The Rabbit

by Ted Lewis

  “Don coming down tonight?” I said.

  “Should be. Usually later on, of a Tuesday. Repairs night at shop.”

  “Actually, I ought to go round and see Veronica some¬time.”

  “What, like now?”

  “Dunno. Get it over with. Only be quarter of an hour or so.”

  “You should stay away from them, dear boy,” Mart said. “Do as I do. Make sure your fillies are mere horseflesh.”

  “Aye, and end up poking sheep like Pete Newbold.”

  “You know where you are with sheep. Man’s best friend.”

  “Here,” I said, “I didn’t tell you. Remember that bird I was telling you about at college? The one that’s clued up on jazz and films and that? She rang us up, tea-time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. She’s having this all-night party next Saturday. Phoned up to invite me. How’s that for centre?”

  “Bull’s-eye, I reckon. Tell me, how do you manage it? I mean, really?”

  “You mean, doctor, money apart?”

  “That, and the Tony Curtis profile.”

  “I just don’t know. If I knew, then perhaps I could put a stop to all this boring nonsense.”

  “I know. Gets a bit wearing after a while.”

  We had reached the George. We stopped outside the entrance.

  “Coming in, then?” Mart said.

  I looked across the market square. The bus shelter where we’d used to hang about on Saturday nights was empty. The bikes in Franklin’s window glittered in the sun’s slanting rays.

  “I think I’d better go and see her. You never know.”

  “Shall I get you one in, or will you be longer?”

  “Dunno. Better leave it, though.”

  “I’ll do that small thing.”

  Mart went into the pub.

  I knocked on the door of Veronica’s house. The net curtains were neat and correct in their bay windows. The neatest in the street, in fact. I heard Veronica’s footsteps hurrying down the stairs in the hall. A blonde shadow blurred behind the frosted glass. The door opened.

  Veronica smiled at me.

  “Why aren’t you wearing them, then?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Your hobnails. You haven’t got them on.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” I said. “It’s midnight blue brothel creepers after half-past five.”

  Veronica opened the door into the living room. Upstairs a bed creaked and Veronica’s grandmother called out:

  “Who’s that, Veronica?”

  “It’s Victor, Gran.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t play the records too loud.”

  Veronica closed the door behind me.

  The front room was Veronica’s room, done exactly how she wanted it. The only thing that wasn’t her was the net curtain, and I don’t think she was aware of the fact. It was just that bay windows had to have net curtains.

  The furniture in the room was standard front-room fur¬niture but she’d made her own covers for the chairs and instead of a green carpet there was a raffia mat scattered with coloured cushions. On the walls there were art prints, record covers, pictures of actors, an action painting she’d done herself, one of my life drawings, all stuck on at odd angles. Her father had built some units on either side of the fireplace (which was blocked off by a firescreen studded with more record covers). On one unit were her books and on the other her Dansette record player and her records and her childhood dolls. When her mother had died two years ago, her father had let her do what she wanted with the room. But her mother’s death had affected Veronica in more ways than one. Shortly after we’d taken our “O” levels, Veronica’s gran had contracted an indefinable paralysis of her legs. The hospital hadn’t come up with an answer so she’d returned bedridden to stay with Veronica and her father.

  I’d always liked coming to Veronica’s room when I’d been at school. At that time we hadn’t actually been “going out” together. I’d been seeing Janice Marshbanks whenever I could (she’d left school by then and was working at the stocking factory) and the rest of the time I spent in trying to persuade Rosemary Coleman of 5L to go out with me. Veronica being in the year above me had gone about with Barry Dent the science genius but as I discovered there’d never been anything to it. I’d first got really friendly with Veronica when the school had put on Macbeth. I’d been chosen for Malcolm and she had played Lady Macduff and after the third and final night there’d been a party for the cast in the Domestic Science room, everyone still in their make-up and their costumes, behaving under the neon and amongst the trestles and the cakes as if they were still touched by the shadows of Glamis, and afterwards the adrenalin had still been running too high for the anti-climax of simple leave-taking and so Veronica had invited us back to her house and Greavo and I had gone into the Beer-off and bought some V.P. Rich Ruby to take with us. After that evening the literal class barrier had broken down and when¬ever we saw each other out of school, like Saturday mornings, on our bikes, doing our respective shopping, we’d balance against the kerb, front-wheel to front-wheel, suddenly able to talk, not just chat, to say our real thoughts about the world we knew and the people in it. There was complete easiness about our contact. And it never occurred to me that it was anything more (or less) than friendship. Perhaps it was because I was chasing Rosemary and she was patently involved with Barry. No, not really, it couldn’t have been just that. Perhaps the friendship was strong enough to blanket any then-unformed feelings.

  It took a different occasion to change our attitudes, though similar in many ways, a walk home from a school Christmas party, in thick fog, through lampless streets and the memory I held was the stillness and smell of her camel-coloured coat and the dew on its collar as I kissed her, and the perfumed smell of her silky scarf.

  But now after a year at college, a year of other rooms, free of tapping grans and net curtains, Veronica’s room seemed small and ordinary, like some of the memories of the last few years.

  Veronica folded her arms and leant against the door.

  “I’m amazed you’re still conscious,” she said. “I thought it would have been straight to bed for you tonight.”

  I thought of making the usual kind of would-be witty remark in reply but I’d suddenly become very depressed. I could see the green tiles of the fireplace poking up from behind the firescreen facade and I wondered if the cigarette ends of the last two years were still in the grate.

  “I managed to survive,” I said. “Contrary to popular belief.”

  I took out a cigarette.

  “Well, sit down then,” Veronica said.

  “I’m all right,” I said, lighting up.

  Veronica sat down on the settee. There was a tight band round my chest, getting tighter. I felt panicky, as though something terrible was about to happen. But in fact it had already happened. I didn’t know why I should feel so badly about it. After all, things changed. It was nobody’s fault. You couldn’t stay the same forever.

  “How was it today? Do you enjoy it?”

  Was it my imagination, or was there a slight edge to her voice?

  “Yes, actually, I do. Makes a change. It’s good, getting absorbed in something you don’t need to think about.”

  “Yes, but only for a while.”

  “Well, that’s it, isn’t it. I mean, it only is for a while, isn’t it?”

  There was a silence.

  “I wish there was a limit to my job.”

  I sat down on one of the cushions on the floor. The men¬tion of her job made me feel guilty and therefore irritated with her.

  “I thought you liked it.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s so boring.”

  “I thought being among books all day was just your c
up of tea.”

  She knew I sympathized with her about everything but nevertheless she pretended not to notice my concern and said:

  “It’s not that. The library’s all right. It’s just knowing it’s eternal.”

  “Nothing’s eternal,” I said and thought, Christ, I sound like Anthony Steel. “And anyway, you’ve only been there six months.”

  “So if it’s only taken six months to get bored with it it’s not so good, is it?”

  I wondered if Don had arrived at the George yet.

  “Anyway your gran won’t be around forever.”

  Veronica shrugged.

  “At the moment, it seems to me as if she might.”

  “So what are you going to do? Live the rest of your life in Halton?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was a tapping on the floor above us. Veronica went out without saying anything.

  Oh, fucking hell, I thought. I should have gone into the George with Mart. I stood up and threw my cigarette behind the firescreen and went and looked out of the window. Then I went and looked at the drawing I’d done of Veronica until she came back.

  “She’d spilt tea on herself,” she said.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “He’s on six to two tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mart and Don wanted to know if I’d be down tonight.”

  “I can’t come to the pub if that’s what you mean,” she said shortly.

  “I didn’t.”

  There was a silence.

  “I was just looking at this,” I said. “I thought it was good six months ago.”

  “I think it’s good now.”

  I shook my head. I said:

  “It’s amazing what a difference six months can make. Some of the things I thought were good make me shudder now.”

  Veronica knelt down by the record-player and switched it on. She was deliberately avoiding looking at me, as if she knew what I was going to say and by avoiding my eyes she was preventing me speaking. I was never going to get away.

  “What shall I put on?” Her voice was cold and angry, but she was still determined to go through the motions.

  “I don’t mind.”

  She flicked through the records. I looked at her back. It was tense, almost motionless.

  “Sinatra?”

  “Fine.”

  She put the arm down on the record and twisted round so that she was hugging her knees to her. Still she wasn’t look¬ing at me. I sat down on the floor next to her and put my hand at the back of her knees and began to slide it towards the top of her stockings. She seemed not to notice. I carried on until my fingers were on her flesh. Then without saying anything she got up and went and sat on the settee.

  “What’s up with you, then?”

  She didn’t answer. She carried on pretending to listen to the music.

  “I said what’s up?”

  She spread her fingers and looked down at her fingernails.

  I stood up.

  “Oh, well,” I said, “in that case—”

  “What’s up with you’s more like, isn’t it, Victor?” she said, looking into my face.

  “What do you mean, what’s up with me?”

  “Oh, well, if that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  “The way what’s going to be? Look, all I said was Mart and Don wondered—”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand.”

  I made a long-suffering face and lit another cigarette.

  “I mean we haven’t exactly seen a lot of each other over the last ten months.”

  “So what should I do? Come home on the ferry every night?”

  “I just like to think that when you are home you want to be with me.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I saw you Friday, I saw you Saturday, here I am tonight. What more do you want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was another silence.

  “I mean things don’t seem to be the same.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Do they?”

  “Apparently you seem to think so.”

  “Oh, come on, Victor. You know you’ve changed.”

  I went over to the window again.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You were bound to. I knew you must have been with other girls over there—”

  “Now hang on a minute.”

  “Oh, stop pretending. I mean, it had to happen, didn’t it?”

  “What had to happen?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Are you trying to tell me it’s finished, then?”

  “That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?”

  I zipped up my windcheater.

  “Well, I may as well be off then,” I said. “I mean, there doesn’t seem much point in staying. Seeing as your mind’s all made up.”

  I walked towards the door.

  “You know it’s not me,” she said. “You’re just annoyed because I’m the one who brought it up. You’d have liked to have done it yourself, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’ll see myself out.”

  “Oh, fuck off, then.”

  “Thanks.”

  I went out of the front room. As I walked to the front door I heard Veronica’s grandmother start calling down to find out what all the shouting was about.

  The platform. The car rolled up the slope and pulled to a stop next to the wagons. Clacker was already at work in a half-empty wagon.

  “What time does he get here, then?” I said.

  “Half past seven. He bikes, him and Frank. Rest of the men get on the lorry at White Swan corner at ten past seven.”

  We got out of the car. I walked over to the bush and put my sketchbook under it. Then I walked back and got into the wagon with Clacker. Clacker stopped working and looked at me as I got in. I nodded and smiled awkwardly. Clacker was impassive. I started looking for flints.

  “Now then, Clacker,” my father said.

  “Morning, boss.”

  My father looked along the wagons.

  “Been at it hard, then,” he said.

  “Like to get a good start. Never know what hold-ups there might be.”

  My father looked up into the morning sky.

  “I reckon it’ll be warm enough for you today, Clacker.”

  “I reckon.”

  I reached out of the wagon and took my hammer and smashed a big stone to smithereens.

  “I should empty the barrow if I was you,” my father said to me. “Flints’ll be spilling out all over the shop.”

  “Yes, in a minute,” I said, looking for the flints that had flown from the stone. Of course he wouldn’t ask Clacker, who’d filled the bloody barrow up.

  “I should do it now, before next lorry-load.” He bent down and picked up a couple of flints and placed them carefully on top of the barrow. “And make sure you get all these lying about. There’s bloody hundreds.”

  He walked back to the car and got in. Clacker leant on his hammer and lazily reached for a flint and flicked it into the barrow. The flint slid off and dropped on to the platform, taking a few other small ones with it. I pretended not to notice and carried on working. My father was sitting in the car watching Clacker and me. Eventually he wound down the window.

  “I want that barrow doing now,” he shouted.

  “Fuck off,” I said under my breath, but I climbed off the wagon and scrounged around picking up the fallen flints and putting them on top of the barrow. My father waited until I’d picked up every flint and I’d taken hold of the barrow handles before he s
tarted the car and drove off. I emptied the barrow down the tip. On my way back to the wagons Frank Peacock appeared from the kilns and walked over to me.

  “Did your dad say anything about an extra load for burning?”

  I let go of the barrow’s handles.

  “No, I don’t think so, Mr Peacock.”

  Frank tipped his cap back off his forehead and we both watched my father’s car retreating along the road.

  “I’m expected to be a bloody mind-reader,” Frank said.

  I took out a cigarette and lit up. Frank adjusted his hat back to its usual position.

  “Well, you’d better get one of them to drop a load on our pile. We’ll soon be short on owt to burn.”

  Frank turned away and went back to the kilns. I wheeled the barrow over to the platform’s edge. Clacker was sitting on the edge of the half-empty wagon, his legs dangling inside. He was smoking. I got into the wagon and began flinting. He watched me for a minute or two and then he said:

  “This one’s done, mate.”

  “There might be one or two left,” I said without looking up.

  “Don’t want you going and straining yourself,” he said. “I mean, you’ve not been long up.”

  “I’m making up for lost time, then, aren’t I?”

  Clacker grinned his grin.

  “There’s nowt to make up. It’s all been done.”

  I straightened up.

  “Well, I’ll have a rest as well, then.”

  I got out of the wagon and sat, hammock style, in the barrow. The brightness of the ingrained limestone on the platform’s surface was irritating my eyes. It occurred to me that I could use the side-effects of my hangover to get my¬self on an even footing with Clacker. I clenched my fists and rubbed my eyes.

  “All this white’s a bit much when you’ve been out drink¬ing,” I said.

  Clacker didn’t say anything.

  “I could do without it this morning,” I said.

  Clacker took a drag of his cigarette.

  “Out drinking last night, were you?”

  I gave him a rueful, self-deprecating grin.

  “A bit.”

  “So you’re a drinking man, then?”

  “You could say that.”

  Clacker threw his cigarette away.