not that that ever seems to make much difference in the end,’ said Mary.
‘So you want me to believe all this?’
‘Up to you, as I said.’
‘Why?’
‘We have very good reasons. And we know you have seen it in your dreams. Well, no, we don’t know.’ She held up her hand, as if to ward off denial. ‘But perhaps you have. Now I will tell you where you might fit into all this. But first I need to know – has Maggie Carr seen the white hare?’
‘Yes.’ Why shouldn’t they know? They’ve told me more than I knew before, he thought to himself. It’s a trade. That’s all.
Mary bit her lip, as if it was the bad news she had been expecting.
‘Good. Where?’
He told them about the field.
‘Good boy. Mags will know the significance of what she has seen more than anyone, well, more than anyone now alive, and Maggie Carr is, always was, one of the special ones. What fools those boys were. But as for you, Robbie, well, don’t forget that for all your London ways you’re a local boy.’
‘Me? You’re kidding.’
‘You’re your father’s son. Let me tell you something. Some years ago they found human remains at Cheddar Gorge, not far from here. They were very, very old. People were living in the gorge and around it nine thousand years ago. They took a DNA sample, and they found that a man living not ten miles away was a direct descendant of that early human being. People don’t move very far, Robbie, societies don’t change, and their stories, and their legends, never die, and because we can’t see things doesn’t mean they aren’t there.’
‘So what you say about the white hare and elements and emotions and all that, what’s that about?’
‘The brutality of love. The desperation, the tide of misery that sweeps through you when you cannot have the one you want, the pain that’s left behind that you can’t endure, the callousness of the heart and its tenderness and frailty. Most of us experience it at some time in our lives, and always have done.’
The way she said these things, there was something in her voice, something from her past maybe, an understanding. Robbie shifted in his chair uneasily.
‘I think my dad’s kind of nervous about all this ’cos of him and my mum. I never really knew about him and Sheila, about when they got together. I think he might have seen it. Or thought he did. He might’ve understood those weird lines, as well.’
‘Your dad. Do you think so?’ There was a sudden hopeful note in Mary’s voice as she asked this. Would they prefer his dad to be the one Fleet had come for? But, why would they? What have they got against him? He felt a protectiveness that took him by surprise. Leave my dad alone, he thought. He’s all right, really, sort of, somewhere underneath all of me and him. And he’s my dad. The only one I’ve got.
‘Then there’s Fran and Tommy.’
‘What do you know about them?’ asked Hugo. His voice sounded reedy and shrill and mean.
‘Oh, just what everyone knows.’
‘Fran always had problems, she was very unbalanced,’ said Mary. She crossed her arms and rearranged herself. ‘Fragile personality, obsessive.’
‘Very unfortunate business altogether,’ said Hugo. ‘But all that had finished long before she, well, what she did.’
‘And Mags had a thing going with the brother as well, right? Two best friends with two brothers? What happened with Mags?’
‘Oh, she was never very serious about him. She just did it to keep her friend company, just for fun.’
Robbie stretched. ‘I’d better get back. Thanks for the Coke and everything.’
*
‘Welcome home, stranger,’ said his dad. He was doing a crossword, and it didn’t look like he had got very far. ‘All very civilized, tea with the Allardyces. Not quite your scene, though, I wouldn’t think.’
‘This whole scene’s not my scene.’
‘Oddly, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s your stepmother’s.’ He looked at Robbie over the newspaper. ‘But don’t get your hopes up.’
‘You don’t seem too bothered.’
‘Oh, I suspect it’s just a phase. Not sure the life suits her as much as she thought it would, that’s all.’
‘You okay with it, though, right?’
‘I was born to it, laddie.’
‘Mary Allardyce said that I’m a local boy.’
/>
‘Well, you know, roots and so on.’
‘That was kind of what she was saying.’
‘She comes of old stock.’
‘Everyone round here does.’
‘You do miss London, don’t you? Can’t think why.’
‘You get accepted for what you are. Not for how long you’ve lived somewhere.’
‘There are people in this village who have lived all their lives here and are still regarded with suspicion.’
‘Not you, though.’
‘I don’t think anyone had noticed I’d left, so they were hardly surprised to see me back. Hugo Allardyce said it was like old times. We used to go fishing together, just by the bridge. Of course, he was a lot older than me. Sticklebacks, mostly. Not much you can do with them apart from put them back.’
‘Have they lived here forever?’
‘They go way back. Both their families. Quite a bit of old money in hers.’
‘Are they related to everyone too, then?’
‘Hugo’s lot come from a bit further afield, but hers have farmed here for donkey’s.’ He put his paper down. ‘Not much luck with that, I’m afraid.’
‘So where does Mary Allardyce fit in?’
‘Mary? Oh, well, remember the woman with the tombola at that fair? Eliza Strickland? She’s her sister.’
20
‘I THINK she knows what you’ve done,’ said Alice, drumming her heels against the underside of a bench in the playground.
‘Have you got a problem with it?’
‘It’s not for me to judge.’
‘You’ve got a problem.’
‘Well, you know, it’s Mags, right?’
‘I didn’t know she’d find out. Not as fast as she did.’
‘Listen. The word is out, from what you say. Everyone who knows anything about anything, which does not include most people and definitely not your mum and sisters—’
‘Stepmum, stepsisters.’
‘Never mind that. You told certain people what they wanted to know. That Fleet is here. And that Mags knows. Fran’s best friend.’
‘Yeah, because—’
‘Never mind because. We know where this is going now. Your dad might’ve thought it was to do with him. Your Mary Allardyce was hoping so, that’s for sure.’
‘So what’s going to happen?’
The White Hare Page 10