The Constant Rabbit

‘We thought it best not to tell them. Not a word now, especially to Doc. He’s a terrific stepfather – ambitious, fun, a born leader and with a never-ending supply of bawdy limericks – but Mum will have to head for someone less dynamic to father her next litter if she’s fully committed to the machismo dilution plan.’

I thought about Connie and her talk of Rupert being ‘not rubbish enough’. That must have been what she was up to.

‘What if it doesn’t work?’ I said. ‘What if it turns out you actually need your bucks like that for broad societal advantage, even with the pitfalls?’

‘Then we’ll reverse the policy,’ she said simply. ‘But look, if you don’t try these things, you’ll never know if they’ll work or not.’

‘Wow,’ said Pippa, ‘you really take your social issues seriously.’

Bobby smiled.

‘It’s a rabbit thing.’

‘You are such a sweet darling!’ said Connie when I saw Bobby to their front door at Hemlock Towers. Mrs Rabbit smiled and blinked her large eyes, and I could detect that warm earthy scent again.

Bobby asked Pippa whether she wanted to see her collection of Rick Astley memorabilia, and Pippa said, ‘That would be totally awesome’ and they disappeared into the back of the house somewhere. Where possible, rabbits avoided heights, and that included going upstairs. The rabbit version of the Extreme Sports Club centred around daring each other to climb to the top of a stepladder.⁴¹

‘I think they got on quite well,’ I said.

‘Seems so,’ she said, and then, voice lower, added: ‘Look, thanks for not mentioning to Doc we bumped into one another in Waitrose. Did I really pop a Little Gem in the fruit and veg section?’

I nodded, and she grimaced.

‘A woeful reversion to stereotype – most regrettable. Sorry I legged it; there was a family emergency.’

‘About Rupert?’

She looked at me quizzically.

‘Who’s Rupert?’

‘The cousin you were having the affair with?’

She thought hard.

‘I know thirty-four Ruperts, all are cousins and I’ve had affairs with nine of them. Could you narrow it down a bit?’

‘On your father’s sister’s daughter’s husband’s mother’s side?’

‘Oh, that Rupert. No, it wasn’t working out. I was sleeping with him but thinking about someone else. That never really works, does it?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘In any event,’ she said, moving swiftly on, ‘the family emergency was Diane Rabbit, who is my twelfth cousin on my father’s aunt’s sister’s daughter’s boyfriend’s father’s aunt’s side. She was caught off-colony without a pass and I had to stand her bail. Have you ever been into the colonies?’

The colonies were mostly an underground warren: dark, warm, labyrinthine and a place where humans were traditionally not welcome unless expressly invited. I would visit, eventually, on the day of the Battle of May Hill, my first and last time. But that wouldn’t happen for another two months, and I would see little except the basement of the meeting house and the spinney of trees on the summit.

I’d be there when it all ended.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve never been.’

‘You should. They do tours now, y’know. Peek behind the species curtain, try some carrot gin, smoke some dandelion root, watch a live multiple birth, that sort of thing.’

Her voice trailed off and we stood in silence for a moment, staring at one another. I was thinking of the conversations we’d had back at uni, and I think she was too. We’d found there was little we couldn’t talk about, and our conversations ranged far and wide. Sometimes political, sometimes about movies, sometimes about nothing at all. But for me at least, there was always something more to it than just chat and social intimacy. I had grown fond of her, no matter how ridiculous and impossible that sounded, and I always wondered whether she had felt the same.

‘Well,’ she said, breaking the awkward pause, ‘you and I must have a catch-up some time.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’d like that.’

And there was another long pause. I think she wanted me to suggest something, but again, I couldn’t be sure, and felt sort of tongue-tied and stupid.

‘What happened to Rosalind?’ I asked, referring to the only other rabbit on campus. She’d been big into X-ray crystallography.

‘Her co-researchers took a Nobel prize for physics,’ said Connie, ‘as animals weren’t eligible for the prize at the time. She then worked at B&Q for a bit, and brought up eight children while deciphering Linear A⁴² for fun. Last I heard she was fitting microwave doors for RabToil. What about your friend Kevin? Did he ever graduate?’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘dropped out in the second year, bummed around for a decade, then got lucky, fell in with some whizz kids and made a killing just before the ’08 crash. He lives in Guernsey these days.’

‘Ah,’ she said, and we fell silent again.

‘Has it risen?’ she asked.

‘Has what risen?’

‘The leaving fund.’

‘I think you could almost name your price.’