Helen Oyeyemi - Mr. Fox

Quite clearly she had no solid evidence. It was interesting to know that I’d married someone who could cause this much destruction on a hunch. It made me like her more.

“D. .” I pulled her into my arms. She buried her face in my sweater and reached up with her handkerchief, pressing it against my ear. “Greta says I shouldn’t listen to a word you say. You’re a liar.”

I took custody of the handkerchief; it was awkward, her holding it, and she was applying more pressure than was necessary. “Greta lies more than me.”

“How would you know that?”

“I don’t, but I’ve got to defend myself.”

“You’re the liar. If you hadn’t been up to anything you’d be furious that I wrecked your study. You’d have thrown a hot iron at my head or something.”

“Is there a hot iron to hand?”

She sniffled. “Yes. I was pressing my divorce dress.”

Daphne had bought a divorce dress with my money. Even more interesting. I’d had her down as a starry-eyed idealist who didn’t notice my flaws. I’d have to keep an eye on her.

“Your heart is— jerking, ” she mumbled.

“Oh, so you can hear that?” I said into her hair. “It’s saying: Da — phne, Da — phne. How embarrassing. Don’t tell anyone you heard.”

“She keeps calling,” Daphne said. “And hanging up. While you’ve been God knows where—”

“Who keeps calling and hanging up?”

“That girl you’ve got on the side. Don’t deny it, St. John, I just know.”

“You just know.”

“Yes.” She looked up at me, so piercingly that my first instinct was to look away — but that would have been a mistake. “But I don’t want to leave you. Not really. So just drop her, and we’ll forget about it.”

“Daphne. There is no girl on the side.”

“Say whatever you want, just drop her. Please.”

“I can’t,” I said. “She’s in my head.”

I saw her expression and I talked fast. “What I mean is, she’s not real, honey. She’s only an idea. I made her up.”

“What?”

“I know this sounds unlikely, but you’ve got to believe me. If you don’t, I’ve got nothing else to tell you.”

“Keep talking, St. John.”

“Not a lot to tell. Her name’s Mary. You’d like her, I think. She’s kind of direct. No-nonsense. I made her up during the war. She started off as nothing but a stern British accent saying things like ‘Chin up, Fox,’ and ‘Where’s your pluck?’ Just a precaution for the times I came dangerously close to feeling sorry for myself. Don’t look like that, D., I don’t need a doctor. Anyhow — you see now, don’t you, that she couldn’t possibly call the house? That’s just people getting wrong numbers, or one of your brothers phoning you up to ask for money and then losing his nerve.”

“Less of the stuff about my brothers. Back to Miss A Hundred Percent Imaginary, Miss Only an Idea. Do you take her out to the movies?”

I couldn’t tell if she was kidding. “Absolutely not,” I said vehemently.

“Do you tell her secrets?”

“It isn’t like that.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Uh. .”

Daphne gave me a knowing look.

“Prettier than me?”

“D. .”

“You say ‘It isn’t like that,’ so tell me what it’s like. I’m just trying to figure out whether you’re crazy or not.”

“I’m not crazy. At all times I remain fully aware of her status as an idea.”

“So she’s kind of like a character in one of your stories?”

“Kind of.” I resisted the urge to pat her on the head and tell her not to worry about it.

“So nothing I should worry about?”

“No, ma’am. Absolutely not.”

Daphne kissed my cheek and backed away. “Okay, honey. Sorry about the mess.”

I nodded and waved a hand, as if it was nothing. I was proud of myself. In the old days I would have lost my cool. But other things were happening now; I needed to focus on those, and I didn’t seem to have anything left over for rage. There’s also the fact that all the men in her family, and a few of the women, are basically thugs.

“I think I’ll go see a movie with Greta now.”

“Have fun.”

She closed the door very quietly behind her. Pinching my ear through Daphne’s handkerchief, I crossed the fallen bookshelf again and sat down at my desk, watching ink drip onto the carpet. Mary Foxe was trying to ruin my life. By rights I should be on the edge of some sort of nervous breakdown. But I was happy.

“Impressive conflict management,” Mary remarked from beneath my desk. Her arms were tucked around her knees, and her chin was resting on them.

“Well, hello, there.” I held out a hand to her, and she came out from under the desk. She settled on my lap with her arms around my neck. Nice. Carefully, I spun the chair around, for a garden view, and we watched the rain falling on the old cedar tree.

“Would you mind terribly if you die next time?” she asked.

“Yes, I’d mind. To be honest, I don’t like the sound of that at all. Why do you ask?”

“I just want to see. .”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“But Mr. Fox,” she said. “It’s all just a lot of games. . ”

There was a Yoruba woman and there was an Englishman, and. .

That might sound like the beginning of a joke, but those two were seriously in love.

They tried their best with each other, but it just wasn’t any good. I don’t know if you know what a Yoruba woman can be like sometimes. Any house they lived in together burnt down. They fought; their weapons were cakes of soap, suitcases, fists, and hardback encyclopaedias. There were injuries.

The man liked to make things. He took a chisel to stone with kindness and enquiry, as if finding out what else the stone would like to be. But his woman kept him from working — that’s why they were poor. They wondered why things were like that between them when other people loved each other less and had peace. There were days when she’d open her eyes and be him for six hours in a row; she knew all his secrets and nothing he had done seemed wrong to her, she knew how it was, how things had been, she was there. There were days when he touched the tip of her nose and it was enough, a miracle of plenty.

But who finds happiness interesting?

One day the woman stamped her foot and wished her man dead. So he died. (And now you know what a Yoruba woman can be like sometimes.)

She had a devil of a time getting him back after that one. Books and candles and all the tears she could cry, and yet more — she had to borrow some from friends, and some from trees at dawn. Finally she had to give up all the children she might ever have had. In the dead of night they were scraped under the knife of a witch with a steady hand and a smile. .

It was the most expensive thing she had ever done. Once the woman was barren, her man returned. He wasn’t grateful. He was tired; it hadn’t been easy coming back. He said, Let’s have no more of this. She nodded slowly, saying, I don’t dare go on. She was still weak, and though he was only a little stronger he carried her to the car and sat beside her in there; he spread a map across their knees and told her to choose a place where he could leave her. She would not choose. Paris, then, he said. He remembered a visit he had made there long before he met her. He remembered how the river had charmed him, how it had seemed to talk to the sun and to the city it flowed through, bringing news from the sea rolling in under the bridges. He remembered lion heads carved above great heavy doors, and how in their old age the heads had yawned instead of roaring. He thought that she would like it there, and that she would not be lonely.