The Valley of the Fox

by Joseph Hone

  The lamb started to career around the barn with me on its back like a rodeo rider. Finally it threw me and made for the door. If it escaped away into the pasture or back towards the Manor with an arrow through its neck I was done for. So I dived after it, just catching it as it ran outside by a back leg.

  In the end I stoned it to death, hitting its skull again and again, smashing the life out of it, without looking at it, as the rain drenched us both in the doorway of the barn. After five minutes I had a dead lamb in front of me, bleeding, cut about, which I never wanted to see or think of again, let alone eat. Yet I couldn’t leave it there, and there was no point now in throwing it away and hiding it. So, with even more distaste, I had to consider how to chop its head off, bleed it, gut it …

  I found another stone at last, a loose Cotswold stone with a fairly sharp edge along one side; it served its purpose, with a second stone as a chopping block beneath. The head came off. I tried to hack the legs off as well, but with less success. The gutting was even more difficult. Again, though I managed to open part of its stomach, I couldn’t get any of the woolly skin off. The knife wasn’t sharp enough. I hung the animal up with some baler twine on one of the beams and let it bleed for ten minutes or so while I sharpened Spinks’s knife.

  In the end, even though I got the blade pretty sharp, I made a fearful mess of the butchering. When I’d finished the beast looked as if it had been mutilated, torn and stabbed about by a madman. All the same, I had managed to roughly skin and gut it and the blood was washing away now in the doorway as the rain fell less heavily and the storm passed on. I wrapped the entrails in the wool coat and stuck my hands out the door, letting the rain wash the blood away. The carcase lay in the mud behind me. I held that out to wash it in the rain as well. But my arms were so weak I had to let it drop after a moment.

  I put the skin and guts to carry away in one of the old fertiliser sacks and tied the rest of the sloppy, still-warm animal round my waist with baler twine. The storm had cleared now. But the land was waterlogged outside. And down by the source of the brook, as I went back, the marshy ground smoked, risen in a small flood, so that I was up to my ankles in running water as I walked through it. I was soaked again. But halfway to the lake the sun returned suddenly and warmed my back, and the horror of the last half-hour faded. Indeed, by the time I got back to the lake, I had so successfully put it out of my mind that the violence appeared the act of someone else, not me.

  It wasn’t until the next morning, when I inspected the carcase, hanging from another branch in my oak, that my feelings changed again: the fatty, bruised blue colour of a butcher’s-shop lamb was beginning to form on the inner skin as it dangled, as if from a meat rail, by its back legs. I had a sense of strange achievement then, of having unearthed some long-forgotten, essential gift in myself. Unpleasant the killing may have been – but necessary: yes, necessary, I reminded myself I had killed for food after all, for survival. I would eat the beast. And yet, at heart, I knew I was lying to myself, was secretly disgusted by the whole business. I would never kill another animal in such a way, I thought. And from then on I kept a continual eye open for the woman from the manor. Much as I had come to dislike the world outside, I was going to have to save myself and ensure my future through some other more civilised means.

  *

  The weather was cool and showery for the next few days, and the woman didn’t come down to swim, though I kept a sharp look-out for her each afternoon from the top of my oak tree. The bunch of roses had quite faded out on the island. She had not returned there. Perhaps, after the disagreement with her husband, she’d gone away herself.

  I kept a watch on the house, too, twice a day, from my look-out post on top of the beech tree. But again there was no sign of the woman anywhere. Indeed, for such a big place, there was a strange lack of activity about the manor, even when I looked over it carefully with the binoculars. It seemed almost deserted. No one came and no one left in the hour or so, each morning and afternoon, that I kept an eye on it.

  There was a gardener, I saw, quite an old man with a younger colleague, at work in the vegetable beds to one side of the kitchen garden. They seemed to work very slowly and conscientiously, with a rake and a hoe and an old-fashioned high-sided wooden wheelbarrow. They repaired the wire netting over a clump of blackcurrant bushes and laid out strawberry nets and refurbished the scarecrow, which I could see now wore what looked like a Victorian frock coat together with a stovepipe hat. Surely it had a slouch hat of some sort the other night? There seemed to be a lot of dressing up of one sort or another going on up in the Manor.

  The younger gardener mowed all the front lawns and grass terraces one morning, including a croquet court at the bottom of the terraces with a little wooden summerhouse at the end of it. He fixed the hoops and sticks out on it afterwards. But no one played on it, then or the next day. There were no animals about the place that I could see. No one except the two gardeners appeared anywhere in the open, and the lights didn’t come on again at night in the conservatory. The whole place, both Manor and estate, had an air of life suspended now. The great Gothic pile brooded over the parkland, impervious, empty. And in the evening, when the light sank in the west and the troubled, showery skies let great washed beams of sun suddenly flow over the manor, the brick took on a fairytale aspect again, but this time more powerfully when, from the height of the tall tree, I could see the whole house now, its slim turrets and long chimneys dark pencil-strokes against the rain-bright sunsets. There was an air of sheer enchantment about it then. But the woman must have migrated, gone south for the summer, or to London, or perhaps back to America. I was disappointed.

  I let the lamb hang for several days before I cooked it, living on the stale remains of the cricketers’ tea meanwhile. I’d decided in advance to roast the animal whole, if I could, in the old pumping-shed. And I managed to build this up with a collection of stones and a few bricks, making a kind of three-sided barbecue pit hidden at the back of the shed. I skewered the carcase right through, with a steel fencing-post that I’d found, and placed this across the top of the stones, bending one end into a vague handle so that I could turn the meat as it cooked. There was plenty of dry wood about; that was no problem.

  I prepared this grill throughout the evening and waited until it was quite dark before lighting it, so that the smoke wouldn’t show. The flames would be invisible in any case, hidden by the shed. Some of the dry branches crackled to begin with, that was my only fear. But once the fire settled down there was hardly any sound. And soon the bigger logs began to glow, red at first, and then with an almost white heat, and the stones got very hot and the carcase sizzled, the fat spattering in the brilliant embers, the meat blistering, then darkening as I turned the spit.

  It took almost three hours to cook properly. But in the meantime I cut little slivers off to test it and soon had a meal going out of the tit-bits, sharpening my hunger as the night wore on. These nutty little hors d’oeuvres were magnificent. And at the end, when I’d taken the whole carcase off the fire and let it cool, I rather gorged on it, demolishing nearly half a whole leg down to the bone. It was very good indeed, burnt on the outside, tender as a melon in the middle, juicy.

  Afterwards I dismantled the brick walls and scattered all the ashes and slept nearby, along one side of the old engine, the meaty, woodsmoke smell all over my skin and my lips tasting long afterwards of cinders and burnt fat. I slept warm, content, replete, the sleep of the just. I slept well, except for the dream in the early morning, when I dozed in and out of sleep, turning on the fire-warmed earth.

  I dreamt of a sardine barbecue, on top of one of Lisbon’s windy hills, in the graveyard outside the Anglican church of St George. I had experienced just such a barbecue nearly a year before when I’d first met Laura and Clare out there. But now, in my sleep, neither of them was present. It was a summer party of complete strangers. I could hear the ferry klaxons out in the bay, honking and moaning, but much louder than they would have don
e in fact. I asked someone why they were so loud, so continuous. ‘The King has died,’ the stranger said. ‘They are carrying him here. He will be buried here in a moment.’

  ‘What King?’ I asked in surprise. ‘There’s no king now in Portugal.’ But the man had hurried away, leaving me isolated, alone. The barbecue party broke up then and the guests all formed two long ranks on either side of the graveyard. And beyond them, in the distance, I saw a procession heading up the hill towards me. They were carrying nothing, no coffin, no cross. Yet they were all dressed formally, in black frock coats and tall stovepipe hats …

  I saw they were heading straight towards me, these grim mourners, that I was standing right in their path between the two rows of barbecue guests, who had all bowed their heads now, their earlier merriment quite forgotten. I moved to join them to hide myself. But of course I discovered that I couldn’t move. My feet were stuck, rooted to the ground. I struggled to free them. But it was useless. And I knew with certainty then, without looking round, that there was a great freshly dug grave right behind me that had not been there before, which had mysteriously opened up for me just at that moment.

  The dream annoyed me for a long time when I woke, even after I’d brought the rest of the lamb back to my tree and come down again to swim in the calm of the hidden pool at the end of the lake. It struck me as some kind of symbol of failure in my life here in the woods, or of some vast egoism within me, for where had Clare and Laura been in the dream, both so much part of that Portuguese landscape in reality? Had they ceased to exist, even in my unconscious? And was the open grave my punishment for that?

  I’d stopped thinking about Laura because of the pain that brought. But I hadn’t thought of Clare, I realised now, because I’d left her, betrayed her, had pushed her into the arms of a stranger to save my own skin. I’d no idea where she was. And so, indeed, I’d not cared to think about her. For she must have been in some home or institution for disturbed children now, and that made it worse.

  I saw the cruel folly of my behaviour then, as far as Clare was concerned at least. And as I swam I very nearly got out of the water there and then to give myself up. How could I have left this already disturbed child, my daughter in all but blood, to the mercies of some institution? Now that I was properly fed at last, rested, fit and clean, I saw the full horror of my situation: a dead wife and a child that I had inexcusably deserted. I would have to start making amends that very day. This time I would definitely give myself up.

  It was then that I’d seen the man in the early morning sunlight, dressed in a gamekeeper’s outfit, with a gun and an Alsatian, on the other side of the lake, coming out of the undergrowth up by the ruined footbridge. He’d raised the shotgun, making a pass with it in the air; then he’d levelled it straight in my direction.

  Of course, as I have already explained here, the man was Ross; Ross, the grave-faced, dirty tricks specialist once attached to our section in Mid-East Intelligence; Ross, one of Marcus’s hit-men, who, on some hunch perhaps, had come to this hidden valley to search me out. And from then on that bright morning, I stopped thinking of Clare and Laura again and thought only of myself, as I ran from Ross and his great dog, up and about the lake, until, having killed his dog, he came to trap me behind the old pumping-shed, where I had no escape. I moved from the useless cover of the laurel bushes then, the dead beast at my feet, drew the arrow on the corner of the shed where I expected him to appear at any moment, and waited.

  But he never appeared. I thought perhaps he’d smell the remnants of the cooking fat inside the shed. His dog certainly would have done. But Ross moved on, past the other side of the building, whistling softly, calling out for the animal.

  ‘Karen?’ I heard his voice clearly. ‘Karen?’ The tone was fainter now in the still air as he moved away, up towards the brook where it came into the lake, and on up the valley towards the old quarry after that, I supposed. I gave him fifteen minutes before I dumped the big Alsatian into the covered well behind the shed, leaving one of the metal covers off, so that when Ross or his colleagues returned to look for the dog, and if they ever found it, they would assume that it had had an accident, had been drowned, running headlong into the watery pit.

  The well was deep in any case. The water level didn’t start until more than six feet down. They might never find the beast. I was pleased once more, rubbing any fingerprints I might have left off the metal cover with handfuls of dry leaves; pleased that I’d survived again, given Ross the slip and killed his fearsome dog, too. Yes, I was pleased with killing again. Perhaps I’d found a taste for it which I didn’t want to admit. But in any case, I thought with some pride, I was really learning to live in the wilds at last. I had beaten the system.

  I tidied up the ground around the well, throwing leaves about and brushing away the remains of the dog’s blood from my shoulder. And then suddenly, without any clothes on, having escaped from Ross straight away from the bathing pool an hour before, I was cold in this dank, shaded spot by the laurels next the well. I shivered, before turning quickly to get out into the sun again, back to my tree. And when I turned I saw the woman, watching me from the sunlit space where I’d expected Ross to appear, by the corner of the shed.

  It was the woman from the Manor. She looked much taller, close to, dressed as the outdoor girl once more, in an open shirt and cords, with her long dark hair running straight back over her head. And I could see her thin, finely arched eyebrows clearly now; they weren’t made up. She looked at me solemnly, as she must have been doing for some time while my back had been turned: a serious face, quite immobile, intent, as if she were studying, trying to interpret a difficult canvas in an art gallery. Then she moved, but only a fraction, lifting the old pump-action Winchester .22 she was pointing at me a little higher, so that it covered my heart.

  Seven

  I raised my hands automatically, feeling more awkward than frightened, stupid in my nakedness.

  ‘Ah,’ she said slowly, looking up at my arms. ‘There’s not much need for that, is there? Unless you’ve got something hidden up there in all that nest of hair. A little gun, a knife?’ she added quizzically, smiling a fraction.

  She spoke carefully: an American accent, East-Coast, New York State, Connecticut? New England, at least. And yet somehow it wasn’t absolutely convincing East Coast. There was a touch of somewhere else, something harsher and more natural, lurking behind the over-educated consonants, a breath of the Mid-West perhaps. There was money and there was culture in the voice, but it wasn’t certain that both came from the same place. The timbre was fine, though, a thing beyond background, only of nature: distinct, resonant. Like a small bell, the tone stayed on the air for a moment at the end of each sentence. She said nothing more then, just went on examining me carefully, with that same studied concern: a curiosity, almost a surprised welcome, as if for some rare species she had long sought and had now stumbled upon in this least expected of places.

  ‘Well,’ I said at last, feeling that one of us had to break the silence. ‘You’ve caught me. Clever of you. You’re the Lady of the Manor, I suppose?’ My voice, as well as this latter phrase, sounded forced, very formal, as if both came from some other man, a stranger who stood beside me. I felt I should be shaking hands with this woman, accepting a cocktail from her, perhaps, in some fashionable American drawing-room. Yet I had no clothes on.

  ‘Yes. I’m Alice Troy. And all this,’ she gestured round the thick circle of trees, ‘all this is my property. You’re trespassing. Where are your clothes? You’ve been swimming, I guess?’

  ‘Yes.’ Was it conceivable that the police hadn’t visited her, that she didn’t know who I was, a wife-killer on the run: that she thought I was just some lone eccentric camper poaching on her preserves? But that rifle? She had come prepared.

  All the same, I decided to pretend for a moment. ‘Yes,’ I went on innocently, ‘I was just having a swim.’ I spoke casually, naturally. But of course I couldn’t see myself – my wild hair and half-b
eard, the scar on my brow, the savage I must have appeared to her.

  Her eyes smiled first, then her lips, as she considered my innocent response. Like her naked back, that I’d seen a week before, her mouth was unusually long; long, well-bowed lips beneath a straight nose and above a chin that ran out very firmly from sharply cornered jawbones, ending in an equally firm point. Though her body was muscular and compact, her face was thin, finely chiselled, every bone, each line carefully angled and distinct, like an anatomical drawing. Below her neck she was an athlete; above it there was a contrary, quite unexpected refinement, a questing distinction of some sort; the face of someone who has thought about life more than they needed to, who had hounded the conventions.

  ‘Just having a swim!’ she said rather mockingly. ‘With that bow on the ground there. And looking like Robinson Crusoe. You’re something of a shot, aren’t you?’ she went on, looking at the recurve bow on the ground next the well. ‘You killed that German Shepherd with it, didn’t you? – the dog I saw you tipping down that hole.’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘Curious,’ she said, appraising me carefully once more. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re the teacher, aren’t you? That boys’ school near here: the one who killed his wife ten days ago.’

  ‘Yes. I’m Peter Marlow. But I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘They all say that, don’t they?’

  ‘It’s true,’ I said wearily.

  ‘Well, maybe it is,’ the woman replied after another long pause. ‘That’s what’s curious you see. That’s what makes it really very interesting,’ she went on with sudden enthusiasm. ‘Why you should choose to lie up in the woods here for ten days and how you managed it. You must be an educated man, after all.’ She said this with a touch of admiration or mockery in her voice, I couldn’t decide which. ‘Books and chalk,’ she went on. ‘Grades and all that. I wonder you managed to survive at all out here in the wilds.’