The Death of Bunny Munro: A Novel by Nick Cave

Author:Nick Cave
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction - General, Family Life, Fiction, Literary, General, General Fiction
ISBN: 9780865479401
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

‘What’s the capital of China!?’

Bunny Junior awakes to the smell of hand cream and the retracting flutter of his mother’s fingers. His father sits beside him, panting and super-charged, his jacket off, his shirt open, his powerful pomaded hair crazy and all over the shop. White foam has collected in the corners of his mouth, his nose looks like a small, injured tomato and his eyes are energised with a wild joy.

Bunny Junior sits up and grabs at the empty air in front of his face.

‘Mummy?’ he says. ‘Mummy?’

‘Eh?’ says Bunny.

The boy rubs the sleep from his face. ‘Beijing,’ he says.

Bunny enacts a little stunt with his index fingers.

‘What’s the capital of Mongolia?’

The boy opens and closes boxes in his mind, but he is groggy with sleep and this takes time.

‘Come on! The clock’s ticking,’ says Bunny, who is now frantically combing his hair in the rear-view mirror.

‘Ulaanbaadar,’ he says, ‘formerly Urga.’

Bunny stops combing his hair and for some reason does an impersonation of Frankenstein’s monster, then mimes electricity coming out his ears and exclaims, ‘Ulaanbaa … what?!’

‘Ulaanbaadar, Dad,’ says Bunny Junior.

Bunny lets forth a great infectious laugh and slaps his thighs and lurches over, grabs his son in a headlock and knuckles the top of his skull.

‘My son, the bloody genius! You ought to be on the telly!’ shouts Bunny as he twists the key in the ignition and veers into the road. There is a blare of car horns and Bunny says, pulling at the crotch of his trousers, ‘Fuck, it’s good to be back on the road!’

‘That took a really long time, Dad,’ says the boy.

‘What?’

‘You were in there a really long time.’

Bunny turns into the Brighton Road and says, ‘Yeah, I know, but if you want to come on the road with me, the first thing you got to learn is patience. That is the first and fundamental law of salesmanship, Bunny Boy. Patience.’

Bunny guns the engine and overtakes a maroon cement truck.

‘It’s like those bloody Zulu warriors in Africa or wherever.’

‘Natal,’ says the boy.

‘What?’

‘South Africa.’

‘Yeah, fuck, whatever. The thing is – if a Zulu warrior wants to spear an antelope or a zebra or something, he doesn’t go stomping through the bush with his boots on and hope the antelope is gonna stay put. Right? He has to employ, what is known in the trade as stealth. Stealth and …’

‘Patience,’ says Bunny Junior and compresses a smile.

Bunny begins to beat on his chest a solemn tattoo with his fist and his face gathers in intensity.

‘You become one with your prey … and move quietly, stealthily, towards it and then … Wham! … you stick your spear right through its bloody heart!’

Bunny slams his hand on the dashboard for dramatic emphasis, and then he looks at the boy and says, ‘Why are you doing that loopy thing with your feet?’

‘You left your tie behind, Dad.’

Bunny’s hand rises to his throat.

‘Shit,’ he says, softly.

‘You left it back at the last house,’ says the boy.

Bunny punches his son playfully on the arm.

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