Imogen Fox is an award-winning fiction writer from Manchester. Her first focus was novel writing, but she has a newly discovered love for the short story. Her short story ‘My Mother Is A Story’ earned her the Sheila Newman Award in 2019. Imogen has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and, outside of her current MA studies, works as a tutor, specialising in creative writing.
Email: imogen.read.fox@gmail.com
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The Fox
There it was again, the fox with the limp.
‘Sarah,’ Colleen said without turning away from the window. Then, louder, tilting her head as much as she could without allowing her eyes to shift from where they were glued to the fox. ‘Sarah! It’s back. The bastard’s back!’
‘Col, if you are talking about a fox right now during my aromatherapy class…’
Colleen did not turn around to look at her sister, on the sofa, hunched over Pete’s old laptop. She didn’t even roll her eyes, because that would have prevented her from tracking the fox’s movements as it slunk clumsily from one side of the street to the other. Fox notwithstanding, her eyes would be rolling so hard in their sockets that she’d be risking some kind of permanent disfigurement.
Her sister had been so-called coping with her divorce by enrolling in online classes, each of which was supposedly the next big thing to launch Sarah’s so-called career. Mum had told Colleen that it was very important for them all to be supportive of Sarah at this difficult time, especially as Colleen was clearly doing so much better. ‘You’ve still got your husband,’ she’d said. So, Colleen held her tongue and did not point out things like the insanity of learning about aromatherapy from online video tutorials, a medium notoriously limited to two of the five senses, neither of which was smell.
‘It’s wrecking the neighbourhood,’ Colleen said.
‘It’s a fox.’
Colleen had also held her tongue about mum being all too happy to give advice about how to help Sarah while making no moves to help Sarah herself. Never mind the fact that mum lived alone in a four-bedroom in Barnsley, whereas here was Colleen trying to squeeze in yet another human being into her two-bedroom semi-detached. She’d already had a teenager and a one year old sharing a bedroom, so Sarah had invaded her living room.
‘It’s these bloody students.’ Colleen said, watching the fox groom itself in a pool of streetlight. The evenings were coming earlier and earlier, darkness creeping in during the school run. ‘This used to be a place for families and now we’ve got nothing but bloody students from one end of the street to the other. And they don’t know how bins work. It’s not that hard. How is it that they can study for a degree but they can’t work out that bin-day is every other Thursday? So now we’ve got overflowing piles of rubbish…they may as well have rolled out a red-carpet, come one come all to feast upon our festering…’ Colleen gesticulated towards the fox, as if it might finish her sentence.
‘Food?’ Sarah suggested.
‘We used to have real neighbours. You used to be able to pop round for a cup of sugar,’ Colleen remembered the ladies over the road, who’d grown rows of pansies in their front garden, who’d always offered to watch a toddling Rachel so Colleen could go to the shops in peace.
‘When was the last time you ate sugar?’
Colleen did not answer, though she knew exactly when. 2003. A Sunday. Forty-two custard creams in one episode of Dawson’s Creek. Back when Pete was just a sixth-former with a cool haircut, and not the man snoring in her bed. Before Rachel. Before little one. Before –
‘Next door are all right,’ Sarah said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Not the ones on the left, the other side. As neighbours go, next door are pretty good, aren’t they? And they’restudents.’
‘What do you know about next door?’
‘I know things! I had a cup of tea with Saskia just the other day.’
‘Saskia?’
‘Yes, Saskia, the blonde, she’s doing a PhD in…oh I don’t know, something with ‘ology’ at the end. You remember, she brought round biscuits once, when they were having a party next door?’
Colleen did remember the biscuits, not that she’d eaten any of them.
She might have licked one.
‘My point exactly,’ Colleen snapped, ‘They had a party, and it was loud and little one was up most of the night, and I’m sure it generated a lot of rubbish.’
‘Aw, the poor thing’s limping.’ Sarah cooed, having lumbered from the sofa to the window just in time to see the fox haul itself over a fence, holding its injured leg delicately in the air, like a little finger at afternoon tea. Not the finger Colleen wanted to use. ‘Do you think we should take it to the vet?’
‘Take it to – are you mad? It’s not a cat that’s been run over. It’s vermin. A nuisance. We want it gone! We’re looking for pest control, not casualty!’
‘Alright! Alright!’ Sarah said, holding her hands up, her eyes going wide in that expression that Colleen despised. As if Colleen was the unreasonable one. As if there was something excessive about her wanting to live in a clean, calm neighbourhood, unravaged by pillaging vulpines. ‘Look, you’re all wound up Col, why not have a bath?’
‘A bath?’
‘Yeah, why not have a nice relaxing bath?’
Colleen tried to remember her last bath. The last time she had soaked in the tub with bubbles up to her chin and candles dotted along the window sill. It must have been before little one was born. She imagined sinking into one, like a baptism.
‘That might be nice.’ Colleen said.
‘Excellent!’ Sarah beamed. ‘I’ll get my materials.’
‘Your what?’
‘My aromatherapy kit! I’m thinking I could use the relaxation and revitalisation oils.’
Colleen’s baptismal bath shrivelled like pruney fingers.
‘No. Thanks. I have to make tea.’
Sarah followed her into the kitchen.
Colleen had painted the kitchen when she and Pete first moved in. It had been a trendy orange colour that she’d seen in a magazine and it was supposed to create light and warmth in small spaces.
‘It’s funny you should mention baths, Col, because I actually wanted to talk to you about my aromatherapy…’
Now it just seemed drab and tired. Crayon marks on the skirting board from back when Pete had looked after a five-year-old Rachel on his own for an afternoon. A dent in the wall from fifteen-year-old Rachel shoving her chair back as she stormed away from the dinner table.
‘You see it’s not just a hobby, it could be the opportunity our whole family has been waiting for…’
Colleen had read a few years ago, in an article about colour psychology, that orange encouraged aggressive behaviour. Which could explain the teenage swearing at the climax of every other meal. She ought to repaint it. She just never seemed to have the time.
‘…I’ve not felt like this since Kev left. You should see the people on this website Col, they’ve bought these massive houses, and they do these events once a year for all their top sellers.’
Pete had eaten scrambled eggs for breakfast. She knew this not because she had been in the kitchen when he’d had them but because the pan was still out, dried eggy flakes clinging to the sides of her non-stick. Detective Colleen was also able to determine that Rachel had made one of her patented chocolate spread and strawberry jam sandwiches as a post-school snack. The jam was still out, a chocolatey knife stuck in it like some sticky parody of the sword in the stone. If she be worthy…she can do her own bloody clearing up, Colleen thought.
‘I’m not explaining this right – basically, you have people in your upline and people in your downline. Now, if you like, you could be in my downline. I think it could be really good for you. But if not, you could still be a part of the initial investment so I can get my starter pack…’
She was halfway through scrubbing the egg pan when she realised that Sarah had been talking to her for quite some time. Talking using her needling voice. The one that was trying so hard to sound reasonable and not pleading, and failing at both.
‘…and early investment is really important.’
Colleen would have eaten Pete’s soapy egg dregs before she admitted she hadn’t been paying attention, so she sounded shorter than she meant to when she said, ‘Just spit it out Sarah. What do you want?’
‘I want to offer you an opportunity.’ Sarah said, from where she’d plonked herself at the breakfast table, wringing her hands. Colleen wrung out the cloth she had been using, and stared at her sister. ‘I want to offer you,’ Sarah continued, ‘the chance to invest in my aromatherapy business.’
Colleen waited for Sarah’s expression to change, for her to crease up her face, like she had when she was a child, and say ‘fooled ya’. But Sarah just kept on talking, and shifting her hands. Palms over fingers over knuckles over nails, over and over. She explained how this was a chance for her – and Colleen too, if she wanted – to be her own boss. She talked about how Colleen had been out of sorts since deciding to take a break from work to take care of little one, how Colleen could set her own hours, how it would be like they were in business together. Sarah explained the company structure, and how Colleen could bring more people on as her own sellers. How she would get a percentage of everything that they sold.
‘So…’ Sarah said, when it seemed that the only sound that was going to follow her diatribe was the dripping tap. ‘What do you think?’
Colleen gazed at her sister and tried to remember loving her. Strangely, she found herself mourning her own loss of capacity more than the relationship itself. It seemed terribly dramatic, overwrought, unreasonable, to no longer love one’s sister.
‘It’s a pyramid scheme. You’re asking me to join a pyramid scheme.’
‘It’s not a pyramid scheme! It’s called multi-level marketing – it’s…’
‘Mum? Mum! He’s crying again!’ Rachel bellowed, ‘I’m trying to write my history essay and he won’t stop crying!’
‘Oh, bugger it all, Pete said he’d put new batteries in the baby monitor.’ Colleen muttered, ‘Coming!’
*
Later, Colleen stood, staring at her sleeping baby. Rachel had long since stormed downstairs to do her homework at the kitchen table, bemoaning for the umpteenth time that she had to share her bedroom with an infant. Colleen had said nothing; she didn’t understand why Rachel kept trying to have the same argument when nothing was going to change.
Colleen watched her son.
When she’d told Pete she was pregnant again, for the first time in over a decade, he’d just smiled this baffled smile – the smile of a man who’d been presented with pizza he didn’t remember ordering. It was a smile that made him look oddly like a baby himself…one that had just passed gas. Little one was meant to give them a fresh start. A new beginning. Over a year later, how was it possible things had got worse?
She let her gaze drift over to the window, past where paint flakes collected along the sill in dandruffy clumps, to the warm glow of the light in next door’s second story. Saskia’s bedroom. There were six of them, all postgraduate students, crammed into that little house, but Saskia was the only one Colleen had met. The odd chat when they happened to arrive on their respective doorsteps at the same time, and, of course, the time she’d brought over biscuits. And there she was now, walking to her chest of drawers, snapping into frame as if Colleen was flicking through a view-master. Colleen was pretty sure there was a mirror just out of sight, because Saskia was leaning forward and brushing a mascara wand over her lashes. They were golden, like her hair. No dye, no piercings – not like some of Rachel’s friends who were practically babies and yet wanted to stick themselves full of holes.
Saskia had tattoos though.
Colleen had seen them when she’d brought the biscuits. Bare forearms curved around the plate, with inky vines rolling along the freckled skin. Colleen had tried not to look, but the contrast of this fresh-faced, twenty-nothing, blonde-as-a-storybook-heroine girl, and those startling dark lines…
Saskia moved out of view and Colleen turned back to her son.
Little one rolled over and Colleen rummaged in the junk drawer of her mind for a feeling. Something. Tried to shove aside her chasm of disappointment to make room for any other emotion.
Movement out the window snatched her focus and she saw Saskia’s legs flick up – the only bit of her that was visible – was she sat on her bed? – as she pulled on boots. They must have been overly tight because it took several yanks to zip them up. Colleen put fingertips to her smiling mouth and bit them. Saskia launched herself onto booted feet and headed out her bedroom door.
Might baby monitor batteries be in the car?
*
‘Hi Colleen!’ Saskia called, over the clang of her shutting gate. The tattoos were out of sight, tucked under long sleeves, but when Saskia waved, Colleen imagined the vines waved too.
‘Oh, Saskia, didn’t see you there,’ Colleen removed her head from where she’d shoved it in the car doorway, head tilted to the ground, eyes lined up with the boot window, and, coincidentally, Saskia’s front door. ‘You off out then?’
‘Poetry reading,’ Saskia said, strolling up behind Colleen. ‘Have you lost something?’
‘I didn’t know you wrote poetry,’ Colleen fought to keep her breathing measured. The mad dash down the stairs had left her feeling her age.
‘I don’t, it’s my mate Clara. She…’ Saskia looked embarrassed. Colleen wondered how bad the poetry could be. Maybe it was awful, stomach-churningly bad, but Saskia showed up anyway, possibly even in the front row, because that’s what you did. That was the kind of person Saskia was: someone who showed up.
‘I love poetry,’ Colleen said, trying to remember the last poem she’d read that hadn’t started ‘roses are red’. Pete, bizarrely, never forgot an anniversary. He’d got the exact same card-flowers-chocolates combo every year for sixteen years. It was almost impressive.
‘Oh really, who’s your favourite -’
‘How’s the dissertation coming?’
Saskia gripped her right arm with her left, ran her fingers up and down. Do you want me to water your vines for you? The thought bubbled up like a belch in Colleen’s throat. She swallowed it with the long practice of someone who had not burped in front of another human being in ten years.
‘It’s… well, you know how it is,’ Saskia smiled, ‘It’ll all come together somehow.’
That was what was special about Saskia: that optimism, that certainty, that youthful zen and zest and zeal. Colleen wanted to eat the smile off her face.
‘It will.’ Colleen said, nodding.
‘Anyway, I should – she’s saving me a seat.’
‘Right, of course, poetry waits for no woman.’
‘Yeah,’ Saskia hesitated, one foot raised to its tip, like she was about to take flight. ‘Actually, I wanted to ask you something.’
‘Yes?’ Colleen imagined herself at a poetry reading, sat next to Saskia, absorbing the artistry of young intellectuals. Surely, she would be at home there? She would feel as though she had found her people. On occasional weeknights she would flounce out of the door, tossing ‘I’m just headed to a gallery opening with Saskia, back late,’ over her shoulder to Pete.
‘Well…it’s, um,’ she tucked her hair behind her ears and Colleen could see the tips of them were turning red. They were a little pointed. Elfin. ‘I was hoping you could let Sarah know that I’ve decided to start my own upline, for the aromatherapy thing, so I can’t join her downline.’
*
Colleen did not feel like cooking. Sometimes this happened. She’d stare at the contents of her fridge, knowing that she was expected to create something delicious to shove in the gaping maws of her family, and she would be gripped by an irresistible urge to put something in their food. Not poison, or bleach, or anything truly harmful. Just tipping in a little too much chilli so that Pete would get acid reflux. Or tearing up fistfuls of coriander so that Sarah would gag a little on her soup. Rachel hated peas. Wouldn’t touch them if they were on her plate. Colleen had put them in three separate meals last week: in pasta sauces and risotto and shepherd’s pie. Rachel had sat growling over the Sisyphean task of trying to pick them out for over half an hour.
‘Mum?’ As if summoned by Colleen’s thoughts, Rachel poked her head around the kitchen door. Colleen pulled out a jar of ready-made, shop-bought, doesn’t your husband deserve a home-cooked meal Colleen, sauce from the fridge, and dumped it into a pan.
‘Don’t you have homework to be doing?’ Carrots. That would add some nutrition.
‘I’ve finished it.’
‘Have you now?’ Colleen found two fat carrots and began dragging a peeler across their skins in vicious yanks.
‘Yes.’ She sounded put out. Why was that girl always in a mood? ‘I wanted to talk to you about something.’
‘If you want more pocket money, you’ll have to take it up with your father.’ Knife? Knife? Where was the knife? Why could you never find anything you wanted in this bloody house?
‘I’m not asking for money. God, why do you have to –’
Giving up, Colleen gripped the carrot at both ends and snapped it. The grater was still on the draining board from the night before, and she began sending flakes of grated carrot into the sauce.
‘Dad doesn’t like carrot.’
‘Really?’
‘Look, I can…do you want me to put the kettle on? For pasta?’
Colleen looked up from the grater and took in her daughter. Still in her school uniform, scuffed shoes, with a misguided fringe, and blue nails…why blue? Colleen thought it looked like she had some kind of fungal infection. Nails were only blue if something had gone very wrong.
‘That – yes, go on then.’
Rachel hurtled over to the kettle to get it filled. Colleen tried to remember if there were any school trips coming up – skiing maybe? A trip to France? Did Rachel still do French?
‘So…’ Rachel said, as the kettle began its long exhale, ‘How’s your day?’
‘How’s my day? What is this, The One Show?’
‘I don’t know! I’ve never seen The One Show.’
‘Right. Well. It’s fine. How’s yours?’
‘Good actually, you see I had art today. And my teacher, she’s, you know, alright, and I was showing her my sketch book.’
‘Kettle’s boiled.’
‘Right,’ Rachel picked up the steaming kettle with one hand and then started to rummage in a drawer for a saucepan with the other, ‘Well, I was showing her my sketch book and -’
‘Put the kettle down, you daft child.’
‘It’s fine, mum, I won’t be a second,’ Rachel insisted, tugging on the handle of a large pan that was wedged under a smaller one, ‘So, like, I’ve been working really hard on it. Even sometimes under the desk in Maths -’
‘If you won’t be a second, you’ll be longer than a second. Put the kettle down.’
‘It’s fine, I just need to,’ Rachel’s stringy arm muscles strained over the stubborn handle. The kettle veered towards her, steam still spewing out the top, it was wobbling, trembling in her grasp. What was wrong with her? Marching over, she lifted out the smaller pan, grabbed the larger one and hoisted it out of the drawer, bringing Rachel’s still clinging hand with her. She tried to nudge the flapping girl out of the way, splattering several gulpfuls of scalding kettle water onto her own arm.
‘You see!’ Colleen barked, snatching her arm away.
Rachel’s mouth rounded in horror at her own incompetence; more kettle water splattered by her feet as she stumbled through a bizarre box-step, unsure whether to step closer or further away. ‘Mum! I’m sorry! I’ll run some cold water -’
‘Just put the kettle down and get out! I knew this would happen.’
‘I was only trying to -’
‘Will you get out?’
Rachel slammed the kettle down and stormed off. Colleen turned her back on the cold tap and instead wrenched open the freezer, pressing a packet of frozen peas against her scalded arm. She stood in her hurt for a few minutes. Pondered the peas. Released her cradled arm, and dumped the entire packet into the sauce.
*
Colleen stared at the overflowing kitchen bin, then at the empty packet of frozen peas in her hand, and then back at the bin. Other local authorities, she knew, had four or five recycling bins. Colleen had tried doing a separate little tub for composting once, but it had attracted flies and she’d had to stop.
Dinner had been silent. Pete had strolled in the door just as she was serving up, inhaled his food, grated carrot and all, and then gone to watch the football. Rachel and Sarah had clumped together on one side of the table, both sullenly pushing pasta around their plates. And after all that ingratitude, who was left with the clear-up?
Colleen sighed and shoved the empty packet into the bin, lifted the bin-lid and tentatively yanked the strings together as the bin bag threatened to belch out crisp wrappers and tea bags and rejected spaghetti. Looking around, as if some silent studio audience was going to notice that she was hauling this behemoth bag by herself, she trundled out the side door. After a few steps, the pulling on her sore arm was too much so she nestled her burnt right arm against her ribs, and dragged the bag outside with her left.
The fox was waiting for her.
It sat on the lid of the grey bin, as if she had shown up late to an appointment, with its one injured limb hovering in the air. Colleen dropped her burden, letting the bag slop sideways onto the ground. ‘What are you doing here?’ She hissed.
The fox said nothing.
‘You’re not supposed to be here!’ Fantastic, now she sounded like she was talking to some sort of illicit lover. ‘You are a pest! A parasite! This is private property. You are not allowed in my garden! You are not allowed to have my rubbish!’ As if to prove her seriousness she dragged the bin bag behind her, shielding it with her body.
The fox lowered its head and flicked its tail, but did not surrender its place on her bin.
Colleen felt a sob build in her throat. She swallowed it down like bile. ‘What do you want?’
She gestured at its injured leg, dangling uselessly in mid-air. Thought about the crunching satisfaction she’d felt as her foot had connected with soft warm fur. ‘Did you think I would apologise? I won’t. I’m not sorry. I had to. I had to get you to leave. Why won’t you leave?’
The fox did not answer.