‘Probably because Hemlock Towers is Grade II listed,’ said Pippa when I told her two hours later over breakfast. ‘Remember that 2LG’s core demographic is middle-class professionals who would be more likely to have a subscription to Radio Times than be a member of a far-right gang.’
I outlined what had happened the previous evening. I told her about Connie, the script, Toby’s reappearance and the shower, the bedsheet, the Spick & Span judges and finally Norman’s forty-eight-hour ultimatum. I decided not to tell Pippa that Toby had slept with Arabella at the pony club.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, taking a slurp of coffee.
I sighed. Although I’d never consciously discriminated against rabbits, read a single issue of The Actual Truth or considered myself leporiphobic in the least – I was. As a young man I’d laughed at and told anti-rabbit jokes51 and I never once challenged leporiphobic views when I heard them. And although I’d disapproved of encroaching anti-rabbit legislation I’d done nothing as their rights were slowly eroded. My words and thoughts had never progressed to positive actions. No rallies, no angry letters, no funds to RabSAg, nothing.
‘Dad?’
‘I’m still thinking.’
But even if I had made a stand, my long-term and sustained employment at the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce would have negated everything. My most pressing emotion right now was not a sense of righteous indignation, frustration at the unfairness of my situation or even a courageous sense of justice that a fight needed to be fought and won. No, what I truly felt was a sense of deep and inexcusable shame.
‘I have no idea what to do,’ I said finally. ‘What about you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘How bad do you think things might get?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Worst-case scenario: petrol through the letterbox, a broken jaw and TwoLegsGood run the Rabbits out of the village. Best-case scenario: no one in Much Hemlock talks to you or me for the next six to eight decades.’
‘That sounds quite attractive,’ she said.
‘It does, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m staying,’ said Pippa. ‘They’re not likely to attack me, are they? Even 2LG losers draw the line somewhere.’
‘That’s true,’ I said with a smile, ‘and if you’re staying, so am I.’
We fist-bumped nervously and sat in silence for a few moments. I don’t know what Pippa was thinking about but I was wondering what a broken nose felt like.
‘So,’ I said finally, ‘how was your evening?’
‘Harvey was there,’ she replied, glad too of the conversational change. ‘We went to Vegamama’s afterwards with Bobby. Had a good chat over dinner, mostly about MegaWarren. They’re all extremely suspicious of the Rehoming, and feel that this might be the last chance rabbits get to make a stand before losing any of their hard-won rights for ever. There’s talk of the Venerable Bunty issuing an edict about a refusal to be rehomed, but Harvey is worried that rabbits, naturally polite, compliant and disliking of confrontation, will not be able to refuse the order – and with Senior Group Leader Ffoxe and fifteen hundred foxes assisting with the Rehoming, restraint isn’t likely to be on anyone’s agenda, especially as foxes can use what force they wish with impunity.’
This didn’t sound at all good.
‘Are they thinking of another demonstration?’ I asked.
‘I think they’re beyond that. Harvey said that any attack on the colony permits the Grand Council to invoke Bugs Bunny Protocols – namely, that almost any behaviour is permissable once a rabbit is pushed into a corner – even violence.’
There was a pause.
‘I think Harvey and I have a chance together,’ said Pippa, looking me straight in the eye, ‘and yes, I will be careful and I do know what I’m doing.’
Despite Lord Jefferson’s celebrated proclamation of love for Sophie Rabbit, mixed-species relationships remained illegal and open to prosecution. When outed, most couples simply took up residence in the colonies. At the time of the Battle of May Hill, an estimated four thousand humans were living on-colony, eight hundred of them lopped to show thumbless allegiance to the Rabbit Way. Smethwick regarded them as ‘traitors to our species’ and ‘beneath contempt’. Rabbits regarded them as ‘welcome guests’.
‘You know what, Pip?’ I said. ‘I really hope it works out.’
Sally called to say she wasn’t going into college that day, and since I guessed Toby would not be going to work either – if ever again – I decided to take Pippa myself.
‘It was Toby,’ she said, looking at the graffito once we were outside. ‘I recognise his handwriting. I can’t imagine what I saw in him.’
We also noted that the Rabbits had not been entirely unmolested overnight: sitting on their lawn was a forty-gallon oil drum, the usual receptacle for a jugging. Although the unspeakably cruel act was mercifully rare, the very threat was usually enough to have a rabbit family packing their bags and gone within the hour. I was confident it would have little effect on Connie and Doc.
‘Good morning!’ came a voice, and Doc bounded in from the direction of the lane, presumably back from his usual five-kilometre early-morning bounce, as he was wearing a tracksuit top and a Nike sweatband around the base of his ears.
‘Good morning,’ we said.
‘Looks like 2LG have been busy,’ he said, staring at the forty-gallon drum. ‘With a lick of paint it will make a nice planter for my aspidistra.’
‘You don’t seem very worried,’ I said.
‘I’ve had death threats before,’ he said. ‘At our last place someone daubed kill dat pesky wabbit on our drive and sub-standard photocopies of rabbit pie recipes were pushed through the letterbox. The work of sad little cowards, trying in vain to staunch a losing battle with irrelevance. But you know what?’
‘What?’
‘If I was going to kill someone, I wouldn’t warn them first.’
‘Ah,’ I said, as Doc had said it in a particularly menacing fashion, and I wondered whether that was what he had planned for me.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘about last night—’
‘Water under the proverbial bridge, old chap,’ he said with a grin. ‘When one is married to a doe as dazzling as Constance, one must expect to have to fight suitors off every now and again.’
‘I’m not a suitor,’ I said hurriedly, ‘and nothing happened.’
‘And I will do all I can to ensure it stays that way,’ he replied evenly. ‘Mind you, if Connie gives you the nod and you want to challenge me to a duel I’m totally up for it. Pistols, mind – my swordsmanship is a little rusty.’
‘No challenge from me,’ I said hurriedly, ‘truly.’
‘As you wish.’
And without another word he bounced clean over my car, the garden fence, his car – and went back indoors.
Pippa and I were on the road five minutes later. It was a delightful morning, sunny and bright, but neither of us was feeling that comfortable. Worry has a way of sitting on your chest like a baby elephant. Of the forty-eight hours we’d been given, we now had thirty-seven left. It felt good that Pippa and I were going to make a stand, but I couldn’t helping thinking that however the Malletts expressed their displeasure, it would be neither pleasant nor proportional, and that our stand, with all the human privileges defaulted to us at birth, would probably not be a stand at all. We were human. Ultimately, we’d be just fine.