P and the Hare

by Emma Wilkins

T: On the island—

H: —they’re mad.

T: Shooting a hare is no big deal.

H: It’s nothing; it’s a great sport.

Me: Are they hard to shoot?

T: Well they’re very hard, because they’re so clever they can—

H: —zig-zag—

T: —dart at an angle, and instead of running straight, they zigzag. So P was—

H: —over the years—

T: —shooting hares since he—

H: —was a young boy—

T: —came from Australia when he was eleven. So one day, not that long ago, only about two years ago—

H: —yeah, two or three years ago—

T: —he’s out there with a friend and he hits this hare. And usually, the hare will take off, even if you hit it in the leg or somewhere, it will try and escape, and this hare stopped—didn’t move—and looked at P. P’s looking at the hare. He’s ready to shoot, normally he’d shoot again, to finish the hare off. So he said, ‘I’m standing there,’ tears running down—I’d never seen him like that, while he was telling us the story, he was crying, he was shaking he was—

H: —yes, he was—

Me: And you’ve never seen him like that?

H: Never

T: I could never imagine—you know him as well, can you imagine? So he’s standing there and the hare’s looking at him and suddenly something in his heart, something gave way, and he suddenly found, he felt this intense... annoyance, or hatred of himself for shooting the hare, this innocent hare, and he picks the hare up. And he’s with a friend. They get in the car and they take the hare to a vet. He’s sobbing, I mean, I can’t believe how he—

H: —how affected he was.

T: And A said, ‘You’ve started him off’. So he immediately rounded up all his guns and sold them and gave them away. He hasn’t got a gun. He had three or four guns in Greece, down in Kythera—

H: You didn’t finish the story. He took it to the vet—

T: —and they said they tied him up, put on bandages and took him home.

H: He looked after the hare, and the hare was ready to be released, and somehow it got caught in the cage and it hung itself.

T: It somehow got caught in the cage in the wiring, and you know, as he said, a hundred to one—

H: —before he set it free—

T: Yes—I didn’t hear cage...

H: Well, wherever he had it, somehow, in an enclosed area—

T: And A said it took him weeks, once the hare died finally, it took him weeks to get over it.

H: I think he buried it, yes, gave it a name—

T: Did it have a name?

H: Probably did.

T: Did he give it a name? No!

H: I’m nearly sure he did.

T: Next time you see P, because you’ll see—

Me: I don’t want to make him cry!

T: But you test what I’m saying. Say, ‘P, T told me about this hare that you shot, what’s the story?’ And he’ll start. The tears will run.

H: No, it wasn’t funny, he really, really... isn’t it amazing? You know P, and here he is being so moved with this hare. All his life it’s been a great sport to shoot the hares.

T: As he said: if that hare had tried to move, he would have shot it, and the story would have been over, but he said, ‘the way that hare looked at me and made me feel...’. It’s a good story.