The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes (8 page)

‘Just need to clear me head, Mrs H,’ Johnny said.

‘Well, put on coats and, Rabbit, gloves, hat and a scarf. I don’t need you coming down with something this week.’

Rabbit and Johnny left together, Rabbit looking like the Michelin Man, but even with Jack’s big old heavy funeral coat on over his ripped jeans, loose shirt and purple velvet jacket, with a tea-cosy hat, Johnny still looked like a rock star.

They walked around the corner and his silence made Rabbit nervous. She wanted him to talk or maybe he wanted her to talk but she didn’t know what to say.
Say something cool. Say something cool. Say something cool.

‘What?’ He’d read her mind.

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re pissed off you’re not coming tonight,’ he said.

‘Oh, yeah. I am.’

He grinned. He grabbed her hand walking across the road, letting it go as soon as they hit the other side.

They walked up the steps of the church and Rabbit followed Johnny inside. It was empty and dark, save for a few red candles glowing in the corner.

‘It’s weird in here,’ Rabbit whispered.

‘But kinda cool, don’t you think?’

‘No,’ she said, and he smiled at her.

‘You are the only person aside from my own family who disagrees with me.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Everyone disagrees with me,’ Rabbit said.

They sat down side by side.

‘What are we doing here?’ Rabbit wondered.

‘I always come here before a show.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s where I find peace.’

‘Oh.’

‘What about you, Rabbit, where do you find peace?’

‘I’ve never really looked for it,’ she said.

He lit a candle, knelt and prayed. Rabbit sat and waited while he mumbled to himself and drew crosses on his chest with his right hand. She felt awkward, embarrassed even, and she wasn’t sure why, but she really wanted to get out of the place. As she descended the steps, she braced herself for him to hold her hand to cross the road. When he took it, she looked up at him and grinned widely. ‘You’ll be amazing tonight,’ she said.

‘We’ll see.’

‘I don’t have to see,’ she said. ‘Ma said you were born for this and my ma knows things.’

‘Yeah, she does.’

They turned the corner and saw the lads piling the gear into the back of Uncle Terry’s van. Johnny arrived just in time for Francie to point out that he was a lazy wanker, always arriving just after all the work was done.

‘That’s singers for ya,’ Jay said. ‘Pox bottles the lot of them.’

Johnny didn’t care. He just jumped into the back of the van and the lads bundled in after him. Uncle Terry climbed into the front seat. Davey was last in, running out of the house shouting, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ Johnny beat the side of the van with his hand as Jack shut the doors and Uncle Terry took off down the road.

Grace and Emily were already in Jack’s car, giggling and talking excitedly. Jack looked at his youngest daughter. ‘Your day will come, Rabbit, and way sooner than you think.’

‘Not sooner,’ she said. ‘Sooner would be yesterday.’

‘We’ll have a party on the night it’s shown on the telly,’ Jack promised.

‘Yeah?’ Rabbit jumped up and down. ‘Can Marjorie come?’

‘Of course she can.’

‘Thanks, Da.’

‘Who loves ya?’ Jack said.

‘Me da does,’ she replied, and hugged him.
And I love Johnny Faye
.

Jack arrived alone. He met Fiona in Reception and she pointed him in his daughter’s direction, although she did mention politely that Rabbit already had a lot of people with her.

Michelle was passing at the time. ‘Jack Hayes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good to see you. I’m Michelle. Why don’t you follow me?’ she said, then turned to Fiona. ‘I’ll take it from here.’ Fiona nodded and Jack went with Michelle down the hallway.

‘She’s doing well. She’ll be happy to see you.’

Jack remained silent. Michelle opened the door, revealing Rabbit, Juliet, Grace, Davey and Molly.

‘Hi, Da,’ Rabbit said, smiling.

He could see that she was anxious he might cry in front of Juliet so the ‘hi’ sounded extra-buoyant and her eyes pleaded with him to stay strong. He read his daughter’s mind and body language.
I’m not going to cry, Rabbit. I promise. I’ll be stronger for you. I won’t let you down. Not today.
‘Hi, yourself,’ he said, matching her tone.

‘Grace, Davey, Molly, could I see you for a minute?’ Michelle said, and suddenly they were gone, leaving Rabbit with her dad and her daughter.

Jack sat on the sofa and picked up Davey’s newspaper. ‘Depressing,’ he said. ‘If it’s not about the shite we’re in, it’s about that bloody politician’s death. I’ve seen more programming about that woman in the past two days than I saw through her entire time in government. Hated her back then but in the end . . .’ He trailed off, realizing he’d stumbled on a difficult topic.

‘Who was she?’ Juliet asked.

‘She was a very important figure when we were growing up,’ Rabbit said.

‘It was all doom and gloom back then,’ Jack said.

‘Kinda like now,’ Juliet said.

‘Exactly, Bunny,’ Jack agreed.

‘Ma.’

‘Yes, love?’

‘When you’re better, let’s go away,’ Juliet said.

Jack’s eyes widened and bulged.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Rabbit asked.

‘Let’s go to Clare.’

‘Back to that little cottage by the sea, the one we went to when you were eight?’ Rabbit said.

‘We could go when I finish school in June,’ Juliet said.

‘You spent all day every day in the sea. I had eye strain from watching the water.’ Rabbit chuckled. ‘What was the name of that boy you played with?’

‘Bob.’

‘Poor Bob followed Juliet wherever she went,’ Rabbit explained to Jack. ‘He loved her.’

‘Ma!’ Juliet said, feigning embarrassment, then breaking into a smile. ‘He spent that whole summer standing in the water with his teeth chattering and asking can we go in yet.’

‘He was sweet,’ Rabbit said.

‘He’s a really good golfer now,’ Juliet said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Facebook.’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’

‘So? Can we go back?’ Juliet asked.

‘We’ll see.’ Rabbit took her daughter’s hand, squeezed it, then put it to her lips and kissed it.

Jack stood and made an excuse about needing water. His body and mind were colluding: tears were brewing and threatening to spill. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to will them away. He knew if he cried in front of his daughter his wife would find out and kick him. He couldn’t stay. He had to go. He needed to do something.
Oh, Rabbit, if only
. . . ‘Anybody want anything?’ he asked.

Juliet looked into her mother’s eyes and brushed her eyebrows with a finger.

‘It will be no time before school ends,’ Juliet said, ‘and then we’ll be free to do what we want.’

Rabbit nodded. Jack saw that she was fighting the urge to sleep.

‘It’s OK, Ma,’ Juliet said. ‘Go back to sleep – it’s getting late anyway.’

Rabbit’s eyes rolled back and she was gone before Juliet said, ‘I love you.’

Jack practically ran out of the room. He felt awful about making an excuse to leave his granddaughter alone with her mother. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Of everyone bar Molly, she was the most comfortable around Rabbit. He walked down the hospice corridor and, instead of finding Davey, Molly and Grace, he turned right into the prayer room. Molly was still so angry with him and he with her, and the kids were going through enough without their parents picking at one another. He knew it was unreasonable to blame Molly for Rabbit’s condition, but he couldn’t help himself. He relied on her to sort things out – he always had. They’d had a silent pact since the day they married. He’d provide for them and she’d protect them. She was a shit-kicker, his missus, and it was one of the things he loved and honoured most about her. He could be a gentleman because his wife was no lady and it had worked for them for more than forty years; but now, when he needed her to take them over the top, she was laying down her arms.
Why, Molly, why?
Jack was angry with her for conceding defeat, with himself for being weak and, worse, with Rabbit for threatening to leave them.

Jack had boxed as a young man but he hadn’t hit anyone in forty-one years and never outside a ring. He wanted to box something or someone. He wanted to kick, punch and pummel, and he wanted to be kicked, punched and pummelled. He yearned for black eyes and swollen lips, cracked ribs and burst knuckles. That kind of pain he could tolerate, but not the gnawing heartache that manifested as a constant, dull, crushing pain, which threatened to take his breath away but never quite did.
This must be what it feels like to drown
.

He looked around the room, at the blue, yellow and red stained glass, at the painting of Jesus on the cross, at the table, covered with a white linen cloth, that served as the altar and at the heavy iron cross that stood on it. The room was painted cream and the lights were set to dim. He was sitting on one of twenty wooden chairs. He’d been to many prayer rooms in his day, mostly with Johnny. It was impossible to sit there without being transported back in time.

The room he remembered best was bigger and filled with statues. Johnny liked to call them by name and he’d talk to them as though they were old friends; sometimes when he was angry he treated them more like enemies. Johnny once told the statue of Padre Pio to go fuck himself, and Jack still blushed at the boy’s suggestion for the Virgin Mary. Now he couldn’t enter a prayer room or pass a church without thinking of Johnny.
God is good, Jack
, he’d said time and time again.
The poor deluded bastard
, Jack often thought, but he kept his reservations to himself. He had often listened to that boy talk about God and the next life, but he wasn’t sure if he’d believed in God even back then, and he was definitely sure he didn’t believe in God now.
Rabbit was right
. The kid was always suspicious of the religion she was born into. When she was five, she’d told her teacher that she didn’t like the God in the Old Testament because He was really mean, and the New Testament was horrible because it made her cry. Why would a father send his son to earth to be killed in such a disgusting way? How does that save anyone? she’d ask, stumping her teacher. When she was a teenager she’d bought a red clay Buddha in a charity shop, and when her mother asked her why she wanted it, she told her she preferred to look at a fat god laughing rather than a skinny one dying. Rabbit never needed to believe in any god to marvel at the world, to feel joy, hope, love and contentment. Rabbit lived in the moment. She didn’t know what came next, nor did she care. It was likely that death meant a full stop and that didn’t scare her. In fact, when she thought about it, the notion of eternity was far more worrying.

‘I get bored if I have to spend longer than an hour at the hairdresser’s,’ she’d said to him once. ‘No way could I do eternity – even the word gives me chills, Da.’

For Rabbit, a full stop was her reward. Jack wondered if she still felt the same. He wondered if she would find God in these her darkest hours. Would she pray for a Heaven? She had lied to her daughter: Rabbit was a lot of things but she was never a liar. Much like her mammy, she’d shoot from the hip, tell it like it was, no matter how much trouble it got her into. It was probably what made her a good journalist, but she also had a habit of alienating those who preferred a pleasant lie to an uncomfortable truth. He was scared she couldn’t accept what was happening, or maybe she just didn’t know. If she was still in the acute hospital surely there would be some hope, but here, in a hospice, well, people only came to these places to die.
Molly should have fought the consultant. People listen to Molly. They do what she tells them to do. It’s all so wrong. And Rabbit, my little Rabbit, hasn’t she suffered enough in this lifetime?
Although the logical, rational Jack didn’t believe in God, his indoctrination over the course of his life, and most especially during his early years, meant that he often found himself talking to the God he didn’t believe existed.
How could you? Why would you do this to her? I don’t want to believe in a God like you. I’d rather she’s right and there is no afterlife than an eternity spent honouring a psychopath like you.

‘There! I said it,’ he shouted to the painting on the wall. ‘If you do exist I hate you.’

‘I doubt you’re alone there,’ a woman said. She was sitting two rows behind him.

Jack turned and blushed. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought I was alone.’

‘You were lost in thought so I didn’t want to bother you.’ She got up and walked over to him, sat down beside him and put out her hand. ‘I’m Rita Brown, the medical social worker assigned to Rabbit and her family. I saw you coming from her room.’

‘Jack Hayes, Rabbit’s father.’

‘Would you like to talk, Jack?’ she asked.

‘There’s nothing to say.’

‘That’s not true.’

He looked at the woman and shook his head. ‘I’m lost.’

‘And Molly?’

‘She’s given up on our girl . . .’

‘But you haven’t?’

‘. . . and Molly never gives up on anything.’ His eyes stung.

‘Have you talked?’

‘She threatened to stab me this morning. Does that count?’

‘Your daughter is looking for you,’ Molly’s voice said.

Rita and Jack turned to her. Her face of thunder suggested she’d heard at least part of their conversation.

‘Please come in and sit down for a moment,’ Rita said.

‘No.’

‘Molly, please, I’m sorry,’ Jack said.

‘No, you’re not. You think I’ve brought her here to die.’

‘Haven’t you?’ He got to his feet.

She walked up to him. ‘Of course not, you old fool. I’m buying us some time.’

‘For what?’ He was battling tears.

‘For science, for medicine, for a miracle, but in the meantime she’s in pain, Jack, and they can manage it much better here.’

‘Our Rabbit is dying, Molls,’ Jack said. His jaw trembled and his eyes leaked.

‘I won’t let her,’ Molly said, and her tears flowed freely. They walked into each other’s arms and held on tight.