Her nose wrinkles as she sniffs first, before sliding out, her body flat to the frozen ground. In summer, when she was littlemore than a cub, she let me feed her from my hand. But now, as a winter adult, she is wary and withdrawn. I tell myself this is what happens with wild things, but the feeling of being abandoned by her still stings. Delicately, she takes a piece of turkey from the bowl with her neat, sharp teeth. She looks thinner today, though still beautiful: a flash of bright copper in this forgotten courtyard.
‘There’s a letter,’ I tell her.
One of her ears twitches. Perhaps this is the day she’ll reply to me. She’ll tell me to treat you with the same disdain she’d treat a male fox, with angry calls and bites. She’ll tell me to ignore you. I shift my weight from one ankle to the other as I consider her.
‘It’s not that simple,’ I say.
She curls her lip, flinching from my words, then crunches the last cat biscuit and goes back under the shed. I long to touch her—to feel warmth and softness in this freezing air, to have flames at my fingertips—but I won’t dare. Now she’s all grown, I’m not sure she’ll ever let me touch her again. I grab a discarded bit of roast potato and throw it in her direction, but she stays hidden. I pick up the bowl, go back inside and stand motionless in the kitchen for what feels like forever. Nick messages again and I ignore it.
Finally, I head to the mini mart. Milk, coffee, bread, tinned tuna, whisky, Hobnobs and cat biscuits: my standard haul for a few days. Eddie waves a hand above his wife’s samosas, as he does every time, but I shake my head. They say people who eat less live longer. Do I want to live longer?
On a bench in East Park, shopping bag on my lap, I look for the park pack, inspecting the huge laurel hedge behindthe swings where I know their den is. There are starlings and pigeons and even a small mouse, but no foxes. I leave cat biscuits anyway; it’s too cold for hunting.
You’re still creeping in, I feel you there, at the edges of me. It would be so easy to let you take over. I should have stayed at Mum’s another day, should’ve met Nick or Anna in the city instead of coming home. I shut my eyes and concentrate on sirens a few streets away, on a man shouting down his mobile phone, on cars on the high street. You told me once how the land is waiting, underneath and around the city, always ready to return. I imagine the earth under the flashing lights and throbbing pavements. I remember. Even in Barkingside, even now.
I read Nick’s last message.
We could have dinner tomorrow, not just a drink. My treat x
Why does he try so hard? I don’t deserve him. Here is a nice boy doing all the nice things. I flick through more messages from Anna and Neri, and other half-forgotten friends from a lifetime ago, all wanting me to bemerryand to have ahappy new year.I still can’t answer any of them. Today, I can’t lie.
Back in the flat, I sit on the couch. No more text messages, no knocks on the door, nothing on TV but smiles and sparkle. I am a statue, still as desert rocks. I am all alone.
I look across at the letter.
Not yet.
I can’t do it yet.
So I take the whisky bottle and make myself forget.
In my dreams of your release, you’re older, of course, and thinner, but there is still the same shine in your eyes, blue as the desert sky, the same shirt, and the scar.
Outside the grey, high wall, you go still, like one of my foxes. You stand smelling the air, watching the birds, checking that the world is as you left it. Your fingers twitch as if they want to hold something. Someone.
You are the same.
You areexactlythe same.
I wind down my car window and hang my head out like a dog, panting and eager, but you don’t see me. Not yet. There is a knife on my thigh, and the steel catches the light, makes me blink. I could blind you with it. Someone has given you shoes, new and gleaming; like you are now.
When you finally walk, you move fast. I shove the car door open, no time to close it behind me if I’m going to catch you. You don’t look back, although you must hear the slap of my shoes on the tarmac. Maybe you want it, this release I’m about to give you. This pain.
But when I reach you, I stop. I don’t stab. I drop the knife and I reach out to touch you. Finally.
And that’s when you turn around.