Memory of Foxes
"The one about the boy who grew up."
It was a biting evening in October when my father suggested we go for a walk. I was only six, and as such in not the best position to form a convincing argument against this plan. So I allowed myself to be bundled up into my winter things then led, crunching and crackling, out through the golden drifts of paper-dry leaves. We walked as far down the lane as my stubby legs would take me, then my father lifted me up onto the top of a stile to watch a trio of fox cubs playing in a field.
They were tumbling over each other, snapping and snarling in their infant voices, rehearsing future conquests and defeats from the safety of childhood innocence. Their peculiar antics held my young gaze captive. So much so that I didn’t see the vixen until the cubs left off their game to flock around her, licking the corners of her mouth expectantly. I’ve seen foxes many times since then; mangy, rat-tailed things, all scummy brown. But in my memory of that autumn evening she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Burning, blazing orange with a white tipped tail, as if dipped in paint, and a black nose like damp tar.
“You see that?” said my father. “Isn’t she lovely?”
I nodded, certain that there was a stronger word than “lovely” to describe such a miraculous animal, but unsure what it might be.
“That’s a sight you won’t find in the city,” said my father, both rightly and wrongly at the same time.
I sniffed in the cold. “I don’t want to go.”
“Come now,” said my father. “You’ve got to be a big boy. A big grown-up boy. Besides…” He cupped my face between his gnarled, bony hands. “You’ll always have the memory of this. And I promise you, it’ll seem more perfect in memory than it ever was in real life.”
Then he lifted me down and took me home. The next day the removal trucks arrived to carry us to the new house. But my father wasn’t there to help the grumbling removal men to load up. He’d vanished in the night, leaving behind a crumpled shirt, a half-finished bottle of after-shave, and a memory of foxes.
It was a warm evening in June when she asked me to dance. I was sixteen, basking in post-exam relief and charged with hormonal messages that were only telling me one thing: this vibrant creature in front of me was something to get excited about.
“Well?” she said, tossing back her blaze of ginger locks.
I shrugged, using the detachment of the gesture to mask my thumping heart. “Sure.”
So we danced, bumping awkwardly against each other as we settled into contradictory rhythms. We must have made a laughable picture, two teenagers playing at romance. But in my memory, every move her rolling body made was sensuous enough to trap the breath in my throat. She’d already abandoned her tottering shoes, leaving her bare feet to caress the polished floor of the hired-hall, soft and silent as velvet pads.
Unsure of the ground rules, I gently rested my hands on her waist, feeling the flesh twist as she danced. I had inherited my father’s angles, making me feel like a scarecrow against her curves. So, scarecrow and Venus, we danced until the music was turned off and the lights on.
“Alright you ‘orrible lot,” called out one of the teachers, his smile betraying the jest. “That’s your leaver’s ball. Get off home and good luck with your results.”
On the way out, I asked her which college she was going to next year. It wasn’t the same as mine.
It was a stormy evening in February when I learned I’d lost my job. I’d turned twenty-six that day, an event that prompted the first round of beers, which in turn coaxed on the second. Staring into the bottom of my third pint, I let the meticulous receptionist at the end of the phone reel out her lines before thanking her kindly and hanging up.
“Hey. Hey, mate? You alright?”
I downed the last of my beer before answering. “I’m fine. Just need another drink.”
I replaced the mobile phone in my pocket and headed for the bar. Leaning on the pitted, polished surface, I twisted the gold band around my finger. It seemed at once a million years and no time at all since I’d first put it on. I was rehearsing conversations when I felt someone brush against me.
“Single whiskey, no ice,” said a bold, female voice.
“Double it for a pound?” drawled the barman.
“Single,” was the curt reply.
I looked around, half-knowing what I would find. The hazel eyes met mine for a second before refocusing to accept the drink.
“Cheers,” she said to the barman. “You getting anything?”
I shook myself out of my memories. The question had been directed at me. I hesitated a moment before nodding to the barman.
“Same again, please.”
“Single?”
“Single.”
We stared at each other over our drinks. Me, still angled and awkward as in my youth. Her, sensuous and seductive as my memory, the girl’s bluster replaced with a women’s certainty.
“You look good,” I said at last.
“You look the same,” she replied.
I decided not to ask whether she meant the same as I’d said, or the same as last she saw me. Her eyes moved to my ring, and I forcibly crushed the desire to cover it.
“I just lost my job,” I said, by way of making conversation. Anything to stretch out the moment.
She shook her head. “That wasn’t your job.” She drained her glass, setting it down on the bar with a sharp knock of finality. “I have to go.”
She made to walk past me, but I caught her arm. “Wait…”
Her hazel eyes flared. All at once she seemed coiled, taught as the spring in a mousetrap.
“Wait,” I said again, more gently.
Cautiously, I drew her towards me. It might have been the whiskey, but my face felt hot, as if looking into a fire. My breath disturbed her hair, making the fibres shudder.
“Not yet,” she said.
Then she twisted from my grip and was gone, leaving me to finish the contents of my glass alone, a clammy sweat about my neck.
It was a cool evening in late September when my wife sat me down at the kitchen table. I was thirty-six and tired from a long day at a dreary job, so I complied meekly.
“Who is she?”
I looked up at the women I’d married. She had her arms folded. “Who?”
“You know who.”
I looked down at my hands against the table. My father’s hands. “Darling, I swear, I’ve never been unfaithful to you. Never.”
She sniffed. “You have in your head. Don’t…” she cut across my protests. “Don’t try to lie to me. I know you. I know what that look in your eyes means. Once, I thought that look was for me.”
Like a robber caught inside a bank vault, there didn’t seem to be much I could say. Instead I looked away, towards the closed door. “Can I say goodbye to him?”
She nodded curtly. “Take him for a walk if you like.”
My son was loath to abandon his trucks, but cheered up at the prospect of an adventure. We walked down the street, me holding his little hand tight, as I let my feet guide us towards the park.
“Daddy,” the little boy said after a few minutes. “I'm tired.”
“Just a little…” I said, then stopped. Through the railings danced and tumbled a familiar sight. I lifted my son to sit on top of the metal gate. Holding him steady, we watched the fox cubs play. His young eyes remained routed to their games, but mine kept twitching towards the corners of the field.
It must have been only a few minutes, though it felt like an eternity, before she appeared. Soft, sleek and beautiful as her mother had been, flowing gracefully over the golden leaves of autumn to greet her cubs. Not a scraggly brown fox of an adult’s jaded world. But a blazing, burning, white-tipped fox of memory.
The vixen nuzzled amongst her young, then raise her head to stare at us, father and son watching from the fence.
“Isn’t she lovely?” I said, squeezing the boy.
He nodded mutely.
“Now, I want you to remember this,” I told him. “It’ll be a while before you see another fox like that.”
My son looked up at me, a solemn expression on his cherub’s face. “Things are going to change, aren’t they?”
Lifting him down from the gate, I held him tightly. “Things always do.”
Then we walked back home and I tucked him into bed. My suitcase was already packed and resting on the kitchen table. I took it with me for courtesy’s sake, depositing it in the neighbour's skip. The park was quiet and bathed in moonlight when I returned. Quiet without the cubs, but not quite empty.
“I thought maybe you weren’t coming,” she said pointedly.
I stepped delicately through the leaves towards her. “Have I ever not come?”
She didn’t answer, just looked me up and down. My work shirt was crumpled and patched with sweat from the day. It hung loose around me, like a skin ready for shedding. I dutifully took it off, breaking buttons not through haste but simply lack of affection for the garment. The vest underneath was already starting to itch when I got to it. The fabric caught on something as I tried to lift it over my head. A bark of laughter escaped the woman’s lips.
“Why do you never remember that? Here…”
I lowered my arms, myself laughing as she disentangled me. The task finished, I allowed my hands to run up through the bone-like branches that extended above my head.
“They feel heavier this time,”
I commented.
She shrugged. “You always say that. Shall we go? My Lord?”
The words were mocking, so the smile I returned her was equally so.
“My Lady…” I bowed low, careful not to knock her with my antlers. “You do me a great honour.”
The vixen snorted. “Oh, just come on.”
Then she was off, running on all fours through the decaying leaves, an orange flame amongst the riches of autumn. I chuckled to myself as I followed her, the sound merging and melding into a deep bellow, a rumbling bass-line to the staccato hammering of cloven feet.