Sandy, Bedfordshire: More bone than skin, its body, pegged up twig by twig on the tree, had a macabre driftwood beauty, the sodden fur rippled and creased over what was left of its rib cage
Out in the fields were two dogs and five gibbets. The dogs lolloped along farm tracks, their owners in slow pursuit. The hounds stopped at each intersection for direction, rooting among the tussocky grass and spending a penny to leave a whiff for old friends. Perhaps these rough margins delineated where once there had been hedgerows: restitution of a sort was now marked by regularly spaced young trees.
As I paused at a birch sapling, I saw through the branches one of the gibbets. The rabbit's head was dark against the light grey sky. It had pocked hollows instead of eyes and raised ears, frayed like an over-loved toy. Though more bone than skin, its body, pegged up twig by twig on the tree, had a macabre driftwood beauty, the sodden fur rippled and creased over what was left of its rib cage. Four more trees along the way were inexplicably hung with rabbit corpses. I hastened on to where I knew I would see some live bunnies. The path led between a row of abandoned glasshouses, whose surviving panes were lime green with algae. In places without a glass ceiling, brambles had grown in dense bushes, sending tendrils through the skylight. At the base of one bush was a low-boughed archway under which a rabbit ran, all rump and bobbing tail.
Though I had often been here, I noticed now, for the first time, that at the far end of the glasshouse a sliding door had been left open – an invitation to cross the boundary. I was drawn to the possibility of adventure among the dereliction, just as I had been lured in my Lanarkshire boyhood into a ruined farmhouse up the brae. Years later, I could still feel the conflicting pulls of parental disapproval against the feeling that adult abandonment had given licence to youthful exploration. Here was an open door, and the chance to step through was almost irresistible.