The Constant Rabbit

It was the sort of information I really didn’t want to hear. A rabbit’s social circle was immensely strong, inclusive and supportive. If Harvey was an ex of Bobby’s, he’d know Doc and Connie well, too – and I knew how the Taskforce worked, and how everyone could be implicated.

‘Bobby and Harvey are still good friends,’ said Pippa, ‘Harvey was there at the club with us.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes. He and Bobs and two others were talking about how they could suspend the Rehoming of Rabbits Act until a Pan-European Humanlike Rights panel can discuss and advise on the Rabbit Equality Issue.’

‘Sometimes I think that was why Nigel Smethwick was so glad for us to leave the EU,’ I said, trying hard not to think about Harvey, ‘so no one could legally challenge the UK’s record over rabbit rights and the introduction of the maximum wage.⁴³’

‘Give equal rights to rabbits and it makes no sense not to give it to cows,’ murmured Sally, face firmly planted on the tablecloth, ‘or horses or bats or sheep. That’s the bigger issue here. The inherent rights of all life to enjoy the bounteous fruits of the biosphere – and not in a shared, abstract sense – but as a unifying concept for sentient life.’

She then groaned and said she felt she wanted to die, but somewhere glamorous, like Powys.

‘Why Powys?’ I asked. ‘It’s a pretty county, but I’d hardly call it glamorous.’

‘Not Powys,’ said Sally, face still flat on the tablecloth, ‘Paris. Excuse me.’

And she got up and fast-staggered out of the room in the direction of the toilet. I turned back to Pippa, who was staring at me.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’

She looked down and traced the pattern on the tablecloth with her finger.

‘You, working for the Taskforce. Do you really think that’s a good idea?’

Conversations about the Rabbit Equality Issue always led to discussion of the Compliance Taskforce. She’d probably talked about it a lot with Bobby and Harvey the previous evening.

‘I’m a junior accountant, darling, an infinitesimally small cog. I’m not leporiphobic; my employer is irrelevant to me.’

I got up and walked to the sink with my empty cup in order to hide the hot flush that had risen in my cheeks. There was another pause and I heard Pippa take a deep breath.

‘Dad,’ she said, ‘you don’t know the first thing about accountancy. You can barely add. You’re a Spotter. You ID rabbits for the Taskforce. I’ve known for years.’

‘What? Oh – well, yes,’ I said, then to cover for the lie, I lied again: ‘We’re forbidden to tell family members for security reasons.’

The hot flush in my face deepened, and I stood there at the sink, my back to Pippa, speechless. I felt ashamed of working there and of lying, but the short exchange also made me feel, well, relieved.

‘I don’t guide policy,’ I said, still with my back to her, ‘or undertake any anti-rabbit activities personally. I just recognise rabbits for forty hours a week, and check they’re being honest. If they were honest to begin with, I wouldn’t have a job. Besides,’ I added, trying to normalise my position through repetition, ‘given that I’m unusual in wanting to do my job properly, I’m actually a net positive to the whole issue. If I didn’t do it, there’d only be someone far worse in control.’

‘Hmm,’ said Pippa.

‘It helped with you, too,’ I added, ‘we always needed a little extra. Putting in a wet room and your bedroom downstairs, that sort of stuff.’

‘Don’t put this on me,’ she said, her temper rising. ‘I can do stairs if I want – and a bath too, at a pinch. Is Toby one too?’

I paused, then nodded.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘that makes it easier to dump—’

‘You need more toilet paper,’ said Sally, lurching back into the room, ‘and you may want to put the hand towel in the laundry.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

With Sally present the conversation moved on, and she was picked up by her mother soon after. But instead of the usual touching of her pearls, shy smiles and oblique references to her underused timeshare in Palafrugell ‘with a view of the sea from the bedroom’, Mrs Lomax glared at me savagely – as though it were entirely my fault that Sally was in a state.

After that, Pippa went to do an online training course on how to spot evidence of radicalisation amongst rabbits in the workplace, and I, since it was a Sunday, to wash the car and mow the grass. I did both on autopilot, wondering whether I should tell Lugless about Harvey’s identity. The only really good news about recent events was that Toby now had a greatly reduced chance of becoming my son-in-law. But if Pippa had known for years I was a Spotter, it wouldn’t take Connie too long to figure it out.