Mary strained for news from next door, but there was only a discreet commotion, a missable scuttle of tactful footsteps. If Eric and Michelle knew Flora had gone, they didn’t want anyone else to know it. “What shall we do?” Mary whispered to the little red ear, flushed with heat and the intensity of their embrace. The idea was harebrained, but she wondered if she might, when no one was looking, roll the baby over the boundary. Once Flora crossed the line, she was their problem. Mary kissed her again. “You’re not a problem, are you, darling?” she whispered, but she was interrupted by a low mechanical grunt of glazing sliding.
There was something odd about her neighbors’ behavior.
If she, Mary, had woken to find Flora gone, she would have shouted the whole street out of bed and all the house fronts would have flashed blue, sirens wailing. Oh God, she was going to get caught holding their escaped baby, and all she had done was cuddle her. She touched Flora’s cheek. She was thinking it might be prudent to step into the house for a moment when she heard Michelle scream. Mary twisted her head to look at Flora. Her eyes were still shut; her breath pooled in Mary’s clavicle.
Every window of Eric and Michelle’s house was ablaze. A door snapped open and shut. It was Eric’s voice, calling “Flora! Flora!” in the same chirpy singsong he used to entice Tiggy home for milk. But Eric was calling more softly than that, as if he were embarrassed to discover how his voice sounded in an emergency. Ridiculously, he appeared to want no one to hear him, which undermined the idea of a search. Did they want this baby or not? Mary glanced at the little one again, in snug oblivion in her arms. There was something thrilling about the fact that she had started to snore.
Eric’s footsteps disappeared in grass, and the next tentative “Flo-ra!” came to Mary from just the other side of the fence. Then she heard her own voice.
“Eric? Is that you?” Silence.
Obviously it was him.
“Eric?” she said again. There was still no reply, so she walked toward the place where his own call had risen and tried once more.
Eric’s head appeared above the fence, his face blanched.
“I’ve got Flora,” she said. He could see that, but she had to say something.
“Jesus fucking Christ, thank fuck for that.”
The door clicked again. He looked away and then back at Mary, slipping her the words, “Wait there. I’m coming round.”
“She’s safe,” he said, publicly addressing the back of the house. “She’s safe.”
If there was a reply, Mary missed it. The next voice was Eric’s again, still talking to the house.
“Mary’s got her.”
* * *
MICHELLE WAS FIRST to materialize out of the darkness at the end of the garden. One leg, in mauve yoga pants, hooked itself over the wall, lashing as Michelle yelled “What the fuck?” She was less concerned about being heard now. A few strides and the woman had covered the whole lawn, Eric running to catch up. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Michelle was saying. Some of her spit landed on Mary’s cheek, but Mary let it stay because both hands were holding tightly to her last moments with Flora, and nothing was going to take them away.
“Michelle!” Eric hissed. “God’s sake!”
Mary hushed gently. “She’s sleeping,” she soothed, even as Michelle’s knuckle kneaded her breast, and Flora was wrenched from her arms. Possibly owing to the change in body temperature, having been snatched from her warm rib nest, Flora’s eyes and mouth pinged open. The wail that came out was not the distress cry of someone waking to an ordeal. Or perhaps that’s exactly what it was—for the noise was just a weary, routine cry. She had tried her best, but she was back with her mother. As Michelle tugged her away, Flora snagged Mary’s hair in her fingers and clung to the long strands as if she had been thrown a rope.
Michelle appeared not to hear Mary’s cry of pain as she tugged the baby free. She did not say sorry. She did not say, “Thanks for keeping my baby safe.” She almost certainly did not notice Flora’s little hand fretting unhappily on her shoulder, a frizz of Mary’s hair looped around the fingers. She just hoisted up her tunic top so that her breast, with a green sheen in the moonlight, gave Mary a funny, one-eyed stare, then slapped Flora on to it. Eric circled his wife and daughter firmly in his arms, as if in the course of the night he had lost and found them both. Mary watched them settle into each other, and even though her basket was suddenly empty, it was a relief, this peace.
“Call the police,” Michelle said. She was looking at Mary, talking to Eric.
“What?”
“Call the police.”
“Shall we talk about this inside, love,” Eric said, patting the places where pockets would be. “I’ve left my phone at home.” They were both dressed, Mary noticed, in similar outfits to her, the kind of clothes you wear when you think no human will see you. Eric was in Hawaiian-style board shorts. Between his waistband and the hem of his T-shirt, a pale roll of stomach shone. “Let’s talk about this sensibly,” he said, stroking Flora’s head. “Is she feeding?”
“Yes, she’s feeding. Of course she’s feeding.”
“Thank God for that. Thank God she’s safe. Let’s get her home. Let’s get you both home. She can sleep in with us. Can’t she? This once? Daddy’s going to make everything OK.” He looked at Mary. “Talk in the morning?” He began to turn Michelle’s shoulders, to direct her back to the wall.
“I’ll go and get a blanket, shall I?” Mary said.
“You’ll go nowhere,” Michelle said, looking up. “You stay right here where we can see you until the police come. Eric, the baby’s fine. Get your phone.”
“Darling…,” Eric said. But he had no words to follow, and the first blackbirds were beginning to sing.
“Do you want to come inside?” Mary asked. “There’s a phone in the hall.”
“Mary. That’s—kind.” Eric rubbed his eyes. “But that’s not what we’re going to do. Is it, darling?”
“Are you raving mad? She took Flora. She broke into our house, and she took her. One minute the baby’s there, the next she’s gone, and—she’s got her. That’s abduction. What kind of father are you, standing around in her garden, planning small talk tomorrow, happy to let this crank steal our baby and get away with it? You’re a coward. Don’t you Daddy me. You’re a shit dad!”
“Darling! Darling.” His voice slowed effortfully, as if he were trying to entice a child to reason while keeping calm himself. “That’s not what happened, and we both know it.”
A siren streaked down the main road, and the three of them looked at each other in panic.
“Just call the fucking police!” Michelle shouted. “Do it! Or I will.” With one hand she rummaged in her pockets for her phone, and when she realized that hers was in the house too, she burst into tears. “I left the door open!” she sobbed. “I let her in.”
* * *
SO NOW THERE were two choices. Deny everything Michelle said. Deny it, because Michelle was unwell, and who would listen to an unwell woman? Tell the truth, as she knew it, because sometimes a crazy story is more believable than a realistic one. Mary was weighing all this, the decision complicated by the difficulty of explaining the time frame of the evening—how long had she had the baby?—when she looked up to see Eric watching her, waiting for her to speak. “What happened, Mary?” he said. “Where did you find her?”
She had no idea what she was going to say. And then, the next thing, Eric was replying.
“A fox?”
Mary nodded.
“You saw it?”
“Going into your place … The gate was open.” Mary was unprepared for the wave of emotion that crested in her as she said the words aloud. She was absolutely swamped with pride. That he had done it for her. Done it out of love and kindness and … and … something else she could not name and which only later she understood as belief.
“What? How? Wait. Where did you actually find Flora?”
“On the back step. I’
d been for a walk in the woods.”
“Oh Christ, not you as well.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was heading back when I saw … it. Massive, it was. The biggest fox I’ve ever seen. I saw it go into your garden. I didn’t see anything else. I hung around a bit. Thought the air would help me sleep. I heard an owl…”
“Get on with it, for fuck’s sake,” Michelle said.
“When I came back, there was something on my step.”
“Not something, Mary! Our daughter!”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that at first. It’s not what you expect. I just saw the whiteness … I only realized it was Flora when I got close. I still can’t believe it,” she said. She tried to reach out to Flora, but Michelle steered the baby away.
“And she was on the step?” Eric asked.
Mary nodded. She knew it sounded unbelievable, but Eric was looking at her intently and nodding back. “Lying there,” she said, “like a … parcel.” Neither Eric nor Michelle spoke, so she went on. “I checked she was OK, and I was just working out how to bring her round when I heard Eric in the garden. Thank God.”
“She was on your step?” Eric said again. “As if she had been left there?”
“I know it doesn’t make much sense.”
“I think it’s starting to,” he said.
Mary turned at the sound of a footstep in her other neighbor’s garden. Eric was half stroking Flora’s hair, half-examining her for evidence.
“She looks absolutely peaceful and unhurt,” he said. “She has been beautifully taken care of.” He looked at his wife and drew her head to his chest. “There, there,” he said. “It’s all OK now. She’s safe. You’re safe. Those are the only two things that matter in the whole universe. It’s been a horrible night, but it’s over. Darling, we are not going to call the police. You know what the police would think? That we had done it ourselves.” Michelle had stopped arguing, and Mary watched Eric take his wife’s silence for assent. “It’s OK, love,” he said, pressing his mouth to her head. “We’re going to get you help. Proper help.”
“I still don’t understand what happened,” Mary ventured, feeling the pressure lift sufficiently to address Eric over Michelle’s head.
He smiled at her, a smile full of sadness. “Something woke me. I don’t know what. When I sat up, Michelle was missing. Not in bed, were you, love?” he said gently to Michelle’s hair. “I checked George’s room; he was asleep. Then Flora’s—but the cot was empty. Michelle must have heard her cry and gone to feed her. But then why hadn’t she put her back in the crib? I went downstairs”—he was weeping now—“and the kitchen was open. Not just a fraction. But like someone’s blown a bloody great hole in the back of the house. I think that’s probably when I saw you coming inside, didn’t I, darling? I think you may have been sleepwalking.”
Michelle ignored him and swapped Flora to the other breast. She seemed intent only on the baby.
“Right, but that doesn’t explain how Flora came to be on my step,” Mary said. She wanted to make Eric say what he thought.
“Why won’t you tell us where you were, Mary? How you even came to be outside, miraculously finding my baby on your patio?” Michelle had woken up again.
“I was in the woods, like I said. I couldn’t sleep. It was so hot. I came outside for air. Sometimes I do that—since Mark left.” It occurred to her that showing Michelle weakness might ameliorate her desire for destruction. In any case, Michelle was hardly in a position to advance sleepwalking as a sign of madness.
Michelle looked at Eric. “I fed her and put her back in the cot,” she said.
“Did you actually see the fox go into the house, Mary?” Eric asked. From the way he continued to brace his wife, he seemed to think that only his arms were holding her together.
“Toward the house. I saw it go toward the house.” She was very tired, and only a huge mental effort prevented her from saying “him.” She shrugged and then added, “Flora had leaves in her hair.”
“Well, it makes no difference. You or a fox, it’s the same thing,” Michelle said. “Either way, you’re responsible. You think I haven’t seen you, always out here looking for them. Creeping around at night. I’ve even heard you putting down a pet bowl.”
“That’s not true. I’ve never done that,” Mary said.
“I heard it. Once when I couldn’t sleep and I was in the woods, I saw you flashing a light from your back room. Signaling at something out here. You let them sleep on your grass, on your shed. Look at this place!” she said. “Your garden’s a jungle. They go in and out of your shed. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you talking to them. Neville thinks you’re feeding them. And you had all our stuff on your kitchen sill!”
Eric looked at Mary over his wife’s head and mouthed a silent “sorry.”
“Oh yes!” Michelle said. “Eric, do you remember when Mary babysat and we found those doodles of foxes all over my note? She’s obsessed! We are so, so lucky that Flora’s OK,” she sobbed. “We’re reporting this to the police. And we’re calling that guy in the morning. What’s his name? The one you liked the sound of?”
“I didn’t like the name. It’s a pretty corny name,” Eric said. “But he knew his stuff.”
“Who?” Mary asked.
“He’s called the Fox Fixer.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It started as a single knock on a door in Mary’s head. The inside echo of a car being slammed shut on the street or a clothes moth clapping its wings too close to her ear. Then the knock grew louder, and the hammering refused to let up. Betrayal. Her betrayal was waking her up, banging around in her head, hurling itself against the walls and windows of her mind, looking for a way out like a fly snared behind a blind. Buzz. Buzz. She had given him up, handed him over to Michelle and Eric, practically told them he was to blame, and all because she had felt, in that instant, so thoroughly loved.
The clock said she had slept for forty-five minutes. Somehow Monday was dawning without it ever having stopped being Sunday. Soon Michelle and Eric would wake—or maybe they had woken while she slept. Mary and her fox were only hours away from the arrival of the fox catcher.
Buzz. Buzz. Mary clasped her temples. She had told Michelle and Eric she had watched him enter their property. She had told them in a strange kind of boastfulness. She sat up, heard the stealthy electric whir of the milk float pause outside her neighbors’ house. It was a vanity. Under pressure from Michelle’s accusations, she had felt not so much the need to defend herself as to share her fox’s high opinion of her: it was so at odds with their vision of her as a lonely woman failing on all the basics, whose relationship had unraveled because of her inability to take the leap of faith that nature intended. She tugged her joggers from the chair, and, seeing yesterday’s knickers still inside, stepped into both at once. Quickly she pulled on a top, grabbed her lapsed gym bag, and began stuffing things into it: a change of clothes, a jumper in case the nights got cold, her phone for emergencies. He had come to their row of houses, looked into the windows, sniffed at the doors, studied their sounds, graded their smells and shadow, the human honeycomb. He had seen them all from the back. Not how neighbors see, with their muffled through-the-wall knowledge. Not how passersby, or learner drivers dawdling over their parallel parking on this quiet, tree-lined turning, see with a quick glimpse into a dull room. He had seen their lives lit up at dusk, when the insides of houses glow and all their dramas can be read.
He was the first, the only one, who believed she could do it. How unconvincing Mark seemed in hindsight, with his spurious assurances that she could do it with him, that her future became imaginable with his care. Only he—Rafael, she was thinking—it sounded triumphant—knew that this little stump of life she had, this dead end that never sprouted a new beginning, well, it could sprout. It had sprouted.
On her way downstairs Mary darted into the bathroom and scooped her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a dry bar of soap into the duffel. If she was honest, she had acted upon
an additional consideration in telling Michelle and Eric. Her fingerprints would be all over that cot. From earlier in the day, when she had fetched Flora. In the kitchen, she gathered her keys and purse, laced her trainers over bare feet. She had thrown his life into danger. Now she was going to save him.
* * *
SUN STREAKED THE woodland floor, enormous fingertips dripping pale gold across hollowed twigs and burnt leaves. A squirrel clinging to the lime twitched his hood eyes at Mary and, as she climbed the wall beside him, snagged around the trunk in reverse. The sky burnt red, and there was much to be done.
First light had erased all trace of Mary’s adventure. The paths she had made through this overgrowth in the night had vanished, and again she found herself battling nettles that bobbed about her chin. Since she discovered Rafael’s hazel weeks ago, they had grown a foot taller, and the bindweed had unspooled its garlands by the meter. Walls, fences, and gates had disappeared under the greenery. The woods should have felt smaller, but the opposite was true. They had enlarged. They were a world without edges.
It was obvious to Mary where the fox catcher would start. When she reached the hole by the hazel, she kicked a few black feathers out of the way and lay on her side. “Hello?” she called into the mouth. It could be a dead end or the start of an underground mansion, as credibly deceptive as looking in a puddle and seeing a well. She wriggled closer. Way below, she could hear a grainy sifting. A worm cleaving damp clumps, the twitch of small lives. Or perhaps it was something heavier, further off, a distant tread through corridors she would never see. Was it him, answering her call from an underground turret at the outer edge of his kingdom? No eyes glittered. She had downed all the light with her face.
How to Be Human Page 17
