Black Rabbit Hall Read Online Free Page A

trikes.
    Momma likes to keep things ‘simple’ at Black RabbitHall: we don’t have proper staff, just Peggy, who lives in, cooks when we’re at the house, Annie, a distracted girl from the village who pretends to do the cleaning – Peggy dismissed her for laziness two summers ago, but she carried on turning up for work anyway – a loyal troupe of aged carpenters, one with a glass eye he’ll tap with his screwdriver if you ask nicely, and even older gardeners, who have worked here on and off all their lives, stink of horse manure and look as if each gasping plunge of the spade might be their last. No nanny. Not when we’re in Cornwall. None of my friends can believe it. But Momma didn’t want us to be brought up by staff, like Daddy was, like Grandpa was, and all the other dead people hanging off the gallows of the family tree, hidden third drawer down in Daddy’s desk.
    You never know what you’ll find stuffed in the drawers here: ration books, gas masks, a loaded pistol, a sheaf of golden curls from a dead baby, who, Daddy says, would have been our great aunt had she lived. Oh, yes, and Princess Margaret’s glove. That’s about as exciting as it gets.
    We can only dream of a television set. Even the ancient wireless sparks when you plug it into the wall. It barely catches a signal, just a ragged stream of crackles, or broken messages picked up from local fishing boats about wind speeds and mackerel hauls. The pipes clank and groan all night, and if someone fills one of the big iron baths, it sounds like the earth itself is heaving open. There are constant power cuts – a brilliant flash, then mothy darkness – and we must make do with oil lamps from the storeroom until someone can fix it, which can take days, so the ceilings are all smudged with lamp smoke.
    ‘It’s like the twentieth century never started!’ Momma laughs, as if this is the best thing ever, rather than the thing that puts me off inviting any of my friends to stay. Or maybe I just use that as an excuse. The truth is, I like it when it’s just us down here. We don’t really need anyone else.
    I drag the Bottom Biter, the world’s most uncomfortable cane chair that Great-Grandpa brought back from Bombay and can therefore never be replaced – when I’m married I’m going to buy new furniture from a department store – across the terrace. Not too far from Toby. Despite all the acres, Toby and I always seem to end up within five feet of each other here.
    I’m now in prime position to watch the lightning tinselling the top of the woods. But the storm is indecisive. As if it can’t quite summon the energy to break.
    Toby sits on the stone balustrade in the stormy lemon sunshine, idly kicking his legs. The cat dozes beside him, tabby tail twitching against the tiny blue flowers that have seeded in the mortar. Daddy strides off to investigate the pterodactyl – according to Barney – nesting in the chimney. Momma is trying to brush Kitty’s hair. Kitty squirms and protests as she always does, clings tight to the grubby scrap of cloth that is her beloved one-eyed Raggedy Doll. Barney puts his murky jam-jar of tadpoles on the ground and starts to kick a ball against the wall, his strawberry curls bouncing. The whack of rubber on dry stone sounds like every sunny spring day we’ve ever spent here.
    That’s the thing. I know this exact scene – me on the cane chair, Toby kicking his legs on the wall, looking at me, looking away, Momma brushing Kitty’s hair, the smell oflaundry and seaweed, me yearning for something, possibly a ginger biscuit – will repeat itself another day, as this day is a repeat of those that have come before it in other holidays. Nothing changes that much. Time goes syrupy slow. The family joke is that a Black Rabbit hour lasts twice as long as a London one, but you don’t get a quarter of the things done. The other thing about Black Rabbit Hall is that when you’re here it feels like you’ve been here for