When God Was a Rabbit

by Winman, Sarah

  I thought back to the Christmas she’d spent with us; her fierce belief in the strange declaration that left us sleepless the long night that followed. I saw her again on the beach, walking on the surface of the water in the moonlight, her hair wild and uncompromising in the briny squalls, her ears deaf to my pleas.

  ‘Look at me!’ she shouted, arms wide at her side. ‘Look what I can do, Elly!’ before she disappeared down into the dark sea, not struggling but calm against the billowing waves, and only emerging at the heaving pull of my brother’s determined arms.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing, Jenny?’ he screamed, as he dragged her limp, smiling body through the surf, across the shingle. ‘You fucking little idiot! We’re all out looking for you, worried about you. How dare you? You could have drowned out there.’

  ‘I was never in any danger,’ she said calmly. ‘Nothing can ever hurt me. Nothing can take me from me.’

  And from that moment, I watched her. Watched her with different coloured eyes, until the raging energy that coursed through my body finally revealed itself and gave itself name: envy. For I knew already that something had taken me from me, and had replaced it with a desperate longing for a time before; a time before fear, a time before shame. And now that knowledge had a voice, and it was a voice that rose from the depths of my years and howled into the night sky like a wounded animal longing for home.

  She never explained what happened, why she didn’t show, and I never pushed; instead she disappeared for weeks, leaving my letters, my concern, unanswered. And then as June approached, her reappearance was heralded by a familiar scrawl across a familiar envelope, inside of which was a familiar hand-made card, this time with a solitary rabbit on the front.

  I’m sorry Elly, she wrote in her minuscule cut-out lettering. Be patient with me. I’m Sorry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know it’s late.’

  I’d just finished a magazine article, just got to bed and looked at the clock – three o’clock – and that was when the phone rang and that’s when I’d considered letting the answer-machine pick up but I could never do that, because I knew it was him – he always called at that time – and so I reached for the phone and said, ‘Joe?’ and he said, ‘Guess what?’ and I said, ‘What?’ and he did something unusual. He laughed.

  ‘What is it?’ I said, hearing the sound of people in the background, the clink of glasses. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Out,’ he said.

  ‘That’s great,’ I said.

  ‘Guess who’s here?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I said.

  ‘Guess,’ he said again.

  ‘I dunno,’ I said, feeling suddenly irritated. ‘Gwyneth Paltrow?’ (He’d actually met her two weeks before at an opening, and had forced me to talk to her on the phone like a fan.)

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not Gwynnie.’

  ‘Who then?’ I said, adjusting my pillow.

  And he told me.

  And on the line I heard a voice that might or might not have been him; a man’s voice, not a boy’s, surrounded by eighteen years of silence. But when he said, ‘Hey, little Ell,’ the thing he always said to me, I felt a sensation upon my skin as if I was falling through feathers.

  Two weeks later, the sound of New York chatter and car horns rose from Greene Street as the sun poured through the large windows, filling the space with an abundance of light that seemed lavish and greedy. I rolled over and opened my eyes. My brother was standing holding a coffee, staring at me.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ I said.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Sometimes on one leg, like this,’ and he showed me. ‘Or like this,’ and he changed legs. ‘Like an Aborigine.’

  ‘You’re so weird,’ I said, and rolled over, tired, happy, hung over.

  I’d landed quite late the previous night. Joe had met me at JFK as he always did, and held a big sign that said ‘Sharon Stone’. He loved to listen to the whispers of the passers-by, the gorging anticipation of the star-struck, and he loved to watch their mute disappointment as I stood in front of him, dishevelled and casual and oh so not Sharon Stone. He relished this statement meant for the masses, and delivered it with precision that verged on cruelty.

  As the taxi crossed Brooklyn Bridge (the bridge we always asked the driver to take), I opened my window to the smell of the city, to the noise, and my heart leapt as the lights illuminated my welcome, urging me onwards as it had done to millions of others, those wanting a different life. My brother had been one of the lured; brought by the promise of anonymity, not of gold, where he could be himself without the label of the past; without all those workings-out and crossings-out, the things we have to do before we come to an answer, the answer of who we are.

  As I looked towards the financial district I felt a surge in my chest – for my brother, for Jenny, for the past, for Charlie, and I could feel the gnawing inclusiveness again; the them and us of my brother’s world; the one where I was always an us. He pointed to the Twin Towers and said, ‘You’ve never been up there, have you?’ And I said, ‘No.’

  ‘You look down and you’re so cut off from everything. It’s another world. I went last week for breakfast. Stood against the window, leant against it and felt my mind pulled towards the life below. It’s awesome, Elly. Fucking awesome. The life below feels so far away when you’re there. The minusculeness of existence.’

  The taxi pulled to a sudden halt. ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re fuckin’ killin’ me. Fuck you, asshole!’

  We pulled away slowly and my brother leant towards the grille. ‘Let’s go to the Algonquin instead, sir.’

  ‘Anything you want, buddy,’ said the driver, and swerved dangerously into the inside lane. He reached down for the radio and turned it on. Liza Minnelli. A song about maybes and being lucky – even a winner – a song about love not running away.

  His name had sat between us since my arrival like an odd chaperone, bringing a quaint propriety to our stories. It was as if he deserved a chapter all to himself, a moment when we turned the page and only his name was visible. And so with the drinks ordered, the bar quiet and our attention mutual and assisting, that chapter began when my brother finished chewing on a handful of peanuts and said, ‘You’ll see him tomorrow, you know.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘He’s coming with us,’ he said. ‘To watch me sing. Do you mind?’

  ‘Why should I mind?’

  ‘It’s just so quick, for us, I mean. You’ve just got here.’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘He just wanted to,’ he said. ‘He wants to see you.’

  ‘It’s OK, I understand.’

  ‘You sure? He just wanted to.’

  ‘I want to, too,’ I said, and I was about to ask if they had become lovers again, but the martinis arrived and they looked perfect and tempting, and there would be time for that, and so instead I reached for my glass and took the first sip and said, ‘Perfect!’ instead of ‘Cheers!’ Because it was.

  ‘Perfect,’ said my brother, and he unexpectedly reached over and held me.

  He had become like Ginger. You had to translate his actions, for they were seldom accompanied by words, because his world was a quiet world; a disconnected, fractured space; a puzzle that made him phone me at three o’clock in the morning, asking me for the last piece of the border, so he could fill in the sky.

  ‘I’m so happy you’re here,’ he said, and I sat back and looked at him. His face was different: softer; the taut tiredness that had hung about his eyes, gone. His face looked happy.

  ‘You are, aren’t you?’ I said, grinning.

  The older couple by the palm looked at us and smiled.

  ‘So,’ my brother said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Can I tell you all over again?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, and he downed half his glass and started again from the beginning.

  It was a Stonewall party, a charity party he always supported, and one that was going to be held that year
in one of the large brownstones on the edge of the Village. They were intimate affairs that catered for the usual people, but which always made good money from the tickets and the silent auction, and the other silent auction that only the naughty ever knew about.

  ‘But you didn’t want to go?’ I said, rushing the story ahead to territory I knew nothing about.

  ‘No I didn’t. But then I remembered I wanted to check out their renovations, because I’ve got my eye on a new place and I need an architect; which is also another story because I want you to come and see this house with me tomorrow.’

  ‘OK, OK, I will,’ I said, and drank a large mouthful of vodka, feeling its flush in my head. ‘Now continue,’ I said.

  A string quartet was playing in the walled garden and he sat outside most of the evening, gladly cornered by an older gentleman called Ray, who talked to him about the riots of ’69, and told him of suppers spent with Katharine Hepburn and Marlene, whom he used to know because he was involved in wardrobe at MGM and because he had association with von Sternberg too, because of his own German lineage (mother’s side). And then the light faded and candles arrived, filling the atmosphere with scents like tea and jasmine; fig, too. People deserted as the music stopped, headed indoors to hear the results of the auction and to sample the Japanese buffet orchestrated by the events caterer du jour. And that’s how they found themselves alone. There was no inappropriate suggestion, just the quiet familiarity of evenings he used to spend with Arthur, when they talked about Halston and Warhol and those seventies parties whose themes were as blurred as the preferences of the guests.

  And then a man approached down the fire escape. A young man, it seemed, in the candlelit night; less young as he approached. But Ray looked over to him and smiled and said, ‘And who might you be, handsome young brave?’ and the man laughed and said, ‘My name is Charlie Hunter. How’re you doing, Joe?’

  The waiter placed the second round of martinis down. I was hungry. I ordered extra olives.

  They crammed years into those remaining hours before they tumbled out onto the sidewalks of the Village and wandered back to SoHo, happy and drunk and disbelieving. They spent the weekend at Joe’s apartment, cocooned in movies and take-out boxes and beer, and voraciously ate away at the years, the lost years that had defined one another’s name. And that’s when Charlie told him he shouldn’t have been at the party either. He should have been back home in Denver, but his flight had been delayed and a meeting had suddenly come up for Monday, and a business colleague he knew only as Phil had said, ‘Stay – there’s this party,’ and so he’d stayed and hadn’t seen Phil since; not since he’d left him by the silent auction, bidding for a dinner for two at the Tribeca Grill with an unknown celebrity.

  Joe downed the remainder of his glass. ‘And guess what, Ell? I think he’s going to move to New York for good.’

  And that’s when I really thought I’d asked if they’d become lovers; but maybe I hadn’t because I couldn’t remember, because that was when we ordered the third martini, the third martini that seemed such a good idea at the time; the third martini that stayed in my mouth as I awoke to that piercing sunlight and a brother standing on one leg, holding a double macchiato, pretending to be an Aborigine.

  The townhouse was nestled in the heart of the Village in a tree-lined street that was quiet and strangely remote, considering it was only a street away from Bleecker and two from Washington Square. We could see the realtor up ahead talking on the phone, standing next to a large ailanthus tree that offered little shade against the draining afternoon sun.

  We ran the last fifty yards to meet him, a sudden race, a ready-set-go, which I won, because I reached and touched the black iron handrail first. The realtor seemed bemused; we looked hot and sweaty and, most of all, poor; as if we couldn’t even raise the price of a hot dog between us, let alone prime New York real estate.

  The odour from the ailanthus became strong as we climbed up the steps to the front door, and as we entered it mingled with the smell of damp, a smell the realtor immediately assured was only a slight problem, rather than the structural signifier we both imagined. It was dark as we entered, thankfully unfurnished, and the rooms were concealed behind wooden shutters, which stalled midway as they were pulled back, refusing to offer light beyond the realms of dusk. The house was rather poky inside, with a cumbersome layout that mimicked a chicken run. Walls were plastered with striped paper, an orange and brown and black theme throughout, with dark oak balustrades clumsily painted and now hidden behind the heavy gloss of mocha stain. I traversed the hallway and followed its narrow ascent to the upper two floors, the highest one nursing a hole and a bird’s nest, and then precariously down to the kitchen and the small uninspiring garden beyond, which was landscaped with weeds and knee-high ailanthus trees, the seeds having been blown in from the front. There was so much wrong with this house, so much to do; but as I stood there, my brother secretly pointing to his watch, I immediately understood the layout, the how-it-should-have-been all those years ago, and the how-it-could-be now. And when my brother asked, ‘Well?’ with no enthusiasm in his voice, I said, ‘I love it.’ And I really did.

  We got back just before six. I showered quickly and dressed; hid my nerves behind an article I needed to finish for the following day. It was a pitch, actually, a pitch for a regular column in a weekend newspaper which I’d hastily (and unimaginatively) entitled ‘Lost and Found’ – a name that would eventually and surprisingly stick. It was to be the story of Jenny Penny and her return to my life; stories cemented together by our correspondence and the memories of our past. And when I’d nervously written to her suggesting such an idea, asking for her opinion and maybe later her permission, I received a resounding Yes! by return of post, together with the new fictitious name I’d asked her to choose, to protect her fragile yet willing identity.

  The buzzer rang; I wasn’t finished. The buzzer rang and my brother shouted from his bedroom. I opened the front door and stood a few feet back. I suddenly remembered the towel around my head and pulled it off, throwing it over the back of a chair, letting my hair fall damp, unruly, free. I felt anxious. Wondered how he would enter. Would he run in shouting, happy to see me? Or simply knock? I heard his footsteps, heard him pause. And then he did neither; simply pushed the door gently and stuck his head round and smiled, and said, ‘Hello, Ell, how’re you doing?’

  The dark features were the same, the smile the same, but his voice had lost the flat Essex tones I could still remember. And he’d brought champagne. We were going out but he’d brought champagne because it was a moment for champagne, and he stood there with his hands on his hips and said, ‘You haven’t changed,’ and I said, ‘You neither,’ and we embraced, and he was still holding the champagne bottle as we embraced, and I felt it cold and hard against my back.

  My brother came out to the sound of the cork popping. He came out still wet from the shower, wearing his choir T-shirt, a pink T-shirt that had ‘The Six Judys’ written on the front above a line drawing of that famous dame. And then underneath in smaller type: ‘We’ll Sing for your Supper’. It was something they did every time, had a new T-shirt printed for each new charity they supported. One year, they’d supported an elderly group and the T-shirt had said: ‘You’re Never Too Old to Sing’. This time, though, it was food for the homeless, and the provision of a new catering van.

  I handed around the glasses of champagne. I’d filled them to the top, not something I usually did, but it had been distracting and I’d needed that because when my brother raised his glass and said, ‘To us. Finally together,’ I had to turn away as I felt the first of my tears, before I’d even had my first mouthful, before I could even join them to say, ‘To us.’

  I thought he was in the study with Joe helping with a finance problem, but as I began to close down the computer, I suddenly felt his hand on my arm and I startled and he said, ‘Wait,’ and began to read the opening paragraph.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said.

>   My brother ran in and said, ‘The taxi’s here. Are you ready?’ before disappearing into his room for a pile of promotional CDs and photos.

  ‘I want to be in this,’ said Charlie quietly. ‘Write about me.’

  ‘In this?’

  He nodded. ‘You lost me and now you’ve found me. I should be in it too, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’ll need to change your name,’ I said.

  ‘Ellis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s the name I’d like. Ellis.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘What’s Jenny Penny’s?’ he asked.

  ‘Liberty,’ I said. ‘Liberty Belle.’

  We sat at a small unoccupied table at the back of the suite, away from guests we didn’t know, ignoring the ones we did, close to the ice-sculpted vodka bar and a never-ending supply of mini hamburgers and fat breaded scampi.

  ‘I thought you might be married,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said, finishing my drink.

  Silence.

  ‘That’s it? No elaboration? No one special?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘In hindsight, no.’

  ‘In hindsight. God, you’re so like him,’ he said, waving to my brother who had just peeped out from behind the makeshift red velvet curtain. ‘Your own little club.’

  ‘It’s not like that. It’s complicated.’

  ‘We’re all complicated, Ell. Do you remember the last time you saw me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You were nine, ten, right? And really pissed off at me.’

  ‘He never got over you.’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘Yeah, actually,’ and I reached swiftly for a glass of wine as it passed by on a tray.