Black Rabbit Summer

  I looked at Raymond now. He was watching his rabbit, just sitting there watching it, perfectly content. And part of me envied him for that. I knew it was wrong of me, because I knew that Raymond’s peace of mind wasn’t quite normal – whatever that means – and I knew that he had stuff going wrong in his head, but every now and then I couldn’t help thinking how nice it must be to find such contentment in the simplest of things.

  A lawnmower had started droning away in the distance now, and I could smell the drift of freshly cut grass in the air. Green is fresh like water, I found myself thinking. A fine sky this evening…

  I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow.

  ‘Nicole rang me last night,’ I said to Raymond.

  He looked at me. ‘Nicole?’

  ‘Yeah… she was asking if we wanted to go to the fair tomorrow night. You know, the funfair up at the recreation ground?’

  Raymond didn’t say anything, he just gave me a puzzled look.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I told him. ‘I was a bit surprised to hear from her myself. What it is, though, she’s got this idea about us all meeting up again, you know, the old gang… like a going-away party kind of thing.’

  ‘Who’s going away?’

  ‘Nicole and Eric… they’re moving to Paris in September.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘And Pauly’s not going on to college –’

  ‘Pauly?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Pauly’s going to the fair?’

  Raymond’s eyes were starting to look troubled now.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I mean, I’m not really sure I want to go myself.’

  ‘She likes you,’ Raymond said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nicole – she likes you.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘She likes you too. She always has.’

  ‘Not like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like she likes you,’ he said, smiling at me.

  I frowned at him. ‘What?’

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, just carried on smiling at me, but then his eyes blinked stiffly, his face suddenly dropped, and his smile disappeared. ‘Is Pauly going to be with Wes Campbell?’ he asked.

  It was a good question, a question I’d been asking myself ever since Nicole had phoned me – if Pauly Gilpin was going to be there, did that mean that Wes Campbell and his boys were going to be there too?

  Wes Campbell was two years older than the rest of us, and when we were kids, he used to scare the shit out of us. Him and his boys – a bunch of tough kids from the Greenwell Estate – they were the ones we were always running away from. I remember once, when me and Raymond were riding our bikes back from town… I suppose we must have been about ten or eleven at the time, or maybe a little bit older. Anyway, we were riding along this little lane by the river, a short cut back from town, and suddenly I heard this whizzing sound, like something had just cut through the air, then a quick dull pop, and then something pinged off the frame of Raymond’s bike. Raymond heard it too, and we both pulled up and looked around, and that’s when we saw one of Campbell’s boys. He was standing in a little copse beside the lane, pointing an air rifle at us. As he grinned and pulled the trigger again, we hit the pedals and got going, and then Campbell and some other kids suddenly appeared from further down the lane, and some of them had air rifles too, and they were shouting and laughing and chasing the shit out of us, scaring us both to death…

  Christ, I’d never been so frightened in my life. And Raymond… well, Raymond was so terrified that he pissed himself. I’ve never forgotten it. I was pedalling along like a madman behind him, my legs pumping, my lungs bursting, and when I first heard the splashing sound I didn’t realize what it was. I was so intent on getting away from the kids behind us that I barely even noticed it. It wasn’t until Raymond’s bike started to slow down in front of me, and I looked up to see what he was doing… and I saw him standing up awkwardly on his pedals, kind of squirming around and fiddling with his flies… and even then, it took me a moment to realize that his trousers were soaked and a stream of yellow liquid was spraying out into the air behind him.

  There were other bad times with Campbell too. And it wasn’t just me and Raymond who suffered either. Campbell had it in for all of us – Eric, Nicole, Pauly… anyone who was smaller than him, basically. Smaller or different. Weaker or younger… whatever. I’m sure you know how it is. I mean, we all have our Wes Campbells when we’re eleven years old, don’t we?

  That kind of stuff was mostly in the past now. None of us had had any trouble from Campbell recently, but we’d all been scared shitless of him at the time. Which was why it was so strange that in the last couple of years or so, Pauly had started hanging around with Campbell and the others. I’d seen him in town with them, mobbing it up in the high street, and I’d heard rumours that he went out drinking with them too.

  So, yeah, I knew what Raymond meant about Pauly and Campbell, and to a certain extent I shared his concerns. But at the same time, I kind of understood that things change – people grow up, their fears move on, their childhood nightmares don’t haunt them so much any more. It wasn’t like that for me or Raymond, and understanding it didn’t make it any easier to accept. But, as far as I was concerned, if Pauly wanted to spend his time cosying up to our childhood nightmare… well, that was up to him. There wasn’t much I could do about it anyway.

  I looked at Raymond. ‘It’ll just be the five of us at first,’ I told him. ‘Me and you, Nicole, Eric, and Pauly. Nicole wants us all to meet up in the old den in Back Lane, you know – the one up the bank by the factory. Just the five of us… no one else allowed. Like a den party.’

  Raymond smiled warily. ‘A den party?’

  ‘Yeah, just like the old days – bring a bottle, have a few drinks…’

  ‘No one else allowed?’

  ‘No one else.’

  Raymond was starting to relax a bit now. The troubled look was fading from his eyes, and he was beginning to seem cautiously interested. He’d always liked being in the dens – I think he felt safe and comfortable in them. To the rest of us, they were just places to go, places to be, places to do things we weren’t supposed to do. But to Raymond I think they were some kind of sanctuary, a refuge from the big bad world. He even used to go to the dens on his own sometimes, which I always thought was a pretty cool thing to do – just sitting there on your own, hidden away in a secret place, no one knowing where you are…

  I wish I’d had the courage to do that.

  ‘So,’ I said to Raymond, ‘what do you think? Do you want to go?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘We could just go to the den, if you want… just for an hour or so. We don’t have to go on to the fair afterwards.’

  ‘What about Pauly?’

  ‘He’ll be all right… don’t worry about it. I mean, you know what he’s like – he’ll just be the same old Pauly with us.’

  ‘Same old Pauly,’ Raymond muttered.

  ‘Yeah, I know…’

  ‘He used to come round here.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He made me think he was OK.’

  Raymond was beginning to look saddened again now.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to go. I mean, it’s no big deal or anything.’

  He looked at me. ‘You want to go, don’t you?’

  I shrugged. ‘I really don’t mind.’

  He smiled. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Tell what?’

  ‘You want to see Nic.’

  ‘No, I don’t –’

  ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Well, you’re wrong…’

  He shrugged, still smiling at me.

  I shook my head. ‘Why would I want to see Nic?’

  ‘Because…’

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘I don’t know… just becaus
e.’

  I shook my head again. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Raymond.’

  He grinned at me. ‘I know.’

  ‘I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing her… just to say goodbye and everything… but I’m not bothered if I don’t.’ I looked at him. ‘There’s nothing between us any more, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  I glared at him, trying to look annoyed, but it was impossible. The way he was just sitting there, staring wide-eyed at me, grinning his head off… I couldn’t help smiling at him.

  ‘I don’t even know why I’m listening to you,’ I said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  I grinned at him. ‘You think you’re funny?’

  He laughed. ‘I know I’m funny.’

  We carried on sitting there for a while, just soaking up the sun and talking about stuff – exam results, college… nothing important – and then around two o’clock we both heard the sound of the front door slamming, and Raymond said he’d better go inside.

  ‘It’s my dad,’ he said, suddenly very serious. ‘He’ll probably want something to eat.’

  Raymond didn’t like talking about his parents, so I didn’t ask him where his dad had been, or why he couldn’t get something to eat for himself, I just nodded and started to get up.

  ‘What about tomorrow then?’ I asked him. ‘Do you want to give it a go?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose…’

  ‘You sure?’

  He nodded vaguely, but he wasn’t really paying attention to me any more – he was concentrating intently on the back door of his house, looking out for his dad.

  ‘I’ll come round here about nine,’ I told him. ‘Is that OK?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Raymond?’ I said.

  He glanced at me. ‘What?’

  ‘Tomorrow night – I’ll come round at nine o’clock.’

  ‘OK…’

  His head snapped back to the house again as he heard his dad’s voice calling out – ‘Raymond!’

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said quickly, scuttling off towards the house. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, see you, Raymond,’ I called after him. ‘And don’t worry about anything…’

  But he was already halfway down the garden now, and I knew he wasn’t listening to me any more. I watched him as he opened the back door and hurried into the house, and I wondered, as I’d wondered so many times before, what kind of life he had in there.

  It was hard to imagine.

  His parents had never been up to much. They were cold people, ugly-minded, uncaring… the kind of parents that make you appreciate your own.

  I stared at the house for a moment, trying to picture what happened behind those brick walls, but all I could see was a formless haze of dull grey mist. Cold ugly voices, resentment, hidden feelings.

  I sensed something then – a soundless movement – and when I looked down at my feet I saw Black Rabbit flopping past me and hopping back into his hutch.

  He didn’t look at me.

  He didn’t twitch his nose at me.

  His voice didn’t whisper inside my head…

  Be careful.

  Don’t go.

  … and even if it did, I didn’t hear it.

  I didn’t know it then, but as I left Raymond’s garden that day and started walking back home, I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.

  Three

  The next day, Saturday, was one of those days when you wake up in the morning, too hot to sleep, and you feel so sweaty and breathless that all you want to do is throw off the duvet and lie there naked, hoping in vain for a breath of cooling air to drift in through the open window…

  But it never comes.

  There’s no cool air out there, just a blazing white sun and a burned-blue sky and a heat so heavy you can see it.

  After I’d finally managed to peel myself off the bed and shuffle wearily into the bathroom, I took a cold shower, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, and went downstairs. A fan was blowing in the kitchen, and all the windows were open, but the house was still uncomfortably hot. I went outside and found Mum sitting on a kitchen chair, sipping tea and smoking a cigarette. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt too, and although she looked really good in them – kind of baggy and scruffily cool – she also looked pretty tired and worn out.

  ‘I thought you’d given up smoking,’ I said to her, nodding at the cigarette in her hand.

  She smiled at me. ‘I have.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘It’s just the one… I needed it.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said, ‘you’d better not let Dad catch you.’

  ‘He’s still asleep.’

  ‘What time did he get in?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know… a few hours ago. Around eight, I suppose.’

  ‘When’s he got to go back?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  She took a long drag on her cigarette and gazed down the garden. Her smile had gone now, and she had a worried-about-Dad look in her eyes. She was always worried about Dad, especially when he was working nights.

  My dad’s a police officer – a detective sergeant in the CID – and it’s hard for Mum sometimes. It’s hard for both of us, really. Even when Dad isn’t working late or doing nights, neither of us gets to see him that much. There’s always something keeping him busy – overtime, paperwork, courses, training. I don’t really mind not seeing him too much. I mean, I don’t like it, but I’m used to it. I’ve grown up with it, just as I’ve grown up with and got used to all the other crap that goes with being the son of a police officer – the suspicions, the wariness, the stupid jokes. It’s not that I don’t like Dad being a policeman, because I do. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a pretty cool thing to do. It’s just that sometimes I wish he had a more normal job. An ordinary job. Nine to five, Monday to Friday. No weekend overtime, no worried Mum, no tired-out Dad.

  I looked at Mum now, and I knew she didn’t really care too much about the long hours and the overtime and the fact that Dad was tired all the time. The only thing she was really worried about – the only thing she’d ever been worried about – was that every time Dad left for work, there was always a chance he wouldn’t come home.

  She put out her cigarette and smiled at me. ‘Everything all right?’

  I smiled back. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. How’s Raymond? You went to see him yesterday, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s all right. You know… same old Raymond. He’s coming to the fair with us tonight.’

  Mum raised her eyebrows.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing… what time are you going?’

  ‘About nine.’ I flapped my T-shirt, trying to cool myself down. ‘A few of us might go back to Nicole’s place afterwards. She and Eric are having a little going-away party. They said I can stay over if I want.’

  Mum grinned. ‘They said?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, blushing slightly. ‘Pauly’s probably going to be there, and Eric…’

  ‘And Nicole.’

  I shook my head. ‘She’s just an old friend, Mum.’

  ‘I know,’ Mum laughed. ‘I’m only joking.’

  ‘Is it all right if I stay over?’

  She nodded. ‘I don’t see why not. Make sure you take your phone with you, though. And be careful, OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She wiped some sweat from her forehead and squinted up at the sky. The air was shimmering now, hazing in the heat, and in the distance I could see things that weren’t there – silver seas, floating reflections, mirrors on the horizon. The heat was distorting the world.

  ‘You’d better take a jacket tonight,’ Mum said.

  I looked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘I think we’re in for a storm.’

  I spent the rest of the day doing nothing – just hanging around, waiting for the night to come round. I did
n’t like admitting it to myself, but I was really looking forward to going out for a change. I was still a bit wary of seeing Nicole and the rest of them, and throughout the day I kept hearing the echoes of a faint whispered voice somewhere in the back of my mind – be careful, don’t go… be careful, don’t go – but I was determined to ignore it. I hadn’t been out anywhere for ages. I hadn’t felt excited for a long time. I wasn’t going to let some stupid whispering voice spoil my day.

  I couldn’t hear it anyway.

  It wasn’t there.

  Dad woke up around midday, and I managed to see him for about ten minutes or so before he went back to work. He was in a hurry – sitting in the kitchen, bolting down some bacon and eggs – so we didn’t have much time to talk.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Doing anything tonight?’

  ‘Me and Raymond are going to the fair.’

  He nodded, chewing vigorously. ‘Well, be careful up there.’

  I smiled to myself, wondering how many more people were going to tell me to be careful.

  ‘I mean it, Pete,’ Dad said. ‘There’s been a bit of trouble up at the fair the last few nights, so make sure you keep your eyes open, OK?’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Just the usual stuff – fights, drugs, people getting robbed. It’s going to be really hot and crowded up there tonight, so it’s probably going to be even worse.’

  ‘I’ll be careful, Dad,’ I promised.

  ‘Yeah,’ he smiled, ‘I know you will.’ He took a big gulp of tea, wiped his mouth, then got up from the table and rubbed his unshaven chin. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘well, I’d better get going, I suppose.’

  Later on, around six o’clock, when Mum nipped out to the corner shop on St Leonard’s Road, I went into the little room at the back of the kitchen where Dad keeps his wine and I picked out the cheapest-looking bottle I could find. Dad likes his wine, and there were quite a few bottles in there, so I didn’t think he was likely to miss one.

  Then I went back upstairs, hid the bottle away, and started getting ready.