Nick Cave - The Death of Bunny Munro

NICK CAVE

FABER AND FABER, INC.
AN AFFILIATE OF FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX NEW YORK

FABER AND FABER, INC.

An affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright 2009 by Nick Cave

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Originally published in 2009 by the Text Publishing Company, Australia

Published in the United States by Faber and Faber, Inc.

First American edition, 2009

Portions of this book originally appeared in Vice and Tin House.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following material: Lyrics from Spinning Around, words and music by Abdul/Bingham/DioGuardi/Shickman, copyright 2000, reproduced by permission of Warner Chappell Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing Ltd, Bug Music, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Lyrics from Bohemian Rhapsody, words and music by Freddie Mercury, copyright 1975, reproduced by permission of Queen Music Ltd, London W 8 5 SW .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cave, Nick, 1957

The death of Bunny Munro / Nick Cave. 1st American ed.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-0-86547-910-4 (hardcover : alk. paper.)

1. Sales personnelFiction. 2.WivesDeathFiction. 3. BereavementFiction. 4. Domestic fiction. 5. Road fiction. I.Title.

PR9619.3.C4 D43 2009

823'.914dc22

2009025424

www.fsgbooks.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

For Susie

I am damned, thinks Bunny Munro in a sudden moment of self-awareness reserved for those who are soon to die. He feels that somewhere down the line he has made a grave mistake, but this realisation passes in a dreadful heartbeat, and is gone leaving him in a room at the Grenville Hotel, in his underwear, with nothing but himself and his appetites. He closes his eyes and pictures a random vagina, then sits on the edge of the hotel bed and, in slow motion, leans back against the quilted headboard. He clamps the mobile phone under his chin and with his teeth breaks the seal on a miniature bottle of brandy. He empties the bottle down his throat, lobs it across the room, then shudders and gags and says into the phone, Dont worry, love, everythings going to be all right.

Im scared, Bunny, says his wife, Libby.

What are you scared of? You got nothing to be scared of.

Everything, Im scared of everything, she says.

But Bunny realises that something has changed in his wifes voice, the soft cellos have gone and a high, rasping violin has been added, played by an escaped ape or something. He registers it but has yet to understand exactly what this means.

Dont talk like that. You know that gets you nowhere, says Bunny, and like an act of love he sucks deep on a Lambert & Butler. It is in that instant that it hits him the baboon on the violin, the inconsolable downward spiral of her drift and he says, Fuck! and blows two furious tusks of smoke from his nostrils.

Are you off your Tegretol? Libby, tell me youve been taking your Tegretol!

There is silence on the other end of the line, then a broken, faraway sob.

Your father called again. I dont know what to say to him. I dont know what he wants. He shouts at me. He raves, she says.

For Christs sake, Libby, you know what the doctor said. If you dont take your Tegretol, you get depressed. As you well know, its dangerous for you to get depressed. How many fucking times do we have to go through this?

The sob doubles on itself, then doubles again, till it becomes gentle, wretched crying and it reminds Bunny of their first night together Libby lying in his arms, in the throes of some inexplicable crying jag, in a down-at-heel hotel room in Eastbourne. He remembers her looking up at him and saying, Im sorry, I get a little emotional sometimes, or something like that, and Bunny pushes the heel of his hand into his crotch and squeezes, releasing a pulse of pleasure into his lower spine.

Just take the fucking Tegretol, he says, softening.

Im scared, Bun. Theres this guy running around attacking women.

What guy?

He paints his face red and wears plastic devils horns.

What?

Up north. Its on the telly.

Bunny picks up the remote off the bedside table and with a series of parries and ripostes turns on the television set that sits on top of the mini-bar. With the mute button on, he moves through the channels till he finds some black-and-white CCTV footage taken at a shopping mall in Newcastle. A man, bare-chested and wearing tracksuit bottoms, weaves through a crowd of terrified shoppers. His mouth is open in a soundless scream. He appears to be wearing devils horns and waves what looks like a big black stick.

Bunny curses under his breath and in that moment all energy, sexual or otherwise, deserts him. He thrusts the remote at the TV and in a fizz of static it goes out and Bunny lets his head loll back. He focuses on a water stain on the ceiling shaped like a small bell or a womans breast.

Somewhere in the outer reaches of his consciousness he becomes aware of a manic twittering sound, a tinnitus of enraged protest, electronic sounding and horrible, but Bunny does not recognise this, rather he hears his wife say, Bunny? Are you there?

Libby. Where are you?

In bed.

Bunny looks at his watch, trombones his hand, but cannot focus.

For Christs sake. Where is Bunny Junior?

In his room, I guess.

Look, Libby, if my dad calls again...

He carries a trident, says his wife.

What?

A garden fork.

What? Who?

The guy, up north.

Bunny realises then that the screaming, cheeping sound is coming from outside. He hears it now above the bombination of the air conditioner and it is sufficiently apocalyptic to almost arouse his curiosity. But not quite.

The watermark on the ceiling is growing, changing shape a bigger breast, a buttock, a sexy female knee and a droplet forms, elongates and trembles, detaches itself from the ceiling, freefalls and explodes on Bunnys chest. Bunny pats at it as if he were in a dream and says, Libby, baby, where do we live?

Brighton.

And where is Brighton? he says, running a finger along the row of miniature bottles of liquor arranged on the bedside table and choosing a Smirnoff.

Down south.

Which is about as far away from up north as you can get without falling into the bloody sea. Now, sweetie, turn off the TV, take your Tegretol, take a sleeping tablet shit, take two sleeping tablets and Ill be back tomorrow. Early.

The pier is burning down, says Libby.

What?

The West Pier, its burning down. I can smell the smoke from here.

The West Pier?

Bunny empties the tiny bottle of vodka down his throat, lights another cigarette and rises from the bed. The room heaves as Bunny is hit by the realisation that he is very drunk. With arms held out to the side and on tiptoe, Bunny moonwalks across the room to the window. He lurches, stumbles and Tarzans the faded chintz curtains until he finds his balance and steadies himself. He draws them open extravagantly and vulcanised daylight and the screaming of birds deranges the room. Bunnys pupils contract painfully as he grimaces through the window, into the light. He sees a dark cloud of starlings, twittering madly over the flaming, smoking hulk of the West Pier which stands, helpless, in the sea across from the hotel. He wonders why he hadnt seen this before and then wonders how long he has been in this room, then remembers his wife and hears her say, Bunny, are you there?