There are three hares in my bedroom when I wake up on Wednesday. Long-legged and soft-furred, they hop about agitatedly. One of them has made a nest out of yesterday’s sweater and four brightly-coloured eggs lie snuggled up inside. I take care not to step on them as I get dressed.
Work is boring, as usual. Maggie complains that all the office stationery has turned blank overnight and someone has eaten all the chocolate biscuits. On the way home I pick up a cabbage and some carrots. I know, really, that’s not what they want, but some clichés die hard. I can always put them in a curry or something.
There are seven hares now, and another nest—this one on the sofa, which is a pain as it means I have to drag the armchair round to watch TV. The hares seem to like The X Factor, but run out of the room when All Star Family Fortunes comes on. I’m a bit worried about the eggs—there are just two of them in the new nest, both a deep blood red—so I cover them with a cushion to keep the warmth in. Eventually one of the hares hops back. She (or is it a he?) looks at the cushion, nose twitching, and when I pull it off the eggs, hops onto them carefully. I wonder if they’ll hatch tonight.
The eggshells in the bedroom are looking so pretty I can’t bear to throw them away. I put them carefully in a shoebox instead. Before I go to bed, I scatter towels and blankets over the floor for the hares to nest in, but three of them still snuggle up beside me. I shouldn’t let them, really—it’s so easy to get attached.
When I wake up, sure enough, the eggs on the sofa have hatched, and there are another three clutches dotted around the flat. I’m late for work, what with feeding all my little guests. They turn their twitching little noses up at the cabbage and the token carrot, but they nibble on the toast I make them like it’s the best thing since chocolate.
By Good Friday, the flat is so full I can hardly move, and I think again about getting a bigger place—but really, it’s only one week a year, so I just watch my step all the time and shift them off the furniture when I want to sit down, and in the evening I call Jude to come round next day. I used to do it all myself, the traditional way, but it takes so much time, and your hands get so tired wringing all those little necks. Knives are far too messy. So these days I just get Jude round.
He turns up early, when I’m still in my dressing gown, but I don’t mind. I make him a coffee and he puts his special feed down, and then we just have to wait. “Don’t s’pose you could call me before it gets this bad next time, Es?” he says, just like always, and I just smile, because he knows my answer to that.
And after we’ve bagged up all the little bodies and loaded them into his van and tidied up the nests and the eggshells, Jude holds me while I have a good cry and we share a bottle of wine and a curry made with far too many carrots.
Then he goes home to his wife and kids, and I turn off all the lights and let the moon and the streetlamps shine through the windows, and that’s when they all come out from wherever they were hiding, fur glowing and translucent bodies flickering like little candles. I send them all out to do what they were born for and watch them leap through the air, passing through the windowpanes and walls as if they’re not really there, and I don’t cry any more, even though the flat’s so empty now, because I think of all the children they’re bringing joy to.
Instead I smile as I watch them go, even though there’s a twist of envy in my heart. One day, I think.
One day I’ll join them.