The Constant Rabbit

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘not at all. I’m not leporiphobic. It’s just that, well, I find their holier-than-thou attitude a little tiresome on occasion. You can’t get one on the telly for more than ten minutes before they start banging on about our long history of culling, skinning, eating and rabbit-proof fences. I mean, that was our relationship with field rabbits, not the anthropomorphised bunch – it’s really very different.’

‘I think they see all rabbits as one.’

‘Well, OK – but I wasn’t personally responsible, was I? And to go on about it all the time just makes me think they’re milking the issue for political gain.’

‘All I know is that Doc and Connie didn’t mention any of that once, and seem pretty friendly. I think they might be loaded, too – when I visited the downstairs loo there was a Kyffin Williams painting in there that I swear was an original.’

‘Hang on a sec,’ said Pippa, suddenly getting annoyed. ‘It’s a bit rich asking me if I have an issue with rabbits when you’re the one working at RabCoT.’

I paused. She was right. It was a little hypocritical.

‘I do payroll. I’d be replaced in a heartbeat and nothing would change.’

‘You’d be not working at the Taskforce. That would change.’

We stared at one another for a few seconds, and right at that moment I really wanted to tell her what I actually did, and my justification for doing it – for her, for the house, to pay the bills, for the future. But I didn’t. I said instead:

‘So will you go with Bobby on the shopping trip? It might be fun.’

She took a deep breath.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘entwined paws and fingers across the divide and so forth.’

A horn sounded outside and Pippa grabbed her bag and her lunch, dumped them on her lap and scooted out the door.

I tidied up, then went outside at the usual time and found Toby waiting for me. This time, he was with his uncle. I think I might have smiled.

‘Share the joke, Peter,’ he said, ‘we could all do with a cheery morning.’

I was thinking about Connie’s comment that Norman’s face looked like ‘a pothole repair done in haste and on a limited budget’, but thought perhaps he didn’t need to know that right now.

‘Just … something I heard on the radio,’ I replied. ‘Want a lift into Hereford?’

‘Would you?’ said Norman. ‘The car’s in the garage. Carbon on the valves.’

The Mallett brothers were never very imaginative when it came to making up excuses.

So he hopped into my car and we were soon driving out of the village. I thought he wouldn’t broach the rabbit subject until at least Fillprington – and even then with preamble, to make me think he was dropping it into the conversation. But he didn’t. He only made it as far as Squirmley, and didn’t trouble with any preamble at all.

‘So, did you offer them the cash?’ he asked.

‘It’s sort of a work in progress,’ I replied after a pause for thought. ‘I need to get to know them better before they trust me. Once they do, I think I might be able to be a little more persuasive.’

‘You seem to know them pretty well already,’ said Norman. ‘You were in their house for three hours and twenty-two minutes, and you seemed very chummy when you said goodnight. Mrs Rabbit had her paws all over you.’

‘Rabbits are very tactile,’ I said, ‘it’s a waking-up-warm-bundled-snug-up-in-the-warren kind of deal.’

‘You could have pushed her away.’

‘And upset them? And have no influence?’

Norman stared at me for a long time without speaking.

‘Very well,’ he said eventually, ‘you’ve got one more chance – and after that I call the local chapter of TwoLegsGood and ask them for input.’

‘Is that really a good idea?’ I said. ‘2LG can be a little spring-loaded at times.’

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ replied Norman, ‘I’m the least leporiphobic person you know. I’ve got absolutely nothing against rabbits. Fine upstanding creatures, many of them, I’m sure – just not around here. They burrow, you know. And if their lefty next-door neighbour – that’s you, Knox – and forty grand can’t make them see sense, then we have to take more strident measures.’

‘I thought the leave fund was only at twenty?’

‘The Rabxit campaign has gained a lot of support, and from as far afield as Lower Ballcock, Shatner’s Polyp, Titson-under-Spatchcock and Little Kapok. The word is getting about, and this family could be the thin end of the wedge. Once they get a pawhold, there’s no telling where it might end. And yes, TwoLegsGood can be a little extreme, but when a way of life needs defending, sometimes desperate measures need to be employed.’

The rabbit issue used to be friendly chat over tea and hobnobs in the old days, but the argument had, like many others in recent years, become polarised: if you weren’t rabidly against rabbits, you were clearly only in favour of timidly bowing down to acquiesce to the Rabbit Way, then accepting Lago as your god and eating nothing but carrots and lettuce for the rest of your life.