Bunny ears.
Black it’s been painted; with red claws and white eyes and it’s glaring down and fuck me, I can see fuckin madness in them eyes. It’s only stone, only stone, but in the night it looks like it’s quivering, like it’s up there ready with its fans and its claws and those psycho’s eyes. There’s nee fuckin way anyone’s making a statue of a fuckin psycho rabbit up there; the size of it as well. If it jumped, it if jumped from its perch up there on the doorway that no one sees, it would take me fuckin head off. Me old knife would snap against the stone and them teeth, them claws would rip me fuckin limb from limb.
I need to turn back, I can feel me kebab fizzing in me gut and I need to get the fuck out of here cos this is just a hallucination, innit? This is just an echo. A memory. Right?
A fuckin dream, alright? Me brother’s voice. A fist in me guts.
I’ve got me old knife in me hand though now, haven’t I? Presented to us on the steps of the fuckin church, before the madness gaze of this stone monster.
Why?
I’m clicking the blade in and out, me hand sweaty as fuck, and I remember. I can remember the bitter stink of me hands that day. Fuck. That day that nee amount of lager and kebab’s going to let me forget. The day that I’ve been trying to drink away all these years. I look up the rabbit. Mr Rabbit. Wabbit. What’s the fuck’s up, Doc? This fucker’s more Watership Down than Bugs Bunny. Looking into those eyes is making me spin out. But I can’t stop looking.
Looking back.
Wabbit.
Fuckin wabbits.
That’s what me brother used to call them back in the day.
‘It’s Easter, lads! Let’s go get some wabbits!’ he says in his best Yo-Samity-Sam. Harry his name was but we all called him Haddy. A ginner he was, tall and scrawny; freckles all over his face; Regal king-size hanging out the corner of his mouth. His eyes used to scare us since he come back from the army. Blank; they looked through you.
We all laughed like gutters. It was five a.m. and nee fucker had been to sleep yet; we were still up from the night before.
We could have just gone up to Spar and got some sausages, like. Haddy liked his meat raw since he come back from Kosovo.
He liked it scared and screaming.
It was a ‘frisk’.
There was cans all over the floor in me brother’s room. Cans and a stink. I was only a bairn, nineteen. Knew nowt. Me mam said I was going to the army when I got kicked out of school but fuck that. Me brother came back from Kosovo with that blank look in his eyes and a black streak of cruelty in his heart.
Some nights I could hear him screaming through me ceiling. I used to dream of the photos he showed us of what they done out there. Couldn’t get em out me head. Never forget that shit. He was the one what gave me the knife. I used to sleep with it under me pillow just in case. If I heard him on the stairs, I’d pull out the blade.
Click.
‘Get the fuckin duurg then,’ Haddy says to us.
I fuckin hated that dog. Horrible thing it was. Haddy called it ‘Goblin’, kept it in a coal shed round the back of our house place, and you could hear it go fuckin radge when you went out there; all the coal clattering about as it threw itself against the door. Goblin was a mack-off lurcher; all skin and bones with nasty yellow teeth. Its fur had gone black from the coal and was all matted and mangey. Haddy was the only one who could control it. He’d hid Goblin in the shed after the thing had bitten the face off some bairn and we’d had the polis round.
‘I’m awnly fuckin kiddin man, you daft cunt,’ Haddy says. His mates gurgle.
Haddy liked to watch the half-starved thing tearing apart a wabbit. Better still, a hare. Haddy said that at least a hare put up a fight.
The lads all thought it was a frisk but I knew why.
We drive north for miles with the sun coming up slow. It’s actually fuckin lush out there, where there’s nee cunt; just the roads and the fields and the woods. Single lane, Roman road, straight line all the way, well aye. The lads have their army boots on but nee way am I getting me trainers taxed. Haddy’s Fiesta fuckin stinks so we have to have the windows down. Goblin’s in the boot, knows he’s gonna get a kill. Never shuts up the whole way.
Haddy knaas where he’s going and we’ve all got cans and tabs but there’s nee daft chat. We bump down some path and park at the edge of a farmer’s field. Then we walk for fuckin ages in the woods. Bump of speed each. Mad in there, middle of nee-cunt-knows-where. All the trees look like claws sprouting out the ground. It’s wet and there’s nee path and we just keep going on and on and on. Even Goblin stops acting the prick. I’ve got me knife in me back pocket; schitzy as fuck but it’s just the speed. Keep thinking I can see shit in the trees; faces. Spiky, furious faces; silent, thorny screams. I jump when something grabs at me leg but it’s nettles; leaves a trail of white welts through me trackies. Bastard.
‘Tuurld ya to wear ya boots man,’ Haddy says.
I’ve got that lock knife in me hand, sweating to fuck. I can smell mud and iron. Smells like blood down here. Blood and shit. Did he fuck, but I say nowt.
‘Private property this, lads,’ Haddy says and we’re gurgling again. Set of drains. ‘Lurds of wabbits and that though so howay.’
Down a fuckin hill next; mud and more thorns; ripping me coat. Fuckin treacherous and I can feel hands snaking through the branches, feel wooden teeth snapping at me fingers. I swear to fuckin god I can see shapes now, like little figures; bairns made out of bracken and bark, skipping away from us in the trees. Once we’re down the bottom though, it’s like it’s fuckin night again. Dark as fuck. The ground’s not even wet, it’s so thick down here; all bumpy and great thick tree roots like Gary Dodd’s python he keeps at his mam’s house. Tried to feed her cat to it when she grassed him for twoccing her purse.
‘Fuck! Look’it!’ Haddy says and he hockles on the ground.
There’s a bank rising up on the left, humps in the ground and better than that, holes. Too big for wabbits. A badger sett? Goblin’s sniffing about, nose to the ground, sides going in and out. Poor fucker’ll be starving. Haddy only feeds him what they catch. I wish I had the crossbow, it’s giving me the fear down here, in the quiet. In the dark. I hold me brother’s knife. My knife.
‘How you know about this place?’ I ask.
‘Din’t knaa,’ Haddy says and he’s hunched over, tab in his mouth, inspecting the mound. We all go quiet, waiting for him to speak. ‘Seen it in me fuckin’ dreams.’
Nee one dares to ask if he’s joking.
I remember that Easter Sunday when we were little bairns when Mam hadn’t come back from the pub and the doorbell rang. Haddy told us it was all a dream. He says never to say nowt about it ever again or he would batter us.
I’ve never said nowt since.
Those eggs with their bows and their shiny paper.
I’ve never liked hunting wabbits but it’s a frisk, Haddy says. It’s just a frisk man, divvint be a girl. What else ya gonna do? Collect fuckin stamps? The woods are quiet, the faces in the trees still, watching. I feel like we’re being swallowed and I can feel the fear coming; a rushing in me belly. I want to whitey; but if I do, these’ll not let me live it down.
Haddy whistles through his teeth, one of them’s cracked at the front where he got lamped by a polis and I see hockle bubble in there for a second. Goblin comes over, whining, belly to the ground.
‘Geet’in there,’ Haddy says, raising his fist.
Goblin skitters over to one of the holes. It’s too big even for a badger. What the fuck lives down there man, a fuckin wolf? He sniffs it then gets down on his front paws, whining again.
‘Fuckin move.’ Haddy goes to kick him and Goblin begins pulling himself into that hole. It’s fuckin brutal to watch. It’s like no part of his body wants to go anywhere near but his doggy brain knows that he’ll get a kicking if he doesn’t. Lurchers don’t even go down holes and we don’t know what the fuck Haddy’s thinking. But there he goes. The last thing
we see is his droopy little tail, all matted like a dreadlock.
Seen it in me fuckin dreams.
The doorbell went on Easter Sunday. Haddy was twelve. I was eight. He was twice the size of us then and I hid behind him when he opened it.
It was a fuckin dream, right?
We wait beside that mound in the earth. We smoke. A few of the lads piss against the trees. Warm, iron stink. Haddy just stands there, beside the hole; his freckled face getting redder and twisting up till I can’t look no more. I put me head down, start curling into meself. I need a drink, I need to go home. I need our mam.
That’s when it comes. A rumbling out the earth like the fuckin woods’s belly’s rumbling. I can feel it like bass through me bones and I’m up on me feet. That’s when that fuckin bulge in the earth bursts like a zit and we’re sprayed with soil; grit between me teeth, crap all in me eyes. Goblin comes first, shooting out of there like a fuckin black bullet, his eyes are round and white as golf balls and his tongue’s hanging from his gob like a piece of bacon. He goes flying past me so quick, I can only smell him; earth and shit and something else, something raw and meaty.
‘What’s gannin on?’ Haddy screams, turned round, looking at us, like it’s my fault.
Those blank eyes.
Before him there’s just this black hole in the ground, this fuckin pit like a grave. That rumbling comes again and I see light, two lights behind Haddy, bright below the ground, he’s gangly shadow puppet with his mouth open as two black points come quivering and twitching upward out of that hole; followed by two paws like some fuckin mack-off big cat. A panther or some shit. But it’s not a panther cos panther’s don’t have long, twitchy ears and eyes like lamps and they don’t come sniffing and snorting out of the earth, great talons pulling at the soil. I can hear meself screaming and I can hear meself begging and I don’t want to look cos those lights from them eyes are blinding but I see that terrible blackness reach out of that hole. Whiskers and a shiny nose, sniffing away at the air, at our fear. Breathing it in.
Easter Sunday when we were little and the door opened and it was stood there on the doorstep. Black fur and those pointy ears; little black tufts at the top of each one. Pointing through a bonnet. I remember that wet nose. I knew that it couldn’t be a mask, it couldn’t be a suit. I remember its eyes as it looked from Haddy to me. Solemn, silent.
Right now, as the sun rises over a cracked sky in fuck-knows-where, the nightmare opens its mouth, that black monster bunny, and I feel me piss against me leg. Fangs like knives closes around Haddy and his black silhouette becomes the back of the thing’s fur and those eyes are blazing and the lads are screaming and they’re trying to run but it’s too quick. It moves like a spider, silent; pouncing and I’ve got the knife in me hand and all I can think to do is throw it; throw it at that terrible blackness rising out of the ground and run. I’m crying and I’m running and I can hear the lads screaming and I can smell blood and fur and something ancient like old books. I can feel the ground trembling as that great black shadow with its ears and its fangs comes belching out of the earth. I’m up the hill and through the forest and all the faces in the trees are screaming with laughter. Me clothes are soaked in piss and me kegs are slick with me own shit but I’m running and I can’t stop and I daren’t look round cos if I look into those eyes I’ll lose my mind.
Me hands are trembling like fuck and the car door’s open. I dunno how I done it but I drove out of there in me minging clothes and I drove all the way back to Haddy’s place with the sun rising up behind me down that long Roman road with its wall from fuck knows when.
I make it back there and I curl up on the floor and I wake up with Goblin licking me face.
Me brother’s knife from Kosovo. It’s gone. Into that blackness.
So has me brother and his mates.
There’s a fuckin Easter egg on me pillow beside us. Gold paper and a bow.
Nee good looking back, is it? Nee good. What can ya dee?
That rabbit never spoke one word back then, it just looked at us. It was carrying a basket of eggs; pink and purple and gold foil on them, tied with ribbons, like summit from a kid’s book.
It was a fuckin’ dream.
That’s what they told me in St Nick’s Hospital, when I got out of prison. Don’t look back, just forward. It’s been forty year since I had me face in the papers for all that. They said I done all of them in cos I was a nutter just like me brother. Now here I am. Looking back.
Daft cunt.
Kernt, as Haddy would have called us.
‘It wasn’t me though, was it?’ I say and I point me old knife at the wabbit hanging off the doorway with its red painted fangs and its pale eyes. ‘Yee knaa. Fuckin Easter bunny.’
But the wabbit says nowt. It just sits there, above the doorway. Mad little piece of history. Just like me.
I knaa what I’ve got to do and it’s been a long old time but I knew it’d catch up with us one day.
‘Never thought it’d be yee, like,’ I say to the wabbit.
I look again at it. Fuckin mad eyes, teeth and claws. Who the fuck paints it, I wonder.
Who the fuck comes here and paints that fucker. A mad old gargoyle on the back of a building that nee one can see?
Think about the things you can control is what they used to tell us in the hospital after I got out of prison. Walking round on meds all day like a fuckin dafty. You can’t control the past but you can control your future.
I reached out for one of them eggs that day and Haddy slammed the door on it. Turned round and punched us in the guts.
‘Daft fuckin kernt,’ he called us.
It hurts like that at first when I dee it. Stick that knife into me guts. When I pull it down like me brother showed us, I look right into the eyes of the wabbit. I look into the eyes of the wabbit and I say sorry.
Nee one’ll miss me.
Just another fuckin mad-head hanging round the back of the cathedral in the middle of the night. Anyone who came walking round might just think I was some old alchy or a smackhead. Passed out on Easter Sunday.
But I knew that when I got out those woods, when the polis caught us and threw us in HMP Durham with the rest of the fuckin mad-heads. I knew then that I was someone. I even got me name in the papers.
I hold me brother’s knife. The one he used in Kosovo to win a war with and I pull.
Let me insides pour out of us like darkness.
Let all the darkness out.
A stone gargoyle of a monstrous, fanged rabbit has perched above the ornate doorway of the buildings at the rear of the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for over a hundred years.
No one is quite sure why.
CLEAN WORK
NAOMI BOOTH
It’s the end of summer. I eat my lunch out in the back-yard, trying to hoard the last days of sunshine. The sunflowers that I planted with Rosa in pots out here are just beginning to turn, the petals browning at the edges. The big, radial flower-heads are the same temperature as the air: they feel warm-blooded under my fingertips. The fur at their centres is sticky and glistening with sap. I should go back to my desk already – I’m behind again and I’ll have to work tonight, once Rosa’s asleep. But I stay a moment longer. The air carries the scent of late-blooming roses and petrol. There are two wasps moving low to the ground. When one of them lands, exhausted, on a paving stone, the other homes in on it, putting its upper jaws straight to work.
I go back inside to make a coffee. It’s when the kettle’s just starting to boil that I hear it again. That noise. A weird, scrabbling sound, a scratchy, garbled movement somewhere in the dark, internal workings of the kitchen.
*
When I first got the keys to this house, I discovered that the previous owners had left a bottle of champagne – the real stuff – and small traps set in all of the kitchen cupboards. The house was in a strange condition: a small Victorian redbrick terrace, with a smart new bathroom on the first floor, but the rest of the ho
use left damp and mouldering. The previous owners had bought it as a doer-upper, the agent told me: But now, sadly, are … divorcing. Doesn’t it have great potential? The wallpaper was starting to peel away in the hallway, and the walls themselves were cold and chalky to the touch. The kitchen was the worst: when I stepped down into it, this low, narrow return at the back of the house, the smell hit straight away: something green and fungal. I was pregnant with Rosa, and the smell made me gag. There were holes in the brickwork that had been badly filled with expanding foam. The floor tiles were laid straight onto the earth. No central heating in here and at every surface edge – the skirting boards, the join with the oven – a thin line of black sludge. When I moved in, I discovered other things. The cupboards filled with a fine powdered mould that coated our plates and bowls no matter how often I cleaned. And there were slugs – great, ponderous slugs with frilled orange bodies – which left trails over the clean washing, across the baby-grows that I had bought in a job lot second-hand, that I had boil-washed and smoothed out on the clothes horse, ready for Rosa.
I had stayed cheerful, at first: the house’s quirks were to my advantage. It needed some work, but that’s why I could afford it. I was going to save up and scrub up and make the house right. We were going to live brightly, Rosa and I, in a modernised terrace with clean surfaces and tightly sealed apertures. Look, hadn’t I arranged everything? Hadn’t I gotten a mortgage, by myself, against all the odds? Hadn’t I saved and scraped and grafted on overtime? For when the baby arrived. For me and my Rosa.
*
I ring my mum to tell her about the scrabbling sound in the kitchen. I can tell that she’s distracted.
Mmm hmmm, she says. Old houses do make strange noises, you know, love.
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