The Rabbit

by Ted Lewis

“Now then, Keg,” I said.

  Clacker handed Keith a full glass and as the two of them turned away from the bar Keith looked back at me and said something to Clacker and I knew what it would be, in fact the words “pissed himself” were audible not only to me, but also to Mart and Don and Cec who carried on with their chat and pretended not to notice.

  Feelings that I hadn’t had since I’d started college flooded through me. The memory of the Headmaster slapping my face and the rush of piss shattering on to the classroom floor, uncontrollable because of my illness-weakened bladder, the faces of the class as I staggered out of the classroom, the awed voices I’d heard discussing what had happened while I’d stayed locked in the toilets till everyone had gone home, the gauntlet I’d had to run at school the next day, the living-down I’d had to do until the very last day at school. Except, of course, from Mart and Cec and Don. Shortly after the incident had happened I’d taken to going down to the river at weekends to avoid my contemporaries. One Sunday after¬noon I’d wandered into the disused brickworks and found the three of them sitting on the edge of an old vat, idly lobbing bangers into the shallow brick-littered water. I’d known them by sight, but I’d never spoken to them. Why should I have? They were three years ahead of me. But as I’d appeared Mart had acknowledged my presence and, encouraged, I’d climbed on to the opposite side of the vat and eventually we’d got talking. I’d cycled home with them and on the way Mart had mentioned going to the pictures the following evening, more or less suggesting I went along. That was the beginning of our friendship. Every weekend we’d roam up and down the river, most evenings we’d be at the pictures. And never once had there been a reference to the incident with the Head-master, even though every day at school it was mentioned and giggled over by other pupils. Seeing Keg Phillips brought back everything I’d been free of during the time at College. Now he was passing it on to Clacker.

  “Drink up,” I said. “It’s my round.”

  When the landlord came through I said:

  “The same please. And see what Clacker’s having.”

  The landlord went back and said:

  “Clacker, give us your glass. There’s a drink being bought you.”

  I couldn’t see Clacker but I heard him say:

  “Nay, I’ve not finished this yet. Pace through there’s too much for me. I’ll be pissing all night.”

  I blushed and drained my glass and Mart and Don and Cec pretended not to notice, again.

  Outside the pub, walking towards Cec’s car.

  “It’s a man’s life in the regular army.”

  “Get the facts straight from a soldier.”

  “Last night I heard a tiger roar. Ginge says we’ll be home for Christmas.”

  Clacker emerged from the Public Bar, followed by Keg Phillips and a group of young men about the same ages as Mart and Cec and Don. They were all dressed the same way as Clacker, black suits and white open neck shirts. While we were in Cec’s car I watched them follow Clacker over to a battered two-tone Zodiac convertible and wait while he got in the back and arranged himself in the centre of the seat. After he’d done that the rest of his mates got in.

  Cec started the car and we drove off. Mart turned and looked out of the back window.

  “Looks as though Clacker’s going same road as us,” he said.

  “Probably wants to buy us another drink,” Cec said.

  “Do you know,” I said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the bastard’s following us on purpose.”

  I was prepared to say anything to take away the self- conscious attitude of the boys because of what had happened in the pub.

  “What for?”

  I shrugged.

  “Something to do,” I said.

  “We’ll soon see,” Cec said, and accelerated.

  “He’s staying with us,” Mart said after a while.

  “Gosh, it’s just like Highway Patrol,” said Don.

  “I’ll slow down,” Cec said. “Then we’ll see.”

  A few minutes later the Zodiac overtook us. None of the occupants took any notice of Cec’s car. And when we got to the Queens, the Zodiac was in a prominent position in the middle of the car park.

  The Queens’ lounge was enormous. A long bar ran the length of one wall. Behind this bar there were six barmen in white coats. It was common knowledge that underneath the bar there were six rounders bats employed for quelling any strife that might break out. Clacker and his mates were leaning on the bar. At one end of the lounge was the cabaret stage, elevated a couple of feet from floor level. Behind the drum-kit was a big photo-mural of Capri. There were about a hundred tables, arranged in symmetrical lines, so that the dozen or so waiters could flash about serving the customers. Some of the customers were about to go on shift, some had just come off. The rest were dressed in stylish suits and brilliantly laundered shirts. On stage the group was playing “Sugarbush.” Most of the customers were watching their girl singer but when the number finished hardly anyone applauded. The boys and me were sitting at one of the tables.

  “Bloody waiter’s taking long enough,” Cec said.

  “Probably sorting out the foreign coins,” Mart said.

  The M.C. appeared on the stage, applauding the singer as she went off.

  “Well, that was great, wasn’t it?” he said. He was obviously a fan of “Sunday Night at the London Palladium.” “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” the M.C. began again, “but especially gentlemen—the act you’ve all been waiting for. And I’d like you to know that this is her only Lincolnshire engagement. Yes, friends, you can only see her at the Queens. And I do mean see her.” He paused to allow the audience to appreciate his joke but the din remained the same. “Yes, you can only see her here, for one week only. So without further ado, I give you ... Miss ... Jackie ... Du ... Val!”

  There was some applause, the place became a little quieter and the lights began to die down. Miss Jackie Du Val appeared. She was getting on for forty. Her hair was long and black, and a lot of it was piled up on top of her head. She was wearing a scarlet evening dress and evening gloves that didn’t quite match and she had this aren’t-you-men-naughty-boys-coming-to-see-me-take-off-my-clothes look.

  Just as she appeared the waiter arrived with our tray of drinks. He leant over the table and distributed the glasses.

  “It is the ’47 brown isn’t it?” said Cec.

  The waiter gave Cec a blank look.

  “Four pints, wasn’t it?” he said.

  Cec nodded his head, then shook it in sympathy.

  “Get out the fucking way,” a voice said from the table behind us.

  The waiter gave the voice a V-sign and left.

  Jackie Du Val began her act. It wasn’t long before she’d taken off her gloves and her shoes and her stockings.

  “Diabolical,” said Cec.

  The music changed and Jackie Du Val took the mike off its stand and stepped down from the stage. The M.C. appeared again.

  “Remember, gents,” he said, “no touching. Absolutely no touching.”

  Jackie Du Val began to move among the tables. She flicked the tie of one of the seated men so that it fell outside his jacket.

  “That’s a long one,” she said into the mike. The audience cheered loudly. She found another man with a tie and repeated the performance, only this time saying:

  “Ooh, isn’t it a short one?”

  There were more cheers and Jackie Du Val moved out of the tables and walked along the line of men who were leaning with their backs to the bar. She weighed up each one as she went by, appraising them from top to toe with the accent on the centre. When she got to Clacker she pointed at his open neck, and turned to the room at large and said:

  “Ooh, and he hasn’t got one at all!”

  The audience cheered again. Clacker grinned in a
bored way and took a neatly rolled-up tie from his jacket pocket, unfurled it and let it dangle in front of Jackie Du Val. There was loud applause and Jackie Du Val held her microphone to her bosom and pretended to look shocked.

  “The bastard’s got an answer for everything,” I said.

  They’d all gone to bed when I got home, but they’d left the kitchen door unlocked. I walked through and opened the hall door. The landing light was on. That meant they were lying in bed, waiting. I closed the door. On the kitchen table were some sandwiches and a pint of milk and a glass. I sat down and began eating a sandwich. Then I got up and found a biro and an old envelope and wrote:

  “Am going to work on the lorry. Ask Dad to bring my sandwiches.”

  I put the note down on the kitchen floor, in the middle, and pinned it there with one of my father’s boots so that my mother wouldn’t miss it when she came down in the morning.

  I waited outside the White Swan. Waterside Road stretched away in perspective alongside the raised bank of the Haven and disappeared into the morning haze. The end of the line railway station with its single line track was almost a shadow opposite the Swan. The only sign of life was under the neon in Stanley’s paper shop on Whitening Mill Corner. There was a line of bikes propped against the curb outside and in the shop I could see Mrs Stanley handing out the sheaves of papers to the paper lads.

  Two men cycled out of the haze and rode into the White Swan yard to park their bikes. They came out again and stood a few yards away taking no notice of me. They just unfurled their papers and began to read. A few minutes later another of the men joined them. They nodded to each other and the third man began reading his paper.

  Then there was a growing heaving groan rattling the shops in Fleetgate as the lorry approached. It rounded Swan Corner and stopped, the engine still going, the tin hut on the back rattling in time to the revs.

  Arthur Akester’s arm rested on the lip of the cab window.

  “Now, Victor,” he said. He nodded in the direction of the three men. “Come to join the dawn chorus, have you?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  I hung back while the other three men climbed up the back of the lorry. I followed them up, then into the hut. There were several other men already inside the hut. It smelt of lime dust and tobacco and working jackets. There was a lot of shuffling about as the other three men and myself sat down on the plank seats that lined the hut. One of the men nearest the cab banged on the side of the hut. It sounded like thunder in a school play. The lorry began to move off.

  There was a vague atmosphere of embarrassment at my presence, slightly stronger than it was in the canteen, prob¬ably because of the proximity the hut created. Nobody spoke to me but sometimes when I looked up from my book I would catch someone looking over the top of his paper at me.

  After a little while the lorry slowed down and stopped, engine still running. I heard Arthur’s voice say:

  “Morning, Herbert.”

  “I wish it bloody wasn’t,” said Herbert.

  Some of the men in the hut grimaced at the sound of Herbert’s voice. “I wish it were half past bloody four.”

  “Get over plenty last night, did you?” Arthur asked.

  The cab door slammed. Herbert’s reply was lost under the revving of the engine.

  “If he did somebody else must have been buying,” Walter Clipson said to the hut at large.

  At the quarry I got down from the lorry and watched the men unload the tin hut and set it down by the side of the office. Arthur walked towards a loaded lorry.

  “Is this one ready for taking?” he said to Herbert,

  “’Appen. Has Clacker turned up yet?”

  “Probably gone straight to station.”

  “He’d bloody better.”

  “He’ll be there. Come on Victor, I’ll take you down.”

  On the way down the woody hill Arthur said:

  “It’s going to be another hot one today, Victor.”

  I looked at the road in front. The mist had now gone and already hedges and far off woods were shimmering mirage-like in the rising heat.

  “Looks like it,” I said.

  “It’ll be like the fucking desert down at station today,” he said. “At least in the quarry you can get some shade.”

  Arthur turned the lorry off the road and up the ramp to the platform. The kilns were a pillar of black heat against the sky. Clacker was in a wagon, working like a fiend. Arthur gave a low laugh.

  “I’ll give you three guesses what Clacker was up to last night,” he said, backing the wagon up to one of the empty wagons.

  Arthur started the tipper. I opened the door and got down from the cab and went to the tailboard and unbolted my side. Arthur appeared at his side and did the same. Clacker continued to flail about with his hammer in the next wagon. He was working with grim dedication as if he had a personal hatred for each separate lump of stone. Sweat glistened on his body. He stopped for a moment and stretched out an arm and picked up a bottle of lemonade that was perched on the platform’s edge and took a long swig. He wiped his mouth with his index finger and put the bottle back and carried on working. One of the kiln men cycled along the platform on his way to the kiln.

  “Sweating the ale out, Clacker?” the kiln man shouted out.

  Clacker stopped and fixed a baleful stare on the man on the bike until the man dismounted by the kiln chute. Then Clacker shouted two words at the man but I couldn’t hear what they were because of the sound of the load sliding down into the empty wagon. When the silence had returned Clacker turned to look at us, as if only the noise of the load had made him aware of our presence. I picked my hammer off the barrow and got down into the wagon that held the new load.

  “Now then,” I said to Clacker. He didn’t answer.

  Clacker watched me as I began working. Then after a few moments he carried on working his own wagon.

  “Heavy night, Clacker?” Arthur said.

  “Average,” Clacker said, not looking up.

  Arthur laughed and got back in his lorry and drove off.

  Clacker finished his load, then swung his hammer over into my wagon and climbed in and sat on the wagon’s edge. He took out a cigarette. I took out one of mine. I lit up and offered the match to Clacker but he struck one of his own matches. I threw my match away and sat on the edge of the wagon adjacent to Clacker. The sun was already warm. We sat in silence for a while, staring across the wheatfield.

  “Wasn’t bad last night, was it?” I said, even though I was dreading any reference to what Keg had told him.

  Clacker didn’t answer.

  “The bird wasn’t bad looking.”

  “I’ve seen better,” Clacker said.

  “She was getting on a bit,” I said, “but she didn’t have a bad figure.”

  Clacker shrugged. “I would have thought it was nowt new to you,” he said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Sat in college drawing nudes all day.”

  “You ought to see them.”

  “Ought I?”

  “They’re all old bags.”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “Besides...”

  “What?”

  “You don’t think of them like that when you’re drawing them. You’re too absorbed in getting the drawing right.”

  Clacker laughed and got out of the wagon and took hold of the handles of the barrow.

  “Pull the other one,” he said. “It’s got bells on.”

  “It’s true. All you’re concerned with is the drawing.” Clacker laughed again and wheeled the barrow over to the flint-tip. I called after him:

  “You ought to see them, that’s all.”

  When he came back I said:

  “It’s right. They’re just like
bits of furniture.”

  Clacker took no notice and started work again.

  “I mean, it’s a job,” I said. “Just like anything else. You treat it as work.”

  Clacker smashed a big stone to bits. I was about to say something else when my father’s car came rolling up the slope. My father got out and walked over to us.

  “I want a word with you,” he said, motioning for me to get out of the wagon.

  “What about?” I said.

  “Never you mind that. Just come here a minute.”

  I got out of the wagon and we walked over to the car.

  “You were at Queens last night,” my father said.

  “Who says?”

  “Never mind who says. You were, weren’t you?”

  Clacker was still leaning on his hammer.

  “Look, leave it till later, will you?” I said.

  “Not only content with pubbing it, you have to go to the Queens. You know they had the police in there again last week.”

  “Yeah, all right,” I said, turning away and beginning to walk back to the wagon.

  “Here, I haven’t finished yet,” said my father.

  I had no choice but to go back. I caught sight of Clacker’s staring eyes as I turned.

  “I’ll not tell you again,” he said.

  There was a silence.

  “Do you want your sketchbook?”

  I shook my head and turned away but my father walked over to the bush and placed the sketchbook underneath it.

  My father drove off and I tried to work off my embarrass¬ment by looking hard for flints.

  “If my old man had said that to me I’d have fetched him one,” Clacker said.

  I didn’t answer. We didn’t speak again till Arthur came to take us up to breakfast. Clacker walked over to the bush and got his sandwich box from out of his saddlebag while I got in the cab. When Clacker got in he was holding my sketchbook.

  “Here you are,” he said, handing it to me. “You might want to do some work.”

  In the canteen everyone had finished eating. Gil Caldwell folded his paper and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

  “Saw you last night, Clacker,” he said. “Driving through Appleby. Off to Scunnie, were you?”