We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 113
WINTER 2008
FICTION
Keren Heenan - The Summer the fox
Late that summer a fox started taking the hens. One by one my mother’s hens disappeared into the night. In the morning we found the brutal sprawl of white feathers. So we waited, and watched in the night, my sister and I, for the fox to come. Up from the creek and over the hill, its quiet, quick, red feet padding towards the chook shed…
In the night, we wait, hand over clammy hand; waiting by the window, opened just a crack for the night sounds to ease in, waiting for the soft pad-pad. Thoughts of the wolf eating grandma, the huntsman splitting the stomach open to save her. What would the guts of a fox look like? Like the guts of a wolf? A sudden prickle of something dark and sharp, just beyond my shoulder, and I spin around knocking my sister sideways. She hits the wall with a thump.
‘You kids git t’ bed,’ my father yells. ‘You’re waitin’ for that darned fox, aren’tcha?’ We hear his footsteps and dive headlong back into our beds. The door opens and the room is softened with light from the hallway. ‘Bloody eejits.’ He says it like Grandpa does, like there’s a j in it and I know there isn’t, Miss Johns told me so. But he laughs when he says it and we know he’s not really mad. He wants to catch the fox too. ‘So what’re ya gunna do when he comes creepin’ past anyway?’ he says.
‘I got my shanghai,’ I tell him and hold it up as proof of my intent.
He laughs. ‘That won’t do any bloody good. That’s a bit like those two Jones kids’ rabbitin’ technique; one makin’ a noise with a hand beater, and the other one waitin’ outside the burra with a rolling pin. I think the little bunny was s’posed to come out all curious, thinkin’ what’s that damn noise, and then he gets boinked over the head with the rollin’ pin.’ He laughs again. ‘Silly pair o’ buggers. Just like you two. Get yourselves tucked in and get ridda that shanghai before ya shoot y’self in the foot or somethin’.’ He closes the door and the room goes back to dark.
With the window still open we can hear the night. I’m sure I can hear the fox. I want to get up and check but my sister won’t let me. ‘Go to sleep,’ she says. She’s older than me, and I know she’ll be the one in trouble if my father has to come back in. He’s doing the ’counts – piles of papers covered in maths – and doesn’t like to be interrupted, well, not more than once anyway.
But I’m sure I can hear the fox – a creeping quietness with just a whisper of shifting grass. In my mind I can see its sharp snout as it turns towards me and the eyes blaze like green coals. I sit up in my bed and reach for the shanghai. But the eyes have gone now that my own are open. Even so, I’m sure I can see some blackness, blacker than the black of the room, there beneath the window. ‘Turn on the light,’ my voice is a hiss. My sister doesn’t hear me.
I want to go to the toilet now. I don’t think I can wait. I push my hand between my legs, twisting at the crotch of my pyjamas. I call to my sister but she’s either asleep or ignoring me. The toilet is outside in the night with the fox. I climb out of bed and moan softly. I know I can’t wait but I can’t make my feet move, down the hallway, and out into the night. I shake my sister’s shoulder and she gasps and pushes me away. ‘I was asleep,’ she says, but I know she wasn’t.
‘Come to the toilet with me.’
‘No!’
‘Ple-ease.’
‘No! Ask Dad.’
‘No-oo. He’s busy.’
‘So am I. I’m sleeping.’
I feel my way in the dark, past her bed to the door, moaning, willing myself to cry. But she’s not going to be swayed. I have to brave the night alone.
My father isn’t in the lounge room at his desk. He’s out on the verandah having a cigarette. At first I think he’s singing, or praying, but then he hits the verandah post with the palm of his hand and he says a word he wouldn’t say if he knew I was there. I call to him softly and he turns with a jump. ‘You still not asleep?’
‘I want to go to the toilet.’
He stands guard for me with his hand on the door, holding it open so I can see out but closed just enough in case the fox comes in. He chases me back across the breezeway and the fear runs along my spine like cold knives. I reach the door and he catches me, lifts me up and inside. ‘Now to bed,’ he says, gruff all of a sudden, the cigarette dangling from his lower lip.
In the morning there’s a scattered trail of white feathers near the chicken coop. I make a silent vow to sleep in the henhouse, that’s the only way. Now we have only four chooks left. ‘Don’t tell Mum,’ I say to my father. ‘It’ll make her cry.’
He turns around quick to the sink and drops his spoon. ‘I won’t tell her,’ he says, quiet and low so that I can hardly hear him.
I haven’t eaten an egg for a long time now. The hens haven’t been laying. Maybe since before the fox. Maybe it was when the fox started coming. No, it can’t be then because my mother gave me the last egg. She poached it and sat it on toast with a little bit of parsley from the glass on the kitchen sink. The glass is still there; a scummy line of yellow-green and the yellow stems limp over the side.
We’re not catching the school bus this morning because we’re going to the hospital. We wear our best dresses. Mine is yellow, pale yellow like a duckling. It has a large white collar and a tie at the back. My socks match; yellow and white with tiny ducks or chickens – too small to tell which – around the top. My sister has a new headband, but she’s crying when she puts it on. She won’t tell me why. She pushes me out of the bathroom and shuts the door.
On the drive we are quiet. I want to talk: about the chooks, the fox, about Miss Johns’ horse – she rode it to school last week – about how Maryanne got her father to do her homework for her and Miss Johns gave her a sticker and Maryanne just took it and smiled. It wasn’t fair, when I’d worked hard at my project and didn’t get anyone to help. But noone’s talking and the longer I leave it without talking the harder it is to talk. I feel as if my tongue can’t move any more.
When we pull up in the carpark my sister takes my hand and pulls me out of the car. We walk hand in hand beside my father who holds his hat in one hand. He looks up at the sky and so do I. It’s grey and the clouds are moving quickly like big sky boats.
Inside it’s all white and bright. A nurse looks up and smiles. I can see all her teeth. ‘She’s sleeping at the moment,’ her smile disappears. ‘We had to give her something.’ She looks at me, then my sister, then back to my father. ‘She was… not comfortable.’
We sit in the room with the beeping machines. My mother’s hands are flat on the bed. I think of the chooks, their clawed feet scrabbling at air. My father sits in the chair by the bed and takes my mother’s hand in his. He holds it with one hand and strokes it with the other all the way from wrist to finger nail and back again. He keeps doing this, stroking and blinking and I keep watching, wanting to take the other hand. But I can’t.
My sister goes to the bed and takes my mother’s other hand and like my father she strokes the hand, watching him, as if she doesn’t want to get it wrong. My father turns around and crooks his finger for me to come to him. I have my thumb in my mouth – something I haven’t done for a long time, and I’m embarrassed that he’s caught me. But he doesn’t swat my hand away from my mouth. He pulls me towards him and lifts me onto his knee. Then he keeps stroking her hand.
She doesn’t wake up and we go out for some sandwiches. My father doesn’t eat. He has a coffee and cigarettes. He smokes them down and grinds them under his foot. ‘Come on then,’ he says. ‘Mum’ll be awake now prob’ly. She might be a bit… tired though.’
‘But she’s been sleeping.’
‘Yeah, but you can get tired all the same. All that layin’ around can wear you out.’ He moves his lips into a smile.
‘When’s she coming home?’
But he’s moving away, looking back just to take my hand. ‘Sun’s comin’ through, look,’ he points to the sky. A pale slice of lemon peeks out from the grey. ‘Smells like rain, though,’ he says.
Back in the room my mother is awake, but her eyes keep shutting and she doesn’t speak, though her lips move. My father strokes her face with the back of his hand. Her mouth twitches. My sister holds my mother’s hand between hers and stares at her mouth as if my mother is speaking soundless, invisible words. Words that float up in bubbles from her flickering lips and only she, my sister, can read them.
I stand at the foot of the bed. The blanket is pink and the sheets like folded paper, crisp and clean. My mother used to change the sheets on our beds. She’d toss the sheet high and float it down over the mattress. I’d help her tuck in the sides. She hasn’t done that for a long time. My father doesn’t worry about changing sheets.
We leave the hospital and drive home. I haven’t told my mother about the fox and the dead hens. I didn’t want to make her sad, but I don’t think she would’ve heard me anyway. Mostly she didn’t open her eyes.
My sister is quiet and won’t let me sleep in the chook pen. She says she’ll tell on me. But I’m not doing it by myself anyway.
In the morning there are no missing hens, no scattered feathers. My father is yawning and rubbing his eyes. He’s sat up all night with the rifle, and that cunning old fox must’ve seen him because it didn’t try to get to the chooks.
At school I tell Miss Johns about the fox and the dead hens and she says, ‘Oh dear me!’ with her head forward and that nice soft look she has when you’ve bumped heads with someone or you’ve scraped your knee. And I think for a moment that she’s going to fix everything with a bandaid from the blue tin. But she strokes my hair back from my forehead and rests her hand on my shoulder.
She gets me to clean the dusters and I stand on the front steps so that everyone can see me and hear me banging the duster with the big ruler in a cloud of chalk dust. Sarah Mellings is jealous. ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘your mother’s in hotsipal and prob’ly won’t get out.’ She pokes her tongue out and walks away.
‘Well wha’dya think hospitals are for,’ I call out. ‘And it’s not a hotsipal anyway.’ When I get home I’m going to tell my father on her and he’ll tell her dad and she’ll get into trouble for lying. I give the duster a whack with the ruler and through the chalk dust I see my sister chasing Sarah around the swings then around the wattle tree. Sarah is crying and that slows her down. My sister pushes her in the back and she falls to the ground. There’s no blood but Sarah sits with her face all screwed up and her mouth all square and ugly, screaming until Miss Johns comes running. I’m sure Emily’s going to be in big trouble now, but Miss Johns just nods then lets her go and play. Miss Johns knows that Sarah’s been lying now.
Miss Johns walks up to me and gives her bandaid smile. She takes me to the fence and lets me hold an apple for her horse. I can feel its rubbery lips nuzzle at my hand and I’m scared I’ll drop the apple. The horse’s teeth are big and yellow, but its nose is like my mother’s velvet collar.
I don’t tell my father about Sarah Mellings’ lie. I’m afraid I’ll get my sister in trouble for pushing her over. We don’t talk about the fox, and that makes me think that maybe it’s gone away, to another creek, another hill and another chook pen. My father cooks us dinner and gets dressed for the hospital. Mrs McCurdy comes over to look after us until he gets back. She brings her little boy with her, but he’s no fun, he can only lie around and suck his thumb. ‘He’s six months old tomorrow,’ she says, looking at him lying on his back kicking his legs. ‘And getting so big.’ I don’t think he’s big at all and I look to see if Emily’s noticed Mrs McCurdy’s mistake. But she’s sitting looking out the window, chewing her fingernails. She wanted to go with Dad when he went to the hospital, but he wouldn’t let her. I can wait till my mother comes home. There’s nothing to do in the big white room, quiet as a library except for the beep of the machines. Then I feel bad for my mother, lying there so small and tired. I didn’t mean that I don’t want to hold her hand, I just mean that I can wait till she’s not so tired, and she’s home cooking me an egg or floating the clean sheets down over the mattress.
Mrs McCurdy gets us some ice cream and that seems to make Emily feel better. She goes into the sun room to do her homework.
We are both in bed when my father comes home. I hear his muffled voice in the kitchen and then at the door calling good night and thanks to Mrs McCurdy. He comes into our room and stands quietly at the door. I pretend to be asleep, so does my sister, or maybe she really is asleep. I want him to know we aren’t waiting for the fox. He doesn’t speak, just closes the door softly.
In the morning there are feathers spread around the chicken house. I can see them from our bedroom. My sister is in the shower. I rush outside. There are no hens left. I run to tell my father. I can hear the phone ring as I reach the door.
As I open the door I see my father walk out of the lounge room slowly. He stands with his head down, his arms braced on the back of the chair. My sister comes out of the bathroom, her hair wet and plastered to her head. She stands in the doorway staring at my father’s back, not speaking, not moving. And I know not to tell about the hens. Not yet.
KEREN HEENAN is a part-time teacher of the arts living in Melbourne. Her short stories have been published in Australian magazines and she is currently working on a novel. This story was the winner of the short story section of the Ellen Gudrun Kastan Award, 2007.
Island, PO Box 210, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7006 Australia
Ph: (03) 6226 2325 Fax: (03) 6226 2172
E-mail: island.magazine@utas.edu.au