The Rabbit

by Ted Lewis

  The men filed in and Fred filled their mugs with tea. I sat reading. Most of the men settled down to their news¬papers.

  I took my sandwiches out and unwrapped them. Fred spoke to me:

  “Have you a mug for your tea, lad?”

  “No thanks. I’ve got a pint of milk in my satchel.”

  “It’s as well,” said Arthur. “He’d need a cast-iron stomach to survive your tea.”

  “Aye, he’d best stick to his milk,” Clacker said. He was half-sitting, half-lying on the pile of tires. One of the men sniggered. I took a paperback out of my satchel and started reading.

  The silence was broken by Gil Caldwell, one of the drivers.

  “Did you get plenty this weekend, Clacker?”

  “Plenty of what?”

  I looked up. Some of the men were grinning and most of them were looking at me. I grinned too, knowing they were watching for my reaction. Does the boss’s son laugh at double meanings? More and more it was getting like the first day at school.

  “Ale, you daft bastard,” Gil said, looking at me, grinning awkwardly, a double expression on his face, as if he didn’t want me to think he’d meant anything other than ale, but at the same time wanted me to see what a card he was.

  “What do you think?” Clacker replied.

  “Where were you? Bell?” Gil said.

  “Mostly. Went over to Halton Saturday night. I were in George singing room.” “There’s some lovely little lassies get up there these days,” Gil said.

  “There is that,” Arthur said, not looking up from his paper.

  “It’s good ale, that’s all I know,” said Clacker.

  “I thought you were past lassies, Arthur,” said Gil.

  “Try telling that to my missus.”

  “Why, does she pester you?”

  “Hope’d be a fine thing. I’ve forgotten what it looks like. She thinks it’s just to piss through.”

  “I wish mine did,” Gil said.

  Herbert Wheatley came in while Gil was speaking. Clacker put a finger to his lips and said:

  “Enter a messenger from the enemy camp.”

  Herbert poured himself some tea.

  “How’s your new mate getting on then, Clacker?”

  Herbert looked at me and grinned.

  “Real cool,” said Clacker. “I’ll have to start looking for another job if he works much harder. You’ll notice he’s already claimed me place.”

  It didn’t sink in at first. When Herbert had referred to me I’d concentrated on my book, pretending oblivion. Then it dawned on me what Clacker had said, I began to get up but Clacker slid off the tires.

  “Nay, you may as well stay where you are,” he said. “I’ve some business to attend to.”

  He put his sandwich tin and his mug on the floor next to the tires and went out.

  “You’re all right, Victor,” Herbert said. “He’s gone to look at his snares.”

  I sat down again and went back to my book.

  The end of the day. Late afternoon sun threw the kiln’s long shadow across the platform. Clacker and I were working in separate wagons. He was two wagons ahead of me. We hadn’t spoken throughout the day and so I’d begun to lag behind a bit whenever a wagon was nearly finished. The atmosphere seemed less strained with a wagon separating us.

  My father’s car rolled up the platform. He got out and walked over to the platform’s edge and watched us work for a while.

  “How many flinted wagons have we got in hand for morn¬ing, Clacker?” he said.

  Clacker straightened up and leaned on his hammer.

  “We’re flinted up to here. Except for yon one.”

  He nodded towards the wagon I was working.

  “Good,” said my father. “They can take this lot first thing, then.” He pushed his trilby back from his forehead and looked up into the clear sky. “Right. We’ll call it a day, then. Is your bike up at quarry?”

  Clacker nodded.

  “Come on, then. I’ll run you up.” He turned towards me. “Is that one done, Victor?”

  “Just about.”

  I cracked the last of the big stones and lobbed a couple of flints into the barrow.

  I got out of the wagon and began to wheel the barrow over to the flint tip. As I passed him my father bent down and picked up a flint and dropped it into the barrow. At the flint tip I emptied the barrow, left it there, and picked up my sketchbook.

  In the car, as we drove home, Herbert Wheatley said:

  “How’s your day at kilns gone down, then, Victor?”

  “All right. I’ve enjoyed it.”

  “How’d you get on with Clacker? Bit of a rum bugger, isn’t he?”

  “I’ve seen him before, actually. In the pub. Whereabouts does he live?”

  “Somerton. But he drinks all over the place. Best travelled boozer in Lincolnshire.”

  I lay in the bath, staring out of the window at the blue still sky. The bathroom window was raised slightly and I could hear the random sounds of the tea-time hour. Downstairs my mother was clearing the kitchen table. My grandmother would be sitting by the Cook’n’Heat, the television papers open at the appropriate pages, waiting for my father to wake from his after-tea sleep in the dining room, so that she could go in and wait a little longer, until he decided it was time to switch on the set.

  The chalky water drifted round my limp body. I thought about Veronica. I’d have to go round and see her. I’d told her on Saturday night I’d be round. The trouble was once round at hers it would be difficult getting out to see Don and Mart. Perhaps I’d go tomorrow instead. I could tell her I’d been doing some college work.

  I got out of the bath and went into my bedroom and put on my black jeans and my Frankie Laine shirt and my royal blue windcheater with the white piping. I combed my hair for ten minutes and then went downstairs to the kitchen. My mother was sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette. The kitchen was clear. A single cup of coffee was on the kitchen table, by my mother’s arm. My grandmother was sitting by the Cook’n’Heat as expected. I sat down at the table. My mother slid her cigarettes and lighter across to me.

  “Ta,” I said, lighting up.

  “Where is it tonight, then? Pictures?”

  “Most likely. Depends on Mart and Don.”

  “Otherwise it’ll be the George.”

  “I don’t know. I might go and see Veronica.”

  “Well, don’t be taking her to the George with you. She’s too young.” She took a sip of her coffee. “So are you for that matter.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “I’m only thinking of you. It could spoil your chances at college if the police caught you.”

  “Don’t be daft, Mother.”

  “Besides—”

  “—besides there’s better things I could be doing than spending my time in pubs.”

  “You’ve plenty of holiday work you could be getting on with.”

  “Mother, I’ve only been back three days. Give us a chance.”

  “I know you. You put things off.”

  I stood up.

  “Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  Out in the hall the phone rang. I went over to the back door.

  “I’m off,” I said, but my mother was already in the hall. I winked at my grandmother and went out.

  The long narrow garden was covered with evening shadows. Beyond the high wall the orchard apple trees caught spots of sunlight and in the same sunlight the barn bricks glowed. As I walked away from the house I still felt the kind of elation I used to feel when I was at school, the excitement of leaving behind the quietness of the shadowed hall and the silences of my parents and the flickering of the television animating my grandmothe
r’s face, feeling the release each step brought closer. But then I heard the back door open and another old feeling revived in my heart, a cold dread, a feeling that the escape had failed, a hangover from evenings of postponed homework.

  “Victor.”

  I stopped and turned round.

  “What?”

  “Telephone.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I hurried back up the garden. My mother had left the back door and was standing by the kitchen table when I went in. When I was halfway across the kitchen my mother said:

  “It’s some girl.”

  My heart almost stopped. Ever since the year my parents had caught me with Norma Stevenson when I should have been at choir practice, just talking to girls was suspect as far as I was concerned. The only exception was Veronica. I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because she’d got nine “O” levels.

  “I’d better go and see,” I said, not able to think of anything else to say.

  I pulled the kitchen door tight shut and walked down the hall to where the phone perched on the hall-stand. Television sounds droned through the dining-room door. I picked up the receiver and sat down at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello? Is that Victor?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is Janet. I’m phoning to remind you about Saturday.”

  Janet. I couldn’t believe it. I’d thought it had begun and ended with the Fresher’s Ball. And the conversation we’d had a couple of days before it. We’d talked about jazz and films in the Life Room, and I’d been amazed how she’d made me feel at ease. Of course, I’d not felt easy enough to ask her out. But at the dance she’d come to me and we’d danced and necked but I’d got so pissed I hadn’t been able to take her home and she hadn’t come into College on the last morning.

  “Saturday?” I said.

  “The party I’m having. For my birthday. Don’t you remem¬ber?”

  “’Course I do. I just thought, maybe as you hadn’t turned up, the morning after the dance, well.”

  “I couldn’t get up. Well, I could have, if I’d been awake, but my mother wouldn’t wake me. She’s like that sometimes. Otherwise I would have been there. I just slept straight through. Not surprising, really, after all.”

  “No, we were pretty...”

  The volume on the television set was turned down. Not much, but just enough.

  “What?” she said.

  “I said it was a good do.”

  “Yes. Remember us talking about M.J.Q.? Remember that track we were in raptures about...”

  “‘Milano.’”

  “‘Milano,’ well, I’ve been playing it, and you’re right, it is better than ‘Django.’ It grows on you.”

  There was weightlessness in my stomach, like that second before you finally go under at the dentist’s. Only this was protracted, constant.

  “Are you there?” she said. “I mean, it was O.K. to phone?”

  I could hear the cracking of the old leather armchair. My father was getting up.

  “Oh, sure. ’Course it is.”

  “You’re coming on Saturday, then? You’ll be able to make it?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there.” My father’s footsteps approached the door. “What time?”

  She gave me the time and the place. The dining-room door opened a few inches. My father was bent forward, fiddling with his nostrils, listening. He wasn’t even looking at me. I boiled up. Either he didn’t care that I knew he was listening or he thought I was too stupid to notice. And either attitude was equally infuriating.

  “Hang on,” I said, and put my hand over the mouth-piece. I offered my father the receiver. “You’ll hear better with this.”

  He grinned.

  “I’ll just use my imagination,” he said.

  “Well, why don’t you go and use it somewhere else.”

  The grin disappeared.

  “Here, that’ll do.”

  I leant forward and closed the door on him.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. The dog wanted to go out.”

  “Anyway, you’ve got the address?”

  “Twenty-nine, Marlborough Avenue. Half seven.”

  “See you, then.”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “If you get lost ring up. We’re in the book.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “O.K. then. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  The line went dead. I looked at the receiver. The conver¬sation had seemed to take no time at all. I opened the dining-room door. My father was back in his chair, cigarette lit, flies unzipped, legs stretched out.

  “Did you get it all, then?” I said.

  “Enough.”

  “Only I thought if you missed anything I’d write it down for you while it was fresh in my mind.”

  My grandmother picked up her knitting.

  “I said that’ll do,” he said.

  “How would you like it if I stood picking my nose listening to you while you were on the phone?”

  “Oh, give it a rest, will you? You don’t own the bloody place yet.”

  “That’s the kind of pointless remark I’d expect from you.”

  “Oh yes. Your poor ignorant father.”

  “That’s it. Let’s have the hearts and flowers. What was it? Getting up at half-past four, no time for...”

  My father stood up.

  “That’s it. I’ve had enough of it. Leave it alone.”

  I sneered at him and banged the door to and walked through into the kitchen.

  “What was all that about?” my mother said.

  “Ask him.”

  “What did the girl want?”

  “I’ve told you. Ask him.”

  I closed the back door behind me.

  I slowed down when I got as far as the barn. The thought of Janet’s party racketed about in my head.

  I hurried down the Acridge and turned left into Castledyke. Past Chads Infant School, past the Whitening Mills, then I was at the four council houses. They stood alone, flanked by the Whitening Mills to one side and the high Dutch bank of the Haven. Beyond the bank, running parallel, was the low long roof of the Ropery, stretching away as far as the Haven’s mouth. To the back of the houses were the allot¬ments, a sort of no-man’s land between the edge of the town and the marshland that led to the Tileries and the broad river.

  I opened the garden gate and walked round to the back of Mart’s house and knocked on the back door. A minute later Mart opened it. He was stripped down to his vest and he still had his work jeans on. His feet were bare and he was holding a towel. His face was damp and shiny.

  “Well, if it isn’t the British Working Man,” he said.

  “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay,” I said. “Just give us the tools.”

  Mart stood to one side.

  “It’s all right to go through,” he said. “Mother’s in a strait-jacket.”

  We went into the living room. Mrs Todd was sitting in an armchair by the Yorkseal, her arms folded and her apron rolled up to form a cradle for her toffees. The television was turned up very loud.

  “Oh, Christ, it’s him again,” she said, looking at me. Mart adopted a prize-fighter’s stance.

  “Less of that.”

  “Give over,” Mrs Todd said. “I’d wipe the floor with you.”

  “Not in front of the guests, Mater.”

  “Guests? Him?”

  “I’ll never cross this doorstep again.”

  “You wouldn’t have got in tonight if I’d answered door.”

  I sat down at the dining
table. The remains of tea were spread out over the tablecloth.

  “I’ll just get changed,” Mart said. “Want a cup of coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “He doesn’t want to take up any ale-room.”

  Mart pretended to strike his mother.

  “Put your shirt on. You’ll frighten the budgie.”

  “Less of your lip.”

  Mart took a clean shirt out of the sideboard drawer and went upstairs.

  A few minutes later he came back wearing his powder blue suit and dark blue suede shoes. His shirt was open at the neck.

  “Right,” he said.

  I stood up.

  “I’ve got me keys, got me fags, got me wallet,” he said to his mother. “If I’m not home by morning send the dogs after me.”

  “Clear off, then.”

  “Don’t wait up.”

  “Don’t you worry.”

  We left the house and walked up the road, the evening sun behind us.

  “What night are you off to pictures this week? To¬morrow?”

  “Could be. Any good, do you think?”

  “Trailer looked good. Got Lee Marvin in it, anyway.”

  “Yeah. He’ll be worth seeing, anyway.”

  “Remember him in that Randolph Scott picture the other month?”

  “Yeah. He always dies well. Always spectacular.”

  “He must enjoy it.”

  “It always has to be spectacular when he gets it. Spinning all over the place.”

  We turned off Castledyke and crossed Fleetgate and walked over to Star Corner.

  We looked at the stills in the showcase. It wasn’t a show¬case proper, with special slots for the stills. Old Clarke who ran the place just stuck trade brochures and the few tatty stills he might be sent behind the glass.

  “There he is,” I said, pointing to one of the stills.

  “Yeah,” Mart said. “Looks like it’s tomorrow night, then.”

  We walked down the steps and along the High Street, passing Johnson’s yard. The chickens were still clucking about on the gravelly slope.